Being a middle manager is not a problem if you are ready for it.
It would be more accurate to say if you have the ability to do this.
In continuation of the topic covered in this post.
It seems to me that a rather important point is missed in the reasoning - a natural predisposition to the type of activity. Suppose if you have a good reaction and a two-meter height, you should try yourself in basketball. But if at the age of ten you hear music in your head and play the fono, you need to be engaged in composition, and not try to become a new Jordan.
')
It's amazing how science fiction comes to life. Today, some scientists (Sergey Saveliev) talk about the possibility of making a system for analyzing innate abilities and talents of a person, others are more accurate in their assessments (Drobyshevsky answered me the question that there are congenital predispositions, but they are overlapped by the environment). In one, everyone agrees that it is the brain that determines a person’s abilities and how this or that activity will go on; and that we all have unique and constantly changing brains (connections are constantly being rebuilt).
I would like to reflect some features of management from the position of the middle link, which you may have to face in your work.
Under the middle manager, I suppose not lazy and balabola, as you can read on Lurka (although there is a lot of communication in the work), but a classical manager who takes strategic leadership tasks, works through and achieves results using the resources in the form of lower-level managers and their groups.
For a specific example, this might look like this: the task comes to make a product that will allow customers to post news and special offers in different languages ​​for free, followed by getting into several information flows to potential buyers. You take, divide the task into parts between the two groups, you work together on a common work plan, and then figarim. Your responsibility thus entails tactics. And operational management (daily monitoring and correction) is the task of your working groups.
We can say that management of a certain level is like a certain level of abstraction.
Let us turn to the peculiarities of the work of a mid-level manager (sic! Reflects the experience of Russia and medium-sized businesses, everything may be different in different companies and countries)
The programmer, with rare exceptions, the tool to achieve the goal is firm and transparent. For the algorithm, you can calculate the complexity, if you do not know how - to conduct comparative tests that will show you - quick sort is good, but some bubble is not very good, only suitable for the lab on pascal.
In the case of the system architecture, everything is more complicated, but even here the tool for achieving goals is determined and, as a rule, stable (although those who pick the iron may not agree with me).
And when you became a manager and even middle managers, you are completely in a cloud of probabilities. Your instrument is now human.
For example, any tasks are executed with an error (for various reasons). Error is a deviation from what was required.
That is, there is a certain schedule, what percentage of what was put into the work will be done exactly with the task.
One of the main reasons is communication losses, when a task is transferred from you to the final executor, distortions occur through your subordinate.
Further, having learned to set tasks formally and having built the process of feedback in groups, you begin to deal with other probable events. Someone talks about risk management, but IMHO the question is broader.
First, the fact of human execution itself carries a non-zero probability of error — in the layout, in the code, in the drawings.
Secondly, you don’t know thoroughly that you don’t give 100% information in the minds of your people, that Petya who has written this whole month well and quickly will work the next one as well.
And finally, everyone has their own destinies - any of your subordinates can get sick, get drunk, or just finally decide to quit and establish their own startup.
At the same time, the result from you will be required to be quite clear with specific terms, dates and indicators. Nuff said.
As an exercise in management, it is useful to try to organize a joint departure for a couple of days 5+ friends. Having completed such a quest, you can try yourself as a middle manager to organize an event for 20+ people, where your friends will organize their own with the help of your instructions (usually everyone gives up and ring up the crowd themselves).
The very first shock that a middle manager is experiencing is the overwhelming waves of information flows in an ocean of information. If the workgroup is swimming in its cozy lake or river, the middle manager is in the open ocean.
When the first shock passes, the second comes - the feeling of the Tower of Babel. The director speaks one language, clients another, your subordinates in the third, other managers in the fourth.
Gradually, you begin to understand the third thing - your incompetence. In general, I will write even lower about it, but here I’ll note that the more potential potential shoals or measures you see in the fakape to improve the situation, the stronger you are as a manager. And the more you throw at others - the less professional you are. As an example, when they adopted the disastrous law on trade, Galitsky said that he seemed to see understanding in the eyes of the president, but apparently, the arguments of retailers were weaker than those who pushed the law. And did not pour a tub of what is known.
So, a priori, if you are not engaged in the development of negotiation skills, then you have them negative. Negative means that in communicating with other people, they reach their goals due to your incompetence, but you do not.
This is difficult to learn and tedious, keep all sorts of papers with the stated objectives of the negotiations and so on. I recommend Jim Camp “First say no” to anyone interested.
What is bad - usually, if you don’t have this gift by nature, then you learn very slowly, and a couple of years can go to a normal level.
In general, the management is very much from the biological. No wonder I wrote about the brain at the very beginning.
There is an interesting fact - they compared the abilities of growing monkeys and young people. In the first months, we are approximately equal in mind, but at a certain point a person takes the lead in terms of the ability to solve social problems of behavior in a team.
This is very noticeable in people's lives. Throughout history - Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, medieval Europe and so on - intrigues, rumors, squabbles and palace coups were everywhere.
A large company is exactly the same large community of people with different access to power and resources, and different conflicts of interest.
You will need a lot of energy to solve the puzzles of your yard, and your mind to beating up your rivals. I can say that a universal remedy is effectiveness and efficiency higher than that of your opponents.
In general, this has nothing to do with work on tasks, but is an integral part of your work as a person in the company's management system.
As a guideline, I recommend the “48 laws of power and seduction,” as well as the “Sovereign” Machiavelli.
The so-called mentality of our people is described very accurately, as it is not regrettable, in the book of the same name by Prokhorov (not the one).
You will have to face the characteristics of performers who work effectively on a certain sinusoid, with the authorities who prefer the dictatorship, with distortions of their tasks beyond recognition in some cases, and with many other interesting things. A quick review is from the link above.
One thing will please you - if you manage to find those who are fond of it and with enough intelligent and experienced programmers, you are saved. On programmers makes a bet Google.
Programmers who are passionate about the project and are interested in the result will be the core of the working groups. They work not by the hour, but by release.
Yes, designers, layout designers, analysts, testers, project managers can be addicted. And the more of them in the team, the better (to a reasonable limit, otherwise they will tear everything apart).
But the final product is revived by programmers, and the more important it is for you to have such people in your work groups.
Separately I will carry out purely couture management tricks that you may encounter.
For example, matrix management and all its varieties. When a person has more than one boss, either you or the leaders of your work groups. Everything will go, there will be constant jambs - my opinion, such approaches for ours do not work, we are not disciplined Germans.
From the same series - responsibility without authority. You are entrusted with a project where a critical piece is made by a team not from your department. You are responsible for the project (and its fakapy), but you can not steer by another team. Terribly enrages, I want to take it and - well, you yourself understood. But, alas, realities.
The way out is to improve the negotiation skills and search for partners (see the paragraph about the policy). As Markov writes in “Development of Complexity,” symbiosis, and not competition, is the most powerful engine of evolution. So listen to nature and learn to make temporary mutually beneficial alliances.
I remember the post on Habré about the personalization of Yandex and the negative reactions from the introduction.
The point is that you have to break yourself. There is a way to work - ask for forgiveness, not permission. His essence was well expressed by Henry Ford, who said that if he listened to his clients about what they needed, all that could be given to them was only a faster horse.
Regrettably, the phrase from the title reflects the essence. At first, any innovation, innovation, or functionality will be a negative reaction, to one degree or another. Varies only the percentage of dissatisfied.
And after a couple of years, quite nasvityvaya, people again swear at the introduction of new features, and asked to leave the old, who themselves rejected a couple of years ago. I remember a short memory about tariffs and news that they will not be raised every year.
There will be many more such things when you need to thoroughly revise your principles.
And if earlier you could rely on the words of individual users or people, the farther you go, the more you come to understand that all management must go by numbers. Including decisions about the success of the implementation of features.
And yes, you will have to learn all the time. Although the book “Peopleware” by Demarco, written 30+ years ago, is still true, the field of management in IT is so complex and immense that it is necessary to systematically improve your professional level.
Contrary to the idea, money managers do not earn much more than leading developers. We, of course, are talking about real managers and business, and you do not understand about whom.
And given the above-mentioned features of the work, consider another one, that the large salaries of the management come from the result. As a rule, premiums are tied to the project's revenue, the number of implementations, the closure of releases on time.
That is, income is probabilistic in nature.
Adding here the nuance that any performer can get up and leave at 19.00, and the middle manager at the height of work is unlikely to finish before 21-22, you will get a rough idea why good management is simply not enough.
And yes, of course, if the performer does the work and there will be mistakes, or he has been sick for a fortnight, he will always receive a salary. But you will not receive the award without due result. So it goes.
Well, in order to finish off the optimists, I’ll say who managers are generally considered to be in general. An empty link and does not create a product.
So if you have become a middle manager, then the executives will often think, and what for you are generally needed, because the tasks they set are the leaders of the working groups; low-level managers will assume that they will easily replace you on occasion - after all, they already manage a team of 3 people, which means that they will be able to 30!
Yes, there were and there are exceptions, but look again at the point about political games. In your department there will be no less games and intrigue, but, thank God, you can manage it. Or can not? ..
If you do decide and become a middle manager, after a couple of years you will have a professional deformation. Gantt charts will become native, the word “resource” will acquire a new meaning, and hair will become smooth and silky.
I wish you on this path as soon as possible to go through the first stages necessary for growth in order to get an unforgettable experience of the triumph of the success of your teams and projects!
"Do not turn around the one who is looking to the star." Leonardo da Vinci
In continuation of the topic covered in this post.
It seems to me that a rather important point is missed in the reasoning - a natural predisposition to the type of activity. Suppose if you have a good reaction and a two-meter height, you should try yourself in basketball. But if at the age of ten you hear music in your head and play the fono, you need to be engaged in composition, and not try to become a new Jordan.
')
- Of course, you know how the education program is carried out on Earth. Virtually anyone can learn any knowledge, but each individual brain is better suited for some types of knowledge than for others. If possible, we try to combine the device of the brain with relevant knowledge within the quota for specialists of each profession.
A.Azimov, Profession
It's amazing how science fiction comes to life. Today, some scientists (Sergey Saveliev) talk about the possibility of making a system for analyzing innate abilities and talents of a person, others are more accurate in their assessments (Drobyshevsky answered me the question that there are congenital predispositions, but they are overlapped by the environment). In one, everyone agrees that it is the brain that determines a person’s abilities and how this or that activity will go on; and that we all have unique and constantly changing brains (connections are constantly being rebuilt).
I would like to reflect some features of management from the position of the middle link, which you may have to face in your work.
What a beast and what they eat
Under the middle manager, I suppose not lazy and balabola, as you can read on Lurka (although there is a lot of communication in the work), but a classical manager who takes strategic leadership tasks, works through and achieves results using the resources in the form of lower-level managers and their groups.
For a specific example, this might look like this: the task comes to make a product that will allow customers to post news and special offers in different languages ​​for free, followed by getting into several information flows to potential buyers. You take, divide the task into parts between the two groups, you work together on a common work plan, and then figarim. Your responsibility thus entails tactics. And operational management (daily monitoring and correction) is the task of your working groups.
We can say that management of a certain level is like a certain level of abstraction.
Let us turn to the peculiarities of the work of a mid-level manager (sic! Reflects the experience of Russia and medium-sized businesses, everything may be different in different companies and countries)
Work in the world of probabilities
The programmer, with rare exceptions, the tool to achieve the goal is firm and transparent. For the algorithm, you can calculate the complexity, if you do not know how - to conduct comparative tests that will show you - quick sort is good, but some bubble is not very good, only suitable for the lab on pascal.
In the case of the system architecture, everything is more complicated, but even here the tool for achieving goals is determined and, as a rule, stable (although those who pick the iron may not agree with me).
And when you became a manager and even middle managers, you are completely in a cloud of probabilities. Your instrument is now human.
For example, any tasks are executed with an error (for various reasons). Error is a deviation from what was required.
That is, there is a certain schedule, what percentage of what was put into the work will be done exactly with the task.
One of the main reasons is communication losses, when a task is transferred from you to the final executor, distortions occur through your subordinate.
Further, having learned to set tasks formally and having built the process of feedback in groups, you begin to deal with other probable events. Someone talks about risk management, but IMHO the question is broader.
First, the fact of human execution itself carries a non-zero probability of error — in the layout, in the code, in the drawings.
Secondly, you don’t know thoroughly that you don’t give 100% information in the minds of your people, that Petya who has written this whole month well and quickly will work the next one as well.
And finally, everyone has their own destinies - any of your subordinates can get sick, get drunk, or just finally decide to quit and establish their own startup.
At the same time, the result from you will be required to be quite clear with specific terms, dates and indicators. Nuff said.
As an exercise in management, it is useful to try to organize a joint departure for a couple of days 5+ friends. Having completed such a quest, you can try yourself as a middle manager to organize an event for 20+ people, where your friends will organize their own with the help of your instructions (usually everyone gives up and ring up the crowd themselves).
Features of communication with people
One study on the work of a middle manager at a manufacturing plant showed that they spend about 89% of their time in oral interaction.
Wikipedia
The very first shock that a middle manager is experiencing is the overwhelming waves of information flows in an ocean of information. If the workgroup is swimming in its cozy lake or river, the middle manager is in the open ocean.
When the first shock passes, the second comes - the feeling of the Tower of Babel. The director speaks one language, clients another, your subordinates in the third, other managers in the fourth.
Gradually, you begin to understand the third thing - your incompetence. In general, I will write even lower about it, but here I’ll note that the more potential potential shoals or measures you see in the fakape to improve the situation, the stronger you are as a manager. And the more you throw at others - the less professional you are. As an example, when they adopted the disastrous law on trade, Galitsky said that he seemed to see understanding in the eyes of the president, but apparently, the arguments of retailers were weaker than those who pushed the law. And did not pour a tub of what is known.
So, a priori, if you are not engaged in the development of negotiation skills, then you have them negative. Negative means that in communicating with other people, they reach their goals due to your incompetence, but you do not.
This is difficult to learn and tedious, keep all sorts of papers with the stated objectives of the negotiations and so on. I recommend Jim Camp “First say no” to anyone interested.
What is bad - usually, if you don’t have this gift by nature, then you learn very slowly, and a couple of years can go to a normal level.
Political games - bulldog wrestling under the carpet
In general, the management is very much from the biological. No wonder I wrote about the brain at the very beginning.
There is an interesting fact - they compared the abilities of growing monkeys and young people. In the first months, we are approximately equal in mind, but at a certain point a person takes the lead in terms of the ability to solve social problems of behavior in a team.
This is very noticeable in people's lives. Throughout history - Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, medieval Europe and so on - intrigues, rumors, squabbles and palace coups were everywhere.
A large company is exactly the same large community of people with different access to power and resources, and different conflicts of interest.
You will need a lot of energy to solve the puzzles of your yard, and your mind to beating up your rivals. I can say that a universal remedy is effectiveness and efficiency higher than that of your opponents.
In general, this has nothing to do with work on tasks, but is an integral part of your work as a person in the company's management system.
As a guideline, I recommend the “48 laws of power and seduction,” as well as the “Sovereign” Machiavelli.
Russian management model, senseless and merciless
The ideal mobilization task in the Russian management model is as follows:
- To the sales department to provide in November the proceeds of 10 million rubles by any means. In case of non-fulfillment, the entire department together with the manager is dismissed without severance pay and the right to reinstate.
In the emergency mode, the cluster quickly and efficiently organizes its work, violating the norms and prohibitions, if necessary, brutally spending resources, but ultimately achieving its goal. Want 10 Million? Here they are. It does not matter that the three employees in the hospital from overwork, we spent five million on kickbacks and ruined our reputation for ourselves and our partners. The cluster coped with the task, now leave me alone.
From here
The so-called mentality of our people is described very accurately, as it is not regrettable, in the book of the same name by Prokhorov (not the one).
You will have to face the characteristics of performers who work effectively on a certain sinusoid, with the authorities who prefer the dictatorship, with distortions of their tasks beyond recognition in some cases, and with many other interesting things. A quick review is from the link above.
Programmers like a ray of light in a dark realm
One thing will please you - if you manage to find those who are fond of it and with enough intelligent and experienced programmers, you are saved. On programmers makes a bet Google.
Programmers who are passionate about the project and are interested in the result will be the core of the working groups. They work not by the hour, but by release.
Yes, designers, layout designers, analysts, testers, project managers can be addicted. And the more of them in the team, the better (to a reasonable limit, otherwise they will tear everything apart).
But the final product is revived by programmers, and the more important it is for you to have such people in your work groups.
Matrices, subcontracts and other wonders on turns
Separately I will carry out purely couture management tricks that you may encounter.
For example, matrix management and all its varieties. When a person has more than one boss, either you or the leaders of your work groups. Everything will go, there will be constant jambs - my opinion, such approaches for ours do not work, we are not disciplined Germans.
From the same series - responsibility without authority. You are entrusted with a project where a critical piece is made by a team not from your department. You are responsible for the project (and its fakapy), but you can not steer by another team. Terribly enrages, I want to take it and - well, you yourself understood. But, alas, realities.
The way out is to improve the negotiation skills and search for partners (see the paragraph about the policy). As Markov writes in “Development of Complexity,” symbiosis, and not competition, is the most powerful engine of evolution. So listen to nature and learn to make temporary mutually beneficial alliances.
The introduction, or "how disgusting is your fish in the fish" in numbers
I remember the post on Habré about the personalization of Yandex and the negative reactions from the introduction.
The point is that you have to break yourself. There is a way to work - ask for forgiveness, not permission. His essence was well expressed by Henry Ford, who said that if he listened to his clients about what they needed, all that could be given to them was only a faster horse.
Regrettably, the phrase from the title reflects the essence. At first, any innovation, innovation, or functionality will be a negative reaction, to one degree or another. Varies only the percentage of dissatisfied.
And after a couple of years, quite nasvityvaya, people again swear at the introduction of new features, and asked to leave the old, who themselves rejected a couple of years ago. I remember a short memory about tariffs and news that they will not be raised every year.
There will be many more such things when you need to thoroughly revise your principles.
And if earlier you could rely on the words of individual users or people, the farther you go, the more you come to understand that all management must go by numbers. Including decisions about the success of the implementation of features.
And yes, you will have to learn all the time. Although the book “Peopleware” by Demarco, written 30+ years ago, is still true, the field of management in IT is so complex and immense that it is necessary to systematically improve your professional level.
About money: in the morning chairs - in the evening money
Contrary to the idea, money managers do not earn much more than leading developers. We, of course, are talking about real managers and business, and you do not understand about whom.
And given the above-mentioned features of the work, consider another one, that the large salaries of the management come from the result. As a rule, premiums are tied to the project's revenue, the number of implementations, the closure of releases on time.
That is, income is probabilistic in nature.
Adding here the nuance that any performer can get up and leave at 19.00, and the middle manager at the height of work is unlikely to finish before 21-22, you will get a rough idea why good management is simply not enough.
And yes, of course, if the performer does the work and there will be mistakes, or he has been sick for a fortnight, he will always receive a salary. But you will not receive the award without due result. So it goes.
On the people's fame: the violinist is not needed
The pessimist sees the tunnel, the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees the train approaching them.
A machinist sees three assholes on the rails!
Well, in order to finish off the optimists, I’ll say who managers are generally considered to be in general. An empty link and does not create a product.
So if you have become a middle manager, then the executives will often think, and what for you are generally needed, because the tasks they set are the leaders of the working groups; low-level managers will assume that they will easily replace you on occasion - after all, they already manage a team of 3 people, which means that they will be able to 30!
Yes, there were and there are exceptions, but look again at the point about political games. In your department there will be no less games and intrigue, but, thank God, you can manage it. Or can not? ..
Friend! Tell me the number of your planet in the tentur?
If you do decide and become a middle manager, after a couple of years you will have a professional deformation. Gantt charts will become native, the word “resource” will acquire a new meaning, and hair will become smooth and silky.
I wish you on this path as soon as possible to go through the first stages necessary for growth in order to get an unforgettable experience of the triumph of the success of your teams and projects!
"Do not turn around the one who is looking to the star." Leonardo da Vinci
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202984/
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