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The unspoken truth about managing geeks
- mmt 17y agoI can't upvote this enough :) The article is dead-on, though I like the Dr House character so much partly because of his failings, including the drug dependencies. "Good IT pros are not anti-bureaucracy, as many observers think. They are anti-stupidity." Arguably, all bureaucracy is stupid by nature, but the point still stands. Sadly, in any environment where there is bureaucracy, chances are the users are nowhere near lucky enough to be served by good IT pros.
- newsdog 17y agoBrilliant. Every suit, read this. Then get the hell out of our way.
- bena 17y agoI was expecting some more of the same bullshit platitudes however the article surprised me by going into the causes of several types of behavior. Worth a read.
- shrikant 17y agoToo often have I see "result-oriented supervision" translating to a make it happen mentality.
- coconutrandom 17y agoAnd this is not bad in itself. It's only a negative thing if you have the responsibility to "make it happen", without the authority to make the proper decisions, or under arbitrary restrictions that hobble the making of happening.
- Novash 17y agoWait, wait. You mean that it can be different from it?
- jerome_etienne 17y agomost excelent. the article describes both worlds, geeks and their management, in a objective fashion. i used it to know more about myself and how people may see me, as i come from a technical background
- stef25 17y agoexcellent article, especially this paragraph hits the nail on the head. read it, boss IT pros complain primarily about logic, and primarily to people they respect. If you are dismissive of complaints, fail to recognize an illogical event or behave in deceptive ways, IT pros will likely stop complaining to you. You might mistake this as a behavioral improvement, when it's actually a show of disrespect. It means you are no longer worth talking to, which leads to insubordination.
- allenp 17y agoI don't disagree with the accuracy of the quote, however I think there is something worth point out. The problem for the business person (manager) is that the logic complaints don't do them a lot of good and are easy to dismiss. The manager's job isn't to be logical (or to even deal in it) but to corral those that are and extract value from things they make. These managers know the world isn't logical, that people and business processes often don't make sense, and that your complaints have been voiced by a million different people a million times before. Simply put, for the manager, your complaints are useless unless they provide a direct action your manager can take to make your work better and help you produce more value for your company.
- theycallmepost 17y agoUsers need to be reminded a few things, including: * IT wants to help me. * I should keep an open mind. * IT is not my personal tech adviser... * IT people have lives and other interests. This goes for everyone IMO. Just replace "Users" with "family and friends".
- abalashov 17y agoExcellent article, 100% accurate. Nails many different topics right on the head. My personal favourite: "This self-ordering behavior occurs naturally in the IT world because it is populated by people skilled in creative analysis and ordered reasoning. Doctors are a close parallel. The stakes may be higher in medicine, but the work in both fields requires a technical expertise that can't be faked and a proficiency that can only be measured by qualified peers. I think every good IT pro on the planet idolizes Dr. House (minus the addictions). While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period."
- iron_ball 17y agoSummary: "IT geeks are hard to work with because they're smart and care about doing valuable work (and by implication, everyone else is the opposite)." At first I felt like the article was really hitting the nail on the head; but then this attitude came out more and more clearly as I continued to read.