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Being Effective When Management Isn't?
3

Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
I recently came across a fairly astute observation about this paradigm where management is offered as a "reward" to engineers who have longevity and have performed well.  The observation being that management is a skill set in and of itself and meerly being a good engineer - or even a great engineer - does not make you a good manager.  This observation is extremely apropos to where I am currently working.  Additionally, outside of flash animation on company policies, they don't train here...period.  If you want to learn anything, you have to scrounge for it.  So, by extension, I doubt managment receives any real training either.

Don't get me wrong, I think pulling managers from the engineering staff is a good idea - provided you pick people based upon managerial aptitude and are willing to really train them.  Unfortunately, that does not appear to be happeing here.

So, I have two questions:

How can you effectively get things done in an ineffective managerial environment?

How can I learn the skill sets required to be a good manager?

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

How can you effectively get things done in an ineffective managerial environment?

Become an effective manager yourself. Start acting like one, if you don't know how, then move on to the next question. The change will begin with you.


How can I learn the skill sets required to be a good manager?

Go to school. When I tired of the poor management at my company, I started acting like a manager. I enrolled in business school and ended up with an MBA and became the Director of Engineering. You can bet things changed.

You can't change Them but you can change yourself; and you can make a difference.

--

Charlie
www.facsco.com

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

It is sad that being a manager is thought of as being the pinnacle of an engineer’s career.  It gets to the point where one starts to wonder, “actually engineering something, actually figuring stuff out?  Ew, I need to delegate that so I can be a manager ASAP.”

Maybe what is missing at joekm's company are good project engineers.  A good project engineer is someone who hammers out the nitty gritty details of the scope, lays out the project, envisions the final product and methods of solution, shares that vision with the project team, keeps the team on track and does what it takes to get the job done.

So joekm, in answer to your first question, strive to be a good project engineer whether your task is very small or very large.


RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
Well, there is a nearby community college but I'm limited on time and resources so I don't think taking classes is realistic at this time (i.e. - I have children and this limits both time and money). Any good books/Computer Learning Software on the subject of project management?

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Check out the Project Management Institute.  They offer lots of courses and certification.  I've been through a 10 week training class with them and it was very informative.  However, it sort of reminded me of college vs. production engineering.  College gave you the tools, but it was the hard-knock school of experience where you really learned the ropes.  PMI, to me, seems like that when compared with a production manager.

Best of luck!

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

  Facs is right, self motivation will work on this matter.

 But it's more motivating when the company exerts effort to support its constituent to provide managemant training for free, isnt' it nice?

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

"How can you effectively get things done in an ineffective managerial environment?"

Might I answer your question with a couple of questions, and the first one is rhetorical: are you the new guy, or are you the new sheriff in town?  As a follow-up, how much of your time are you willing to sacrifice to stay where you are with patience, persevere through the challenges and then "effectively get things done"?  You can start immediately to effectively get things done by having patience, but keeping still for your real opportunity to be effective is the challenge.  

To be effective in your office or within your team, whichever is applicable, I would suggest taking every opportunity to understand your office's culture, what it values.  Does it really value ineffective management?  Probably not.  Find out what its goals are supposed to be and who is supposed to be achieving them.  Who accounts for the success of the office?  Pick the brain of your boss and your boss's boss.  Get involved with committees.  Attend company functions.  Partner with your co-worker.  What really is driving the company, is it quality or the bottom-line?  Maybe its as simple as forgetting the socializing and just making money.

After you learn the goals, determine if they are aligned with yours.  If they are, then persevere.  This may require many trials and errors, but at the same time you read through books and study through courses to put up with the hard knocks, all in order to become the change you want to see happen at your office and in your community.  Since the desired results of the company are not to your standard, keep pushing, without committing any taboos, of course--and you recognize taboos after studying the office's culture.  Since you know your standard will take your company to the next level it is striving to reach, you need to be an agent for the existing culture in order to help it evolve and progress.  

---

"Happiness can only be achieved when your beliefs, your thoughts, and your actions are one and the same."  Gandhi

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I have found in my experiences that regardless of the management capabilities, there are always those few key individuals that ACTUALLY know how to get something done.  The key has been identifying those individuals and working with them.  Provide your manager(s) feedback and try to obtain priorities but work with the people who actually know what the system needs to run.

Regards,

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
cousink:

I'd be the "new guy", although I'm coming on a year at this point.  I have made progress, partly by doing some of the things you've suggested.  Although, some of the people here who seem most effective are also the most reviled by their co-workers.  The turnover rate here is pretty high as well.

A lot of people suggest that I should "be a good leader myself", and "learn how to manage up".  Good suggestions, to be sure.  However, in an environment where documentation is horribly disorganized, if not non-existant, and employees tend to play their cards "close to their chest", it's very tough to make inroads.

I have hit on a couple of strategies that have worked, however.  First, I started keeping a journal of observations and events here.  This has enabled me to connect observations and spot patterns that I may not have been able to see otherwise.  Second, I now use my PDA to track verbal follow-up items (people here don't read e-mails because everybody gets so many of them, thus rendering a powerful communication tool nearly useless).  I annotate the follow up item to the PDA and set an audible alarm, usually 24 hours or at the end of the next meeting I'm scheduled to be in with them.  The thing is, people here tend to prefer verbal commitments as opposed to written.  However, you can always claim that you don't recall the conversation.  Having the PDA alarm go off, especially in front of others, seems to add credibility to my claim that, yes we did have this conversation and you owe me data.

I've since taken to wearing that PDA on my belt and people have taken to getting back to me before it goes off.

So, I'm making progress.  In the meantime, I've been contacted by two other companies who are fairly aggressively recruiting me.  I'm at least going to hear them out.

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

How do you define "effective management"?  The only definition that I've ever seen add value is "Is the company/division/group profitable or do they contribute materially to the company bottom line?"  Everything else is just style, attitude, and personality.  

Maybe what you see as "ineffective management" is just managers requiring knowledge workers to think for themselves?  Bad management is a failure to react appropriately to changing conditions.  I've worked for some people that I would have loved to strangle, people that I simply bypassed, people that I felt were micro-managing me, people that acted like they didn't have a clue what my group did, etc.  The end result in every case was that the organization continued to be profitable so I guess what they were doing was effective.

On this scale, the worst managers I ever saw were the ones that developed their people (e.g., send them to 20 days training a year without any business case for that individual getting that training), that cared about family problems (e.g., can't find a sitter, work at home on your group project), that were more interested in the "career development" of their staff than being profitable.  These toads are a menace.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
zdas04:

I would concur with your definition of effective management.  However, it appears you may be making some inappropriate assumptions about me.

Let's say, for example that a project manager has been required by his manager to provide a listing of critical task with deadlines that includes which resource is assigned to which task.  Our project engineer does just that and in a reasonable amount of time.  So far so good, right?

Now, let's say that said project engineer goes back and verbally reassigns all of those task without updating the documented listing.  So, for example, I find myself with a weeks worth of engineering time invested in a project that, not only had it's due date changed, but it was assigned to someone else and this was never communicated to me.  I've just wasted a week's worth of time that I could have spent on a more critical task.  I'm intellegent, I'm capable of "figuring out things for myself", but I'm not psychic.  If you change my assigned tasks and don't notify me, how am I supposed to know?  Should I find you every morning and make sure there are no changes I should know about?  That seems a little in-efficient to me.

As far as training is concerned.  This has the effect of standardizing on the use of available tools.  Assuming these tools are "mission critical", then I would say that a business case can be made for training.  

I'm not whining here, I consider this place part of my education.  It's been a good 15 years since I've seen and environment this bad, and I want to know how to make forward progress anyway.

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
Actually zdas04, let's try a more "bottom line" example.  Furthermore, just to maintain perspective, I'll pick an example other than my present employer.

A former co-worker of mine, and possibly one of the best modelers/draftsmen I know, recently had his employer switch from their current modeling software to Catia V5.  While he has over 20 years experience, he's never used Catia.  Problem is, the only training he's been provided with so far is the basic "getting started" documentation.  He's related to me that tasks that used to take 3 hours now take more like 3 days.  

Let's take that at face value and further assume that a senior experienced designer's time is worth, say, $95.00/hr.

   ($95.00/hr)*[(3 days)(8 hr/day)  -  3 hr)]  =  $1995.00

So, everytime something like this happens, you lose about $2,000.00 worth of productivity from this one designer.  How many of these would you say makes an adequate business case to train him on the new software?

I'm not trying to bust on you...frivolous training is a waste of time, money, and productivity.  However, if said training will improve productivity long term, then it's not a waste, it's a necessary expense.

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Trying to teach your employer how to run their business is usually not a good idea. In fact it invariably leads to your deteriment and furstration. Just think about it, they got along where they are without your advice so drop that idea.

Look for another firm which you feel has a better management style. Key is how do you know that? Well, you have do your own research by talking to  people who know other firms.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Although I am unsure this is the problem in question, in my experience, ineffective technical managers are challenged to retain the staff required to effectively get things done.  That is what is sad to me, that technical managers with reasonable people and presentation skills when dealing with clients fail to exercise those skills to develop even a minimal rapport with their staff.  When they find themselves managing a project all by themselves with no support staff, then they can produce according to their individualized standard of perfection without having to blame anyone but themselves.

Micromanagement is not always just a local issue.  It can also be an interoffice problem.  For a huge corporation, sometimes ineffective management in a branch office can reasonably be blamed on ineffective management of that branch from the higher up's worknig out of a regional office.  Have you ever heard talk of your office being considered for closing?  See how your co-workers in different other branch offices are encouraged to effectively get things done.  For example--and perhaps this is trivial, I know co-workers at our local branch became dismayed and unmotivated to be asked to produce from half-size cubicles, when they saw that their co-workers in other nearby branches were enjoying personal offices.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Joekm, you are misunderstanding me.

I don't have a clue how effective you, your co-workers, or managers are, I was just asking you to define "good" and "bad" management to yourself.  When you step back from "the jerk didn't do his job, how can I do mine" and ask "in spite of some serious busts in communication, are we making money?" things tend to shade in one direction or another.  I think that these are style and personality issues, not management issues.

As to training, I spend a lot of time doing it and I'd be cutting my own throat to say that you should never train, and it would be stupid thing to say.  My problem is a training quota that must be met.  Like sending an AutoCad Tech to ArcView school because he needs 20 days training, even if you don't have any intention of his ever turning ArcView on in the office.  I see that all the time.  

I teach a class on compression and about half the people attending at most companies couldn't care less, but are there for the free lunch and to satisfy their training requiremnts before they go back to their rod-pump optimization job (or whatever).  That is bad management.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

The best engineering company I ever worked for developed engineering managers from the engineer ranks and trained them with in-plant courses. Invariably they also had masters degrees.

The worst company I worked for employed QC techs (non-degree) in the engineering mgt role. The plant mgr was a QC type, and he employed like individuals in the mgt role. What a disaster in the making, and the company imploded after I left. They were testing for cyclic durability using ultimate failure tests!

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
Well, my apologies if I mis-understood you zdas04.  

cousinK, I don't know if micro-management is the problem here...more the opposite, I can't get anybody to consistently communicate what they need, when they need it, or what internal standards/proceedures they need me to follow.  Further research into the latter revealed that there are no published standard practices here.  In fact, I've been asked to help establish them.

To that end, I've started a "think tank" of the existing analyst so we could determine what our current "best practices" are with the ultimate idea of evolving them into a set of mutually agreeable standard practices.

Like I said, I'm starting to make a little progress, but I'm accostomed to being much busier.


--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

joekm
it sounds like you finally expressed the problem - "I can't get anybody to consistently communicate..."  

In my experience working up the ranks to project manager for a civil consulting firm, consistent communication with all members of the team about all facets of the project (client is also part of the team) seems to be the number one issue that determines the failure or success of the project.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Here's a funny to some up short sighted management.

Frank "Grimey" Grimes

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

David,

 "in spite of some serious busts in communication, are we making money?"

Is that really the basis you have for judging effective management? I can think of several cases (many of which are where I currently work)in which, the company is making money despite the management practices rather than because of them. When you have good people working for you, you can be a complete and utter screw up and still have your bottom line look good.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I was thinking something similar myself. Our company could use a better feedback system at the end of projects. As it is, we do the same things over again so if the design office gets it wrong, the site guys figure a way to fix it and we make a bit of money on that project. Then next time design do the same thing again, site figure a way to fix it again and we make a bit of money. With a bit of feedback from site, the design office could do better next time and we'd make a ton of money instead of a bit and we wouldn't have to work so hard to get it.

But at the end of the day, we're still making money so why bother?

Oh wait, that's another example where communication would improve things!

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

There are as many management "styles" as there are managers.  I've known many managers who had the interpersonal skills of an aardvark, personal hygiene of a slug, and charisma of a dish rag, but at the end of the day the operations they were responsible for made money so their management called them "good managers".  Workers have to realize that "manager" is not a synonym for "coach".

It really doesn't matter if a particular manager doesn't run their operation in a way that their employees prefer.  It doesn't even matter if they run it in a way that causes good people to be dissatisfied and leave.  I've seen hundreds of people leave big companies, but I've rarely seen one leave that would be missed for more than a few months.  

I did a business-school case study on Wal-Mart when I was an undergraduate in the '70's.  I found it very interesting that their target GPA was 2.0, turnover for the new professionals in the first year (through "bad" management, meaning "non-nurturing" management) was approaching 60%.  Everyone complained about crappy management.  Whatever they were doing it seemed to be effective in total.

So, to recap, (1) management is a collection of skills that vary from person to person; (2) employee happiness is not a valid criteria for evaluating management; and (3) a management style that causes "good" people to go elsewhere is only a problem if it has a significant impact on the bottom line (and that is rarely the case).

David  

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I'm not saying anything about a person's personality, appearance, etc. I am specifically refering to their ability to MANAGE effectivly. I have known several "managers" that couldn't tell you what the project was let alone how anything was to be accomplished or why. Their value to the project was negetive due to their attempts causing confusion and disorganization. BUT, despite all that the people they had working for them knew what needed to be done and as long as they were left alone and not given poor direction they managed to produce satisfactory results. The company made money and looked good at the bottom line, consiquently the manager got praised for doing well. The point is the company would have done BETTER without the manager. By your measuring stick the manager was a good manager, I think that he prevented the company from doing as well as they could and therefore was a bad manager. You have to judge a person's worth based on their own actions and accomplishments not on the accomplishments of those that work under them.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

holding up Walmart as an example of effective management is a bit silly.  They are effective at making money because of their business plan which is to undercut all the competition, sell cheap merchandise and hire the cheapest labor they can.  They make money in spite of their poor management policies.  But as Aardvarkdw alluded, given a different business plan and some management training, they might expect to do even better.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I guess we'll just have to disagree on that.  There is simply no way to prove that the organization would have done a better job of meeting its goals with a different manager or management style.

I've had more than a few managers who had no idea what I did or what the appropriate priorities on my projects were.  I always felt these were the best of all worlds--they assumed that the authority that they had delegated to me was being appropriately applied toward the appropriate goals.

I had a boss once that everyone (myself included) thought was the best manager ever.  She cared about her folks, made sure that skills and capabilities were developed to the maximum extent possible.  She took us to lunch on birthday's and anniversaries.  She never interfered with delegated authority.  She never gave poor direction.  She made certain that each of us understood the company's goals and our role in them.  We loved her (hell, she even reinstituted team building).  Every one of us would have killed to make her look good.  After a year, the profitability of the group was in the toilet and she got "promoted" to on-campus recruiting, where she did fabulously.  

Management is not coaching, mentoring, or being a friend.  It is making a group of people make progress toward the company's goals.

David

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The harder I work, the luckier I seem

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
Making money under a specific manager might be a valid measure of effectiveness of that manager, but profitability - I.e. - how *much* money he makes, is a better measure.  Loosing talent will effect your bottom line, it's just not as visible.  Just like driving your car with low tire pressure effects your gas milage.  You're loosing money, you just don't know it.

zdas04 appears to be making the statements that effectiveness as a manager can only be measured by whether or not his group turned a profit and that "coaching" is irrelevant.  To that, I suggest the words of Sun-Tzu:

"The Way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership, so they will share death and share life, without fear of danger"

Master Sun's advisors would comment on that as follows:

"This means guiding them by instruction and direction.  Danger means distrust"

"If the people are treated with benevolence, faithfulness, and justice, then they will be of one mind, and will be glad to serve..."

"The Way, means humaneness and justice...When the government is carried out properly, people feel close to the leadership and think little of dying for it."

"If the leaders can be humane and just, sharing both the gains and the troubles of the people, then the troops will be loyal and naturally identify with the interest of the leadership."

How you treat people, the respect you show people, how well you communicate, and yes, even you're willingness to "coach", all effect your bottom line.  An employee who shares your goals is more productive then a "headcount" that sits in a cubie and spits out data.

...but what does a Shogun who lived 2000 years ago know.

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
One other thing zdas04, you said there was a manager that you once worked for that you all highly respected, but her group did not turn a profit.  Are you saying that her people skills were the cause of the lack of profit?  It seems to me that you are arguing your points by anecdotes.  

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I guess I stired up a hornt's nest here.  The problem is definitions of "management effectiveness".  My definition of an effective manager is someone who causes the people and resources in his control to be applied towards optimizing their impact on the company's goals.  This is very different from the idea that a manager is someone who leads his people towards something or any of the other stuff that is mentioned above that particular managers do poorly.

When I was a manager my folks understood that if they felt they had to ask permission to do something within their delegation of authority (which was clearly deliniated) I was going to question their usefullness.  19 out of 20 of them thought that was pretty cool and did a great job--mostly without my knowing specifically what they were working on.  The 20th hated it, hated me, hated my "style".  I spent 70% of my time dealing with that one person's problems with delegated responsibilities.  She thought I was a disaster as a manager, the rest of the group thought I was ok.  The group had a list of goals and we exceeded all of them, so my boss thought I was pretty good too.  After a couple of years we had effectively solved the "problem" that the group was created to solve and I was so fed up with dealing with the one person who wanted coaching that when we disbanded the group I went back to engineering (and all 19 of the people who liked my style quit the company within 2 years when they realized that they liked having a good balance of responsibility and authority).

cvg,
To say that a Wal-Mart would be more effective if they adopted the management style that Apple uses is just silly.  They have a corporate style, management philosophy, pricing strategy, etc. that has been amazingly effective in the only terms that stockholders care about.  You may call them exploitive, but I call them effective.  I know a lot of folks who work for them that think the world of the company.

Joekm,
Read Sun-Tsu's statement carefully.  He is saying exactly what I'm saying--good management is getting people to have the same goal as the organization.  The advisor quotes are just style.  Some managers are very effective managers while coaching and mentoring, more are very ineffective at managing while coaching and mentoring.  There are a lot of ways to skin this chicken.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

zdas04, you are right.  Micromanagement persists because it is such a great tool to tweak the books, minimize the overhead and maximize the profit.  I commend any worker who can tolerate it for a significant period of time, but that's me.  And to some of the more seasoned engineers, ineffective management may be expected as part of life.

These days, ineffective management needs to be defined not just in terms of profit but also with the finer term of turnover, because it bears on profit.  That is not just management style, that is management smarts.  Some companies pride themselves with a low turnover ratio, and their impressive growth is driven by profit produced by a seasoned staff.  They know projects lose money during transitions with the loss of staff, the hiring of replacements or the transfer of responsibility, however well documented the progress, and regardless of the level of the engineer lost.  Effective managers are going to keep their support staff happy, while exceeding the expectations of their bosses.  

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Just a small historical remark:
Sun Tzu was not a Shogun, he was Chinese and lived around 2500 years ago.
Shogun were the provincial lords of ancient Japan.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Managing and Leading are two different functions. Leader leads by example and knows what is to be done. It is not necessary for him to understand the strategy, reason and the cost of particular business. It is the management function to decide which projects to go for and the associated costs.

Ciao.

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

(OP)
MedicineEng:

You are correct...my mistake, he was a general, but Shogun, of course, is Japanese.

--
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
                                          -- Albert Einstein

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

To me, the best type of manager is someone that can identify an employee's strengths and weaknesses and distribute the workload in such a way as to accomplish all of the department's assigned tasks thoroughly and completely. I think that is essentially what zdas04 is saying as well. What I don't agree with is measuring that effectiveness by profitability. You could easily have a manager that sits in his office and plays solitare all day, goes to meetings but doesn't diseminate the information to the group, and just sends a mass email once a week to tell people what the projects are that "someone" should be working on, and still show a profit if the people working under them do a good job. Whereas a manager that communicates well the plan, delegates specific authority, and holds others accountable for the assigned tasks, could still have a group of employee's that are substandard and fail to accomplish the work required thus casusing the company to suffer.

The manager is a catalyst, a facilitator, but it is ultimately the work done by those managed that determines the profitability of a company.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

aardvarkdw,
The first guy may be a perfect manager for his group.  I've had bosses who were ghosts and I loved it (just like Congress, if they aren't in session the harm they can do is limited).  The second guy should do a house cleaning if all his good work is wasted on slugs.  What better measure is there than contribution to the company's goals (people seem to think that "profitibility" is to commercial)?  You can't measure "management style" and efforts to quantify "personality" are fun, but pointless.

A jerk that accomplishes his goals through intimidation, brow beating, and fear may be hell to work for, but he may be exactly the right person in the right place for the specific goals he's been assigned.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

I agree, a person that may be dificult to work for may still be the best manager for the job but that is not what I am adressing. If I sit on my backside all day and watch videos on the internet, but all of my work gets done, mostly because others do it for me in order to get their work done, and the company does great, does that make me a good employee? Just like individual employees can do jack crap and the company still prospers, managers can be nothing but a hinderance to productivity and the company still prosper. I just can't see how you can judge a manager's performance based on a profit margin. If group "productivity" is up, errors and overhead costs are down, and sales are up I would judge that to be a much better measureing stick than company profits alone.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

Two points;  First, haven't you ever seen an employee who  would improve the effectiveness of the group by watching porn all day?  Second, If group "productivity" is up, errors and overhead costs are down, and sales are up, but the product being sold is not strategic (e.g., it might have a lower profit margin than another line or have environmental problems) then the group may not be contributing all that it can to the company's goals.  

Before someone says "why don't you just fire the first guy" think of the old John Wayne move "Hell Fighter's" where if there isn't a fire the workers play pool, but when there is a fire you really want them available.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

So are you saying that you would keep paying someone that does nothing substantial to help the business and justify it?

I agree, "...the group may still not be contributing all it can to the company's goals." I would not consider that person a good manager if they cannot take the company's goals into account in their planning. That being said, a group with good "leaders" and employees in it could just as easily take it upon themselves to see to it that the company's goals are met while the manager does nothing constructive to help. The company does well, everything looks good on paper but you have a complete slug of a manager that contributes nothing and you have employees that are wasting valuable time, which could be spent increasing the bottom line even more, doing his job.

David

RE: Being Effective When Management Isn't?

aardvarkdw - "So are you saying that you would keep paying someone that does nothing substantial to help the business and justify it?"

There is a class of worker that fits this category. They're go by the job designation "CEO".

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