
The unspoken truth about managing geeks - fogus
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9137708/Opinion_The_unspoken_truth_about_managing_geeks?taxonomyName=Management&taxonomyId=14
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mmt
I 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.

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tomjen2
Personally I would hate to work with Dr House, but not so much as I would with
a nice person who was incompetent.

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stef25
id love to work with house so i could mack on 13 all day

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stef25
excellent 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.

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allenp
I 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.

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newsdog
Brilliant. Every suit, read this. Then get the hell out of our way.

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cmalabs
Sadly, you won't find many suits hanging around ycombinator. I have the sudden
urge to forward this to a few people I know....

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Novash
Please do. I have half a mind to send this to my wife...

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bena
I 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.

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abalashov
Excellent 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."

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iron_ball
Summary: "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.

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shrikant
Too often have I see "result-oriented supervision" translating to a _make it
happen_ mentality.

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coconutrandom
And 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
Wait, wait. You mean that it can be different from it?

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jerome_etienne
most 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

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theycallmepost

      Users 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".

