I’ve got another one that’s about to be relevant to me. What should you do in order to be an effective manager?
I am an engineer and will soon be “in charge” of another engineer. I have had a couple bosses with various good and bad qualities, and obviously I want to emulate the good qualities and avoid the bad ones.
Is there a good procedure to begin being an effective supervisor of technical people? There is a vast of array of books and websites on management, but I think there’s a very low rationality quotient.
Oh wow. I’ve seen this issue from about a half-dozen different perspectives.
Starting with my dad who moved from Engineer to Manager at the company he worked at. He hated it until he learned a few basic skills about dealing with people’s perspectives’ and understanding of the world and how different perspectives on a situation will necessarily generate different approaches, assumptions and beliefs that will filter information received by them as individuals until some critical information both matches the current belief and induces a transition to other belief systems.
Anyways.
Managing people is mostly about making sure that they are functional and have their needs taken care of; a lot of factors can impact job performance in any field that have little to do with the job itself. When you become manager, take the time to find out where they’re at in their life and what can stress them out or what they are looking forward to. See what tools or policies you have as a manager to help with that, or what strategies you have employed in the past in regards to workplace policies that can smooth things out for them. This step is a maintenance step and requires a routine checking in on.
Next is inducing excellence in them. This is partly understanding what they are good at and giving them tasks suited to them, and working with them to overcome obstacles they come across and to arrange to have them learn new skills to enable them to perform better. This is a competence awareness process that allows you to break a project down into the largest chunks possible according to your subordinate’s skills.
Other than that, make sure your perspective is clear of bias as much as possible. You’re dealing with human beings who are, for the most part, trying to get by to the best of their ability in a competitive and stressful environment. Each of them has arrived to where they are by making the best possible choices they could- there is every chance that if you had lived there life, you may very well have made identical if not similiar choices.
I’ve got another one that’s about to be relevant to me. What should you do in order to be an effective manager?
I am an engineer and will soon be “in charge” of another engineer. I have had a couple bosses with various good and bad qualities, and obviously I want to emulate the good qualities and avoid the bad ones.
Is there a good procedure to begin being an effective supervisor of technical people? There is a vast of array of books and websites on management, but I think there’s a very low rationality quotient.
Recommended reading: Peopleware, and The Mythical Man Month.
My managing experiences so far have been in the unpaid/voluntary field. But in general it seems to be
generally be fast and clear in responding to communication (read: email)
ability to stay calm in pressurized situations
Outside Interface:
make it possible for your people to do actually their work
get them the tools and environment needed
take care of systemic problems (Usually limited by your higher ups and corporate rules.)
Inside interface
Bubble each individuals work by taking care of deadlines, putting suitable people into projects, checking in at times if the work is getting done.
you can possibly get extra points if you adapt your managing to each person.
search for ‘how to manage your boss’ and look what would work best on the other end
Recommended skills
people skills
ridiculous high level of being organized
specifically: have efficient and few meetings
The talks from Merlin Mann: Who moved my brain? and possible the others might be of use.
If you can get a mentor with a similar background from yours.
Oh wow. I’ve seen this issue from about a half-dozen different perspectives.
Starting with my dad who moved from Engineer to Manager at the company he worked at. He hated it until he learned a few basic skills about dealing with people’s perspectives’ and understanding of the world and how different perspectives on a situation will necessarily generate different approaches, assumptions and beliefs that will filter information received by them as individuals until some critical information both matches the current belief and induces a transition to other belief systems.
Anyways.
Managing people is mostly about making sure that they are functional and have their needs taken care of; a lot of factors can impact job performance in any field that have little to do with the job itself. When you become manager, take the time to find out where they’re at in their life and what can stress them out or what they are looking forward to. See what tools or policies you have as a manager to help with that, or what strategies you have employed in the past in regards to workplace policies that can smooth things out for them. This step is a maintenance step and requires a routine checking in on.
Next is inducing excellence in them. This is partly understanding what they are good at and giving them tasks suited to them, and working with them to overcome obstacles they come across and to arrange to have them learn new skills to enable them to perform better. This is a competence awareness process that allows you to break a project down into the largest chunks possible according to your subordinate’s skills.
Other than that, make sure your perspective is clear of bias as much as possible. You’re dealing with human beings who are, for the most part, trying to get by to the best of their ability in a competitive and stressful environment. Each of them has arrived to where they are by making the best possible choices they could- there is every chance that if you had lived there life, you may very well have made identical if not similiar choices.