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The first time I managed a team, I learned a critical lesson: a managem must manage upwards and sideways as well as down. I had a great team and I busted my bu

The first time I managed a team, I learned a critical lesson: a managem must manage upwards and sideways as well as down. I had a great team and I busted my butt for them. They had better hardware than other teams, were better educated (conferences and working with others in the company besides engineering), and had more fun doing their job. Mostly, this was able to happen because I asked my boss. but due to my sibling managers not being willing to ask, a lot of hostility grew between other teams and me. Instead of addressing that, i said "F it" and kept focusing on my team. By the time I figured out I shouldn't have done that, it really was too late. Seven years busting my butt to make a project successful under very bad conditions with reasonable success, and I leave with few people who know what I accomplished, how i did it or anything, but instead, they have overall negative feelings towards me. In short, if you are a manager, you're job is much more than just the people on your team. Don't forget it.

dkarl 15y ago
Your peers might have been asking for better equipment and a bigger training budget and getting turned down. They wouldn't have admitted it, because it would have made them look weak, and it would explain their resentment toward you and their lack of appreciation for the results you got.
skarayan 15y ago
I've had a similar experience. While I had a good relationship with my team, other managers (that worked for my manager), and the business, I had a very poor relationship with the infrastructure team. If you have worked in an Enterprise, you realize that nearly all deployments have to go through the infrastructure team including DBAs, Unix/Windows teams, and Network. Instead of trying to work with them, I tried to bypass them at every opportunity. I wanted to get things done faster, but in the long term everything became an uphill battle. Now I realize that part of being a good manager is also being a good team player with everyone involved. Instead of trying to bypass them, I should have communicated better to come up with mutually benficial solution.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  Ouch! You tried to bypass infrastructure? That isn't going to go well! :) I know the feeling, though. I had a different position that had me strattelling the line between dev and ops. I reported to the dev side, but my team really need to control the servers we were deploying to because ops expected push-button deployments and didn't know much beyond Oracle. That was the most painful position I've ever been in. It was also the position that ultimately pushed me away from development. Of course, now I'm leading a startup, so if code needs to be written, I'm slinging code. :)
  - skarayan 15y ago
    There were some severe problems with our infrastructure team, I felt like I had no choice but to bypass them. I also felt that they should treat me as their client, much like I treated the business. It didn't go very well. :) Things go way faster in a startup -- really the pinnacle of productivity.

dkarl 15y ago

Your peers might have been asking for better equipment and a bigger training budget and getting turned down. They wouldn't have admitted it, because it would have made them look weak, and it would explain their resentment toward you and their lack of appreciation for the results you got.

skarayan 15y ago

I've had a similar experience. While I had a good relationship with my team, other managers (that worked for my manager), and the business, I had a very poor relationship with the infrastructure team. If you have worked in an Enterprise, you realize that nearly all deployments have to go through the infrastructure team including DBAs, Unix/Windows teams, and Network. Instead of trying to work with them, I tried to bypass them at every opportunity. I wanted to get things done faster, but in the long term everything became an uphill battle. Now I realize that part of being a good manager is also being a good team player with everyone involved. Instead of trying to bypass them, I should have communicated better to come up with mutually benficial solution.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
Ouch! You tried to bypass infrastructure? That isn't going to go well! :) I know the feeling, though. I had a different position that had me strattelling the line between dev and ops. I reported to the dev side, but my team really need to control the servers we were deploying to because ops expected push-button deployments and didn't know much beyond Oracle. That was the most painful position I've ever been in. It was also the position that ultimately pushed me away from development. Of course, now I'm leading a startup, so if code needs to be written, I'm slinging code. :)
- skarayan 15y ago
  There were some severe problems with our infrastructure team, I felt like I had no choice but to bypass them. I also felt that they should treat me as their client, much like I treated the business. It didn't go very well. :) Things go way faster in a startup -- really the pinnacle of productivity.