I really like Kathy Sierra’s post, “Success” should not mean “Management,” in the Creating Passionate Users blog. It is about how career success is measured and rewarded in companies, especially tech companies. For the most part, there is pretty much one track for advancement, and that is the management track. She draws our attention to this and proposes that companies develop alternate tracks for advancement that reward people who rock at their jobs, and encourage them to continue to rock at what they love to do.
My experience has been that, in software companies, the only track for advancement is the management track. Sadly, my experience is also that most tech people are not trained in management skills and in fact, lack the delicate ‘people’ skills it takes to be a successful manager. In fact, many of the technical folks I’ve met do not enjoy the company of humans and feel far more comfortable around machines.
I think this is the main reason why there are so many bad managers in the software industry, and probably in other industries too. In almost all sectors (I’ve polled friends and relatives who work in these areas) – government, non-profit, and corporate – the highest paid most powerful positions are managerial positions. In order to grow your salary, you pretty much have to become a manager, even if you have poor communication skills, no training in budgeting, estimating, communication, or teambuilding, and frankly think people are a pain in the ass.
The Creating Passionate Users article opens with this statement: We might all say that career success should be measured by how fulfilled you are on the job, but in practice, most people and companies still measure success by how high you climbed the corporate ladder.
The first part of this statement rings true for me and only a few other people I’ve known through the years. I will take a more fulfilling job for less pay. I’m an intense person who works hard, maybe too hard, so there has to be more return in my job than just a paycheck. I do have a minimum amount I need to earn to continue to live in my modest home, with my modest cats, eating a modest diet. However, that equates to a pretty low salary. The other returns that make a job satisfying may be learning something new that I find very interesting, being given the opportunity to face a new challenge, being given decision making responsibilities, involved in a collaborative team that works closely to build a great product, or even making a person’s day better (like delivering Meals on Wheels – the most satisfying job I’ve ever done – and I did it for free). For the most part, though, I meet people who mainly want money and power. I’ve known a few rare programmers who turned down lead and management roles because that is not what they enjoy about their work. They enjoy their trade – writing code – and want to continue doing that. They decided to do what they love for less money and power. Most people though, take the management job because it means more money – and they totally suck as managers. I had one boss tell me that what he hated about being a manager was dealing with everyone else’s shit. Frankly, my dear, that is the most succinct and accurate description of being a manager I’ve ever heard. If you don’t think the behaviors of individuals vs. groups, the responses of different personality types to stress, what motivates different personality types, organizing projects and groups, and resolving conflicts (e.g. = ‘people’s shit’) is interesting – for God’s sake don’t become a manager.
My experience with career managers hasn’t gone much better. One of my managers was pretty much a career manager who had taken several courses in management. She told me that she was a manager because she didn’t really like being in the trenches; she didn’t like the actual work we did. The problem with this was she did a poor job of managing the department exactly because she didn’t like the work that her reports did – it wasn’t interesting, she was out of touch, she didn’t respect us. She did like that her job was 9 to 5, highly paid, and involved being invited to the local NBA team’s games in the company box-seats reserved for managers only. She stayed in her office, did nothing to become involved with her staff, told the execs what they wanted to hear, and soothed dissastisfied employees with statements like “I doubt you’ll find another job that will be any different” and “Well, it is Mr. Smith’s company so we will just have to do it his way” (even if it is more expensive and causes you to work 60 hour weeks).
Essentially, I believe there are two ‘foundational criteria’ to be a manager. There are lots of other very important criteria, but these are the two basics:
1) You need to have worked at least a little in the jobs of the people you are managing, so you understand what the job entails and also so you can intelligently and accurately report to the executives (don’t even get me started on the manager who is constantly telling the executives totally wrong information because he didn’t actually understand any of the technologies his people worked with).
2) You need to enjoy other people’s shit. You need to like organizing, leading, and dealing with people. You need to enjoy communication and conflict resolution. You need to enjoy the challenge of eloquently giving constructive negative and positive feedback. You need to look forward to spending most of your time in meetings, reporting to the execs, and on the floor walking around communicating with your employees. You need to be in the thick of it. If you want to sit on a throne in your office and have everyone come to you, or if you want to hide in your office and let folks duke it out you will not be a successful manager.
Successful managers are rare. To be good, you need to be perceptive, fearless, quick on your feet, thoughtful, present, as good at listening as talking, excel at followthrough, and check your ego at the door. You need to be able to present bad news calmly and with viable alternatives. You need to be organized, have an open door, and comfortable saying yes and no to those both above and below you. You aren’t a parent, a teacher, or a mentor. You are a leader, but you need to know when to be a follower. You need to build credibility. And frankly, kissing the big boss’ ass is never attractive – no matter how nervous you are about keeping your job. Most of the time, the big boss sees through it anyway. Be genuine!
I wholeheardtedly agree that companies need to provide more than one track for advancement – a management track and a ‘trade track.’ I had feedback (literally) that I’m a ‘rock-star of black-box QA.’ I’ve worked long hours, watched my boss’ back, mentored many a young person in their first ‘real’ job, and saved the company’s ass by finding that ‘oh crap we melted your hard-drive’ bug. Because, I kick ass in a technical field, being good at what I do is pretty meaningless as far as job advancement goes. After 8 years, I’ve topped out at being a lead. I got my first lead role after just 2 years experience. I haven’t had an opportunity for advancement in 6 years. (I’ve never worked at a company that had a “Senior QA” position – even though there were “Senior Programmer” positions.) Other than QA Manager (a job I don’t want) I’ve had nowhere else to go. It seems like my only option is to start over in a whole new career that has more advancement potential – but I’ll have to start at the bottom again. Also, I’m not sure what career that would be – where is there more advancement potential?
I don’t know what to do about this. I’ve suggested technical advancement tracks at various places I’ve worked and been shot down faster than a caged duck at Dick Chaney’s ranch. Hell, in two separate jobs I’ve requested a basic job description and been told that ‘job descriptions are just for people who are looking to buff up their resumes’ and ‘I don’t believe in job descriptions.’ When asking about advancement opportunities, I’ve been told that I get a paycheck and that should be enough. The upper managers somehow have forgotten about their own advancement goals and ambitions that got them into their upper management jobs.
At the end of the article Kathy Sierra writes “Rather than asking about someone’s rank, position, job title, number of direct reports, power, etc. we should focus on one simple question: how closely does the work you do match the work you want to do?” The problem is, the last time I confronted an employer (who was reorganizing the company) with the problem of my new job not matching the work I want to do (my old job before the reorg did match what I want to do) – I was fired for not fitting in.
Does wanting more than a paycheck for 40+ hours per week of my time, plus years of education that cost major $$$, really equate to not fitting in? Articles like the one cited above indicate that I am not the only person in the tech world who feels this way. How do I change the system – short of starting my own company?