Dealing With an Authoritarian Management Style In IT? 82
A New Cog asks: "My software development group, including my manager, was moved recently under another bigger group with different style of management. The new objective for the group is to 'speak as one person', meaning that the reasons behind management decisions are well understood and technical information is well communicated. At first, it seemed to be a very good thing to do. In reality, it was just a disguised authoritarian method of imposing information censorship and making sure there is no opposition within. We used to cooperate openly with each other and people from other groups, exchanging opinions and ideas, but after few schooling sessions in front of the bigger group, everyone is now quietly doing what they are told. Now, there is less and less satisfaction from the work I do. Is this just a sign of maturing organization and transitional pain is a necessary side effect in order to have a better future, or is this a sign of things to come. I feel that no true creativity is going to happen in place where motivation and productivity are affected by frustration and threat of loosing one's job? I like my job, but what can I do now in order to keep my satisfaction with it?"
You need a role model. (Score:5, Funny)
Look at the bright side ... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they haven't stopped you posting on slashdot ... yet.
What bright side? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a sign of things to come. Start putting feelers out for another job already. Take it from someone who has learned this the hard way...
You're not doomed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a management style, there will be two likely outcomes. One, it will actually succeed and bring positive things to the business - this will be a Good Thing. Probably more likely, your department will make some enormous mistakes because of the supression of internal debate and be reorganised.. in which case you need to make sure that you're out of the frame, or else this will be a very Bad Thing.
Don't forget the ultimate sanction - if the place sucks, leave.
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, you should bring the boss ... this way, they pay for it! After all, they'll just write it off as a business expense anyway, and after a decade of drinking as part of the job, you can claim disability - work turned you into an alcoholic. Its the Amercian Way - sue your way to a happy retirement!
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:3, Informative)
Daniel
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:1)
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest you talk to the boss - make sure he understands the atmosphere this is creating. Voice your concerns, but do it calmly and diplomatically. Also be ready to make constructive suggestions for improving the situation.
If this fails, then you can suck it up, you can endanger your job by going over his head, or you can look for a new job. You're going to spend a good chunk of your life working - you should try to enjoy it.
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I'd just leave. I'm getting too old to put up with that crap. However, I've found the best way to ease that pain is just to accept it, deal with it and not take any of it personally--and document the living hell out of everything. If you do your job as you are told and can prove it, these types back down. They're looking for weakness and any excuse to shift blame from themselves to you. ANYTHING in the "soft skills" category with these types will be viewed as a perfect weakness to label you "not a team player" or "does not work well under supervision" or just, "does not work here anymore."
So, either leave or find a way to play by the rules... and if that means throwing back a scotch after work, so be it.
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are unsatisfied, you should continue the discussions that you are used to that were so satisfying. If you get "schooled" in front of the group, you will survive. They will probably get tired of "schooling" you quickly, as in not more than twice. If you don't give in, what can they do? You're not "causing problems", just doing your job in an open way.
This does show signs of serious communication problems, which in relationships or business usually end up with a parting of ways, in my experience. So what? I left a job where I was written up for doing work that had been PRE-APPROVED by management. I took my lumps and had no trouble defending myself, since I had taken care to document everything. But working for folks that do such things is like slamming your hand in the door on purpose. I resigned and went back to school at age 32, and now after two years I have landed a job that I would rather have had all along. You don't HAVE to live the way they want you to, there are choices.
Peace dude.
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of "spreading the word" is to prepare for the future:
In this world a lot boils down to information control. Countless situations of bad leadership keep going on in perpetuity because the only source of information which those that have the power to stop those situations (higher level managers) have is the person responsible for the problem in the first place (for example, the group's manager/lead).
When confronted with the problem by someone higher in the hierarchy, the causer of the problem will commonly blame something/somebody else for it if he/she believes they can get away with it.
Thus the point of this technique is to make sure that, when the shit hits the fan, higher level decision makers get to know exactly how and why the shit got there in the first place.
When this is done really well, if indeed the decisionmaker is unqualified and/or a serial offender, it often results in said person being at the very least striped of said responsibilities, sometimes shelved and in some cases (i'm talking really incompetent here) even fired.
I've used this twice in the past to get rid of really bad managers, so i know for sure it works.
Also:
If in the meanwhile you get really frustrated with the way things are going i sugest you start looking internaly (within the company) for another group. If that doesn't work start looking outside the company.
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:2)
From your description, it seems your manager is doing it in a very obvious way. I see two possible motivations behind this:
a) Your manager is trying to get you to quit by making your life miserable. Why would that be that, i have no idea. Are you in a country were it is hard to fire people?
b) Your manager is trying to set you up as the fall guy - maybe some project where you work(ed) and he manages/ed is about-to-g
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I'd recommend against this. If your position carries any kind of senority, complaining in front of your coworkers is pretty unprofessional, and will only serve to tear your group apart and make your new boss' job more difficult.
If you have real concerns about your group and want to do the professional
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:2)
Re:You're not doomed.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Better advice: Be glad you have a high paying, physically easy job. Remember that since you have no power over the Big Choices, you are not responsible for them. As long as you do not alienate any managers, you have no need to fear reorg. It's a fact of life in m
Clue Train (Score:2)
If that fails, leave. Information hoarding doesn't work.
Boss Style (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually it is just the sign of the management style of your manager. The recommendations I could make is to first have an upto date resume. Second, every time you send recommendations and analysis to your manager, do it via email. Third, every time your manager talks to you, send him or her an email with a synopsis of what was discussed and thanking them for their time. Fourth, ask yourself if it is worth it. Finally, read Winning [amazon.com], every person who works in a corporate enterprize needs to read this.
Screw it, I've got karma to burn: (Score:5, Funny)
Adios, goodbye and see ya later! (Score:5, Insightful)
Adios, goodbye, see ya later, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Life is too short to work in a job where you have to compromise whatever gives you joy.
Creativity is your most valuable asset and some company out there is not only going to recognize and encourage it, but reward it.
I'd have to say it's time for you to look for more fertile ground.
Re:Adios, goodbye and see ya later! (Score:2, Interesting)
I've worked for both good and bad organizations that used the information control approach. The difference is the target.
If it's to improve something, you can usually see the point and can get around it in particular circumstances, like talking to the group next door or your direct users. You can also have discussions among youselves aimed at getting the
Re:Adios, goodbye and see ya later! (Score:1)
"In IT, we are in a far better place than auto workers and airplane mechanics."
The only caveat to that is we don't have a union; which is of course a double edged sword anyway.
Being an independent, I long for the backing of numbers and the promise of pension.
On the other hand, I'm glad I don't have to pay for the privilege; especially in the case where unions are parasitic.
I'd note.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd note.. (Score:2)
Bu
Difficult choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Your situation is indicative of most departments in large US organizations. "Don't rock the boat."; "Just do your work."; "We can't give *them* that info, they might look better than *us*." Those are all sentiments that are most likely not spoken, but implied in daily interactions with management. I don't believe it's due to malice. I truly belive it's managers being afraid to look "stupid" in front of others.
If you try to stand out in the crowd and continue open dialogues, collaboration and information dissemination you'll garner the support and respect of your peers, but you will not advance much beyond your current position. You stand more to lose by not speaking up (the whole department will be outsourced due to lack of productivity) than you do by being a leader (you are unlikely to get axed for attempting to make things better...lawyers would have a field day with your case).
Sadly, there is little satisfaction in IT jobs in large organizations these days. You'll need to go find a small company or derive work enjoyment from non-employment activities.
That's probably not what you wanted to hear, but unless there's a "miracle post" in this topic with a real, attainable solution, I suspect you'll get many similar replies.
Re:Difficult choices (Score:2, Insightful)
I've put up with a lot in large corporations with their moving cheese and other management fads. Try despair.com for some demotivational support - it helps to laugh about it.
I'm finally happy at a small plant where I am the IT department. Lower pay, but life is too short to be miserable most of your day. Oddly I have more free cash now than I did making 2x and hating my life.
moving cheese and other management fads (Score:2)
Hey, real value from Slashdot. Or at least anti-anti-value.
Re:moving cheese and other management fads (Score:1)
It's derived from a book titled "Who moved my cheese?", apparently about management of change in your life. I understand that it's becoming a buzz-book (to coin a neologism). Whether it's anything revolutionary or just more re-packaged obviousness, I have no idea. Amazon and Google are your friends.
I
Re:moving cheese and other management fads (Score:2)
It is a motivational book about dealing with change, and is frequently used by managers. It's been around for a while, so it's not the next big thing.
Re:moving cheese and other management fads (Score:2, Insightful)
I am fine at adjusting to change. I think it is crucial to be honest about change. If chan
Re:Difficult choices (Score:3, Informative)
Its not all sunshine and roses in the small shops, though. True you definitely get to make a difference in the way things go, but to do so will require achingly long hours at relatively-low pay. In the end, you'll be just as disillusioned because your employer is getting this Class A service from you at bush-league pricing... It
Re:Difficult choices (Score:1)
Re:Difficult choices (Score:2)
Well.... It sounds like you have more people than we do. Its true I've been exposed to a lot of things, but what I know inside-out is definitely a TINY subset of those technologies. I would like it much more if I had the time to know them all really well, but I do everything except ERP development and support whic
Re:Difficult choices (Score:1)
What fantasy world are you living in? The only thing you will get is unemployment. If you continously contest the rules set forth by management you are considered a problem employee. Unless your job description says you are a policy maker, how is a lawyer going to get you money or your job back for doing something your not supposed to.
Re:Difficult choices (Score:2)
Peopleware (Score:2)
It can be missunderstood (Score:5, Insightful)
The user community is very sensitive to change. If one of the admins sets up something "special" for an end user, what are some of the things that can go wrong?
If one of my admins sets up a rogue FTP site "to help a user" then when I find out it's not secure and shut it down, I have to deal with dissatified end user. Then, sometimes, the admin (and the user) will turn around and call me the heavy.
But let's say I leave it up and make sure that admin secures it. Then a whole culture springs up around this FTP site when the server isn't really suitable for the purpose (no redundency, etc). These people ignore, or maybe are ignorant of our corporate HTTP file transfer site which is purpose built for five 9s of file transfer uptime. When the FTP site goes down, everybody loses. I do, my admins do, and most of all, the end-users do.
So basically, I can be a hard ass about admins running around doing their own thing. But have the admins bothered to think about why that is? I know it's a fun part of IT to play and be creative. I highly value very creative people on my staff. But at least come to management and make sure your creativity doesn't conflict with another objective. Try to understand the conflict. Use your creativity a little more to make sure your project can avoid the conflict ("hey boss, why don't we just put FTP services on the HTTP file transfer server?"). Then guess what? We're all "speaking as one voice" but you get your creativity too.
Get new admins (Score:2)
Sometimes, customers want something configured to be broken, or their misunderstanding of how the tools work make them DEMAND something be setup wrong, insecure, or improper. I would
"make. people. stop. calling." (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"make. people. stop. calling." (Score:2)
Re:It can be missunderstood (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, why don't you warn them before that they have made something not acceptable and find a replacement solution before 'shutting it down' (or at least warning them before doing so).
If you loose say a 1Mi$ contract because you stopped the rogue FTP site without warning, I'd find normal that *you'd* be fired (not the other guys).
And finding a replacement solution is not necessarily having
Re:It can be missunderstood (Score:2)
Or why not just fire him on the spot? I don't know about where you work, but punching a hole through the firewall without proper security measures is a pretty serious thing at my company. Yes, we get a $1M contract, but the next day our employee records and customer list is owned by random hacker #278 who then goes around signing up for VISA cards in everyone's names.
Yo
Re:It can be missunderstood (Score:2)
Well, I tend to be understand this kind of thing: in my (big) enterprise, it took me 9 month to buy a CD writer (they were still "expensive" at around 300$ at the time), when you have to deal with that kind of stupidity (everything done by our IT department take ages, is expensive, give ridiculous little resources, etc), the temptation to say "f*, I'll do it myself" is high..
My point was more that as an administrator, your job is to communicate with the user to solv
Re:It can be missunderstood (Score:2)
You've got a couple of issues here.
First, you've got a problem because that junior admin wasn't comfortable coming to you to seek approval/advice to set up the FTP server. That's not good. People are not comfortable going to you with issues.
Suppose the person didn't know that setting up the FTP server was a bad thing, or that they needed approval. Then you made a mistake by failing to document policy about setting up a new "supported" service and adve
Re:It can be missunderstood (Score:2)
I mean, seriously, a guy is bright enough to set up the FTP site either on our outside network, on the DMZ or on the inside with a hole punched through the firewall, but he doesn't realize this could be some kind of an issue?
This is probably not a case for mentoring. It's more like a case for the kind of reality check where you're forced to ask, "is this guy really right for this job?
Shape up or Ship out! (Score:2)
Re:Shape up or Ship out! (Score:2, Insightful)
A Couple of Possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to tell, from the limited amount you're able to post here, which case applies. It may be productive to suggest a conversation with the group and management to try to clarify this, if you can figure out a non-confrontational way of suggesting that. (Just the reaction to such a suggestion might tell you quite a bit.)
The first objective is a reasonable one; perhaps it's just the approach or implementation that's ham-fisted. If you think that's the case, then perhaps you and your co-workers can come up with some ideas that will help toward the objective.
On the other hand, if this is a classic "information is power" political strategy, then you basically have to evaluate whether the good points of staying with the group you like outweigh the bad points of working for a jerk. (Do keep in mind, though, that jerks sometimes don't last -- keep your head down.)
Be a worker (Score:2)
As IT has become more of an integral part of operations for more companies, they've shifted how they handle it. No longer is it a "results-only" department with a wide margin for error, since IT has such an impact on the bottom line. The net effect is that many companies no longer accept the risk of maverick action
Re:Be a worker (Score:1)
I'm actually dealing with a boss who doesn't appear to see any value in any sort of up-front design. The guy mocks stuff up in Excel and then says "just look on the internet... I'm sure someone's already written code to do this." NO THEY HAVEN'T!!!
What To Do (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mod parent the _fuck_ up (Score:1)
Huh? Why?
Re:Mod parent the _fuck_ up (Score:1, Insightful)
Communication is the key to good management (Score:2)
Also, if it's causing enough grief that you're no longer able to enjoy your job, it would be best for you to find another one. I see no gain in staying in a job you don't like.
Natural evolution. (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:2)
I am really starting to loathe my own company, and will be leaving soon. But as much as I don't like them, stifling legitimate expression is not one of their sins. It wasn't for lack of trying. This is a US division of a German company, and I get this attitude from most of the German executives. But we don't stand for it.
Sign of Organizational Immaturity (Score:1)
That is the nature of the problem that you have. Despite the edicts from the 'larger group' there are things that can do keep your satisfaction. Continue to network with people in othe
Google? (Score:2, Informative)
There _is_ a hard balance between 'too much information' interfering with a group's concentration, vs. the kind of open communication that is constructive and can lead to 'your chocolate is in my peanut butter' serendipity moments.
Good, confident management will define expectations for work within and outside the group. It has the confidence of the group
Office Space (Score:1)
"It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't CARE."
Document Everything (Score:2)
I've been fortunate enough to never have had to work in a seriously disfunctional workplace. However, from what I've read, the best way to combat this sort of management style (or at least to avoid getting shafted when they start handing out blame) is to make sure you have everything in writing and then make sure you have a complete set of copies.
Every time you have some objection to a decision, inform the manager of this in writing as a memo or email. If your company has some kind of system that auto
Re:Document Everything (Score:1)
A 'no experience AT ALL' disclaimer would be more reassuring than "I've read about it on USENET."
Need More Info (Score:1)
Since nobody else mentioned it. (Score:1)