First, many have said that there are a lot of bad managers in the US, and in the world.
Peter Drucker worked on this.
W. Edwards Deming had his ideas, and worked on this.
And many many business gurus have had their say, trying to improve the managers.
On the other hand, there is in the agile community a bunch of people who feel that managers are evil.
OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, most of them do not think all managers are evil. But in general, they feel that most managers are evil.
We think that virtually all managers are not evil.
Equally, it is less than useless to think of the workers as bad or lazy. Or evil.
But let us stay with the managers today.
Yes, there are many managers who do not manage well. And some may even manage in a negative or bad way. But I think the main reason is that they have been badly taught. No one has taught them or they were wrongly taught. Or they have wrongly learned. For example, that it is useful to be a command-and-control manager. And we have tempted them with ego rewards, and many have succumbed.
There is, for some of them, and for some of "us", the notion that no one can correct a manager. At least no one who reports to that manager. This also is an un-helpful notion.
So, to replace this notion, we offer a few suggestions:
* managing people is very hard, and probably requires different skills depending on the situation and the people involved
* hierarchy and power are probably not that helpful. At least in most situations where you have knowledge workers.
* with knowledge work, knowledge creation and motivation are quite important. Perhaps yet another reason to look for a different kind of manager than we used to have.
* we speak of leadership, and some say that we need no managers, only leaders. Certainly leaders who lead us in the right direction and do it well are rare. And we need more of them; more Steve Jobs we might say. But I think we still need managers.
We are in the process of changing the management culture throughout the world. This will be a long conversation. There are so many dimensions. We need to talk and fight and argue about how to manage better. And, if we over-simplify things into managers and workers, the workers are very much part of this fight.
But calling one side 'evil' is not helpful.
Peter Drucker worked on this.
W. Edwards Deming had his ideas, and worked on this.
And many many business gurus have had their say, trying to improve the managers.
On the other hand, there is in the agile community a bunch of people who feel that managers are evil.
OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, most of them do not think all managers are evil. But in general, they feel that most managers are evil.
We think that virtually all managers are not evil.
Equally, it is less than useless to think of the workers as bad or lazy. Or evil.
But let us stay with the managers today.
Yes, there are many managers who do not manage well. And some may even manage in a negative or bad way. But I think the main reason is that they have been badly taught. No one has taught them or they were wrongly taught. Or they have wrongly learned. For example, that it is useful to be a command-and-control manager. And we have tempted them with ego rewards, and many have succumbed.
There is, for some of them, and for some of "us", the notion that no one can correct a manager. At least no one who reports to that manager. This also is an un-helpful notion.
So, to replace this notion, we offer a few suggestions:
* managing people is very hard, and probably requires different skills depending on the situation and the people involved
* hierarchy and power are probably not that helpful. At least in most situations where you have knowledge workers.
* with knowledge work, knowledge creation and motivation are quite important. Perhaps yet another reason to look for a different kind of manager than we used to have.
* we speak of leadership, and some say that we need no managers, only leaders. Certainly leaders who lead us in the right direction and do it well are rare. And we need more of them; more Steve Jobs we might say. But I think we still need managers.
We are in the process of changing the management culture throughout the world. This will be a long conversation. There are so many dimensions. We need to talk and fight and argue about how to manage better. And, if we over-simplify things into managers and workers, the workers are very much part of this fight.
But calling one side 'evil' is not helpful.
