Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Three simple ideas on management

Today I had an interesting conversation with a manager who is in charge of testing at some world famous organization here in Minsk. She told me that she is about to go on long vacation, so she needs to teach one of her champions how to cope with things while she is out.

One interesting thing I noted is that she realized how much she is of a manager only after trying to teach someone else. Well, this is a known old effect when one can only learn how she knows something by trying to teach someone else. Despite we believe we know something we may have troubles explaining it because the knowledge is scarce and has gray areas, things that we never knew but nonetheless important to get the whole idea. And otherwise, for some of us it is important to test the knowledge by teaching others. This what she did and how she got to know that she is much more powerful a manager than she realized. Try yourself ;)

Another thing we touched is management and who is capable of doing it right. We both come from the same organization where she was my team leader. We know our managers well enough and went into discussing their strong and weak points. One of the most discouraging I found is blaming someon else in the failure. Manager is responsible for all work created by the team. So there is no sense and even more damage to the image in trying to guard against the blame with the subordinates. The relationships between manager and subordinates are built upon trust and openness. If the former blames the latter then this link break free, so there is no normal relationships after that.

The third interesting topic of discussion was aptitude. We both agreed that a person is on rightful place in the organization needs only slight attention and rare correction from a manager. Ijn contrary, a person who misbehaves often and requires a lot of attention from managers will only become a greater distracter in the future. So, finding the right place is very important. No matter who you are employer or an employee.

If you are not at the right place move on. Don’t waste time, yours and that of a manager! :)

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