The Manager - Edition 42 - Dragged in to operational work - by Rob Lambert
Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you've had a cracking weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead.
The weather is starting to close in a little here in the UK. Evident by the fact I've had to give in and put the heating on. I was hoping to make it to October but I couldn't.
My eldest son is really starting to take an interest in the world of work (poor lad). He's getting ready for Senior school now and is starting to think about what subjects to take to get ahead in the world of work.
You know my advice to him? Study subjects you have an interest in. That's it. Learning requires a drive and enthusiasm - nothing saps that more than learning a subject you have no interest in.
On another note - the key thing to try and avoid as a manager (and one I've struggled with this last week), is not to get sucked in to operational work. The day to day work. The plans, actions, customer calls, directing of work, dealing with live issues. When you become a manager you should move to a role that is working ON the work - not being in it all of the time.
This tactical and day to day work should be delegated - and I tried this week - the problem is the upper management insist on pulling in VPs etc to every single work meeting and escalation call.
So I get dragged in to everything to repeat what my Dev leads have already been saying - and often without the core technical insights as i'm further removed from the work. This kind of working style drags good managers away from building relationships, recruiting, working on the system, strategic planning and dealing with under performance. If you're dealing with day to day delivery work - who's building the system and framework for high performance? The usual answer is no-one. And I see too many companies that have let that system and framework become a mess.
Go forth and work ON the system - not in it.
Rob
Stuff To Click On :
1 - Don't gossip. It's hard though....right?
2 - Scary - we describe male and female candidates differently.
3 - Monzo - and how they do on call support - very insightful.
4 - And the world of work suddenly becomes driven by Robot Managers.
5 - If you like reading deep research papers (and I do) then you'll enjoy, or be scared by, this paper on the passive aggressive work place. I've worked in many of those.
6 - I hear people all the time (and sadly it seems rife in the agile space) about getting rid of managers. I've written about it in this newsletter before. But it seems more and more we're hearing from people who work in these so called "Manager-less" environments - and they seem to be saying the same thing. That there is indeed and unwritten management structure and it can be horrible. I see nothing at all wrong with hierarchy and management - you know I believe in it. The problem is not hierarchy - it's the people in it that causes problems.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Manager.
Thanks
Rob..