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The examples that you've given are political (represent, push back, take blame, fight), except for the example of keeping records (which is management). Manage

The examples that you've given are political (represent, push back, take blame, fight), except for the example of keeping records (which is management). Managements role, technical leadership role and politician role are different roles. The required skill sets and experience are different. The outcome of grabbing a wrong role is usually poor. Not confusing politician, technical leader and manager roles is probably a good idea to improve outcomes. As checking for required experience, to take the role.

joshuamorton 7y ago
I'm curious what a non-political people manager role would look like. IME, people managers are almost solely political: they mediate conflict and make strategic long term decisions based on conflicting priorities.
- dchichkov 7y ago
  There are probably examples (I can think of mentorship), but that would not be common. On "strategic long term decisions", I think this needs clarification. There are many areas in which such decisions can be made. To give an example, think of a flying airplane. Would you give a power to make "strategic long term decisions" regarding the flight to someone who bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as a pilot? Or to someone who hadn't done it, but is an excellent politician, people's manager and could mediate conflict well? To give another example, if a conflict between passengers and crew had happened onboard of a flying airplane. Would you prefer a pilot (say, with no political or mediation skills) to stop flying the airplane and engage into the conflict? Or would you prefer a professional people's manager and mediator to step in?
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    At least where I work, everyone, including ICs is responsible for mentoring new and less senior co-workers. > To give an example, think of a flying airplane. Would you give a power to make "strategic long term decisions" regarding the flight to someone who bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as a pilot? Or to someone who hadn't done it, but is an excellent politician, people's manager and could mediate conflict well? I don't think this analogy works. The manager decides which routes to fly and ultimately who flies which ones. Presumably some routes are preferable, and there are competing priorities between routes. So the manager picks the routes to fly, addressing external conflict, and then alloctes people to routes, handling any internal conflict. The manager isn't on the plane. The rest of your comment doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
    - dchichkov 7y ago
      You've asked for example of management that doesn't involve politics, I've given mentoring. It's apolitical. There's no reason a whole company couldn't work in that style. There are other styles and other cultures around, different from a style common to big corporations in the states. I'd guess in Japan corporate world you probably can find unique styles that are also apolitical. I'm not sure. I think your analogy works. And it seems that we agree, it'd be stupid for a manager without pilot's training and expert knowledge to make or impact "strategic long term decisions" that impact the flight in a flying airplane. And we likely agree that interference of a manager (who is used to exercise power) will likely make negative impact on rational expert decisions of a pilot. Regarding "strategic long term decisions" outside the airplane - we can just look at the recent example of Boeing debacle with 737 MAX. Again, a good question would be - would the situation be better, if the company board had people that had bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as pilots?
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        > You've asked for example of management that doesn't involve politics No, I asked for an example of a management role that was apolitical. There are certainly responsibilities that managers have that aren't political, but someone claimed that people, political, and technical management were different. So I'm intrigued by the idea of a people manager who doesn't handle any political problems. My point is that by virtue of being in charge of people, political arguments become unavoidable. As for your Boeing example, I fail to see what this has to do with managers having to address political issues in the company. It seems like you're having a conversation about how managers should have been ICs at one point which while an interesting discussion, is completely unrelated to anything I've said.
        dchichkov 7y ago
        I've given example of a management style that seem to be apolitical - mentorship. I don't see why a whole company can't be built with such style. Political problems in that case would be implicitly handled by company culture. Another example could be a family run business, in which family relationships could dominate, rather than politics. I think there are maybe other examples. Can you give an example of unavoidable political problem that people manager unavoidably has to handle?
mharroun 7y ago
Management is full of politics... sorry but its true. A true leader must have all the skills needed to properly benefit and support the team. You look at my examples as negatives... its the wrong way to look at it... thoes other managers of other departments? Are the bad people? No... but they have a job and responsibility to represent their departments and do from their point of view whats best for their team and the company. I feel like there is a segment of workers in engineering has this weird self damaging hatred for leaders/managers other departments do not have... then thoes same people get pissed when they dont have a leader and their department is glossed over because no one represents them when/where some of the most important decisions are made.
- dchichkov 7y ago
  Notice, there was nothing said about roles being bad. There was nothing said about impossibility of combining multiple roles.

joshuamorton 7y ago

I'm curious what a non-political people manager role would look like. IME, people managers are almost solely political: they mediate conflict and make strategic long term decisions based on conflicting priorities.

dchichkov 7y ago
There are probably examples (I can think of mentorship), but that would not be common. On "strategic long term decisions", I think this needs clarification. There are many areas in which such decisions can be made. To give an example, think of a flying airplane. Would you give a power to make "strategic long term decisions" regarding the flight to someone who bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as a pilot? Or to someone who hadn't done it, but is an excellent politician, people's manager and could mediate conflict well? To give another example, if a conflict between passengers and crew had happened onboard of a flying airplane. Would you prefer a pilot (say, with no political or mediation skills) to stop flying the airplane and engage into the conflict? Or would you prefer a professional people's manager and mediator to step in?
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  At least where I work, everyone, including ICs is responsible for mentoring new and less senior co-workers. > To give an example, think of a flying airplane. Would you give a power to make "strategic long term decisions" regarding the flight to someone who bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as a pilot? Or to someone who hadn't done it, but is an excellent politician, people's manager and could mediate conflict well? I don't think this analogy works. The manager decides which routes to fly and ultimately who flies which ones. Presumably some routes are preferable, and there are competing priorities between routes. So the manager picks the routes to fly, addressing external conflict, and then alloctes people to routes, handling any internal conflict. The manager isn't on the plane. The rest of your comment doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
  - dchichkov 7y ago
    You've asked for example of management that doesn't involve politics, I've given mentoring. It's apolitical. There's no reason a whole company couldn't work in that style. There are other styles and other cultures around, different from a style common to big corporations in the states. I'd guess in Japan corporate world you probably can find unique styles that are also apolitical. I'm not sure. I think your analogy works. And it seems that we agree, it'd be stupid for a manager without pilot's training and expert knowledge to make or impact "strategic long term decisions" that impact the flight in a flying airplane. And we likely agree that interference of a manager (who is used to exercise power) will likely make negative impact on rational expert decisions of a pilot. Regarding "strategic long term decisions" outside the airplane - we can just look at the recent example of Boeing debacle with 737 MAX. Again, a good question would be - would the situation be better, if the company board had people that had bothered to go to flight school, ground school and had been certified as pilots?
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      > You've asked for example of management that doesn't involve politics No, I asked for an example of a management role that was apolitical. There are certainly responsibilities that managers have that aren't political, but someone claimed that people, political, and technical management were different. So I'm intrigued by the idea of a people manager who doesn't handle any political problems. My point is that by virtue of being in charge of people, political arguments become unavoidable. As for your Boeing example, I fail to see what this has to do with managers having to address political issues in the company. It seems like you're having a conversation about how managers should have been ICs at one point which while an interesting discussion, is completely unrelated to anything I've said.
      - dchichkov 7y ago
        I've given example of a management style that seem to be apolitical - mentorship. I don't see why a whole company can't be built with such style. Political problems in that case would be implicitly handled by company culture. Another example could be a family run business, in which family relationships could dominate, rather than politics. I think there are maybe other examples. Can you give an example of unavoidable political problem that people manager unavoidably has to handle?

mharroun 7y ago

Management is full of politics... sorry but its true. A true leader must have all the skills needed to properly benefit and support the team. You look at my examples as negatives... its the wrong way to look at it... thoes other managers of other departments? Are the bad people? No... but they have a job and responsibility to represent their departments and do from their point of view whats best for their team and the company. I feel like there is a segment of workers in engineering has this weird self damaging hatred for leaders/managers other departments do not have... then thoes same people get pissed when they dont have a leader and their department is glossed over because no one represents them when/where some of the most important decisions are made.

dchichkov 7y ago
Notice, there was nothing said about roles being bad. There was nothing said about impossibility of combining multiple roles.