@scottalanmiller said in Looking forward for my First IT job:
@Dashrender said in Looking forward for my First IT job:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking forward for my First IT job:
@Dashrender said in Looking forward for my First IT job:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking forward for my First IT job:
I think that people outside of business picture all CEOs sitting in a corner office looking at financial reports and telling slackers what to do while slaves bring him martinis and press his suits. But one CEO works in the trenches doing blue collar manual labour with the crew, one is on the road doing sales all day, one is writing code through the night, one is speaking at conferences, another lures investors, another spends all the time pouring over financial reports, one buys and sells other companies.... I've never met two CEOs that do similar things.
OK fine, but at the core though, they all have to run their companies, or else give that job to someone else, at which point, why are you the CEO?
What does "run the company" mean, though? When I was a restaurant manager, they taught us to sit in the office and never get our hands dirty, our job was to "manage."
All the other managers did that, and their restaurant shifts sucked. I got in the trenches and worked like crazy alongside my staff. They directed me, not me them. I was more of their assistant than their boss. I scheduled their hours and sent them home, but I didn't tell them how to do their jobs. I made sure that they were able to do their jobs. My shift could run at one quarter the staff of any other shift with the lowest food waste, highest profits, best customer response and the fastest turn around times on orders. I did nothing like the other managers, yet who was "running the business" more.
Yes sure, ONE of your jobs in that case was working along side those workers - odd that you needed to be directed by them on the process, but whatever - but you also have other jobs those people don't, like making schedules. So sure each CEO might have additional jobs, they should all be sharing some core responsibilities of their company.
No way I as the manager could be as good as they were. If the cook or the customer service person needed something, they needed me to support them more than anything else. They were good people who knew their jobs, there was no value to me overseeing them. My job was to help them to do theirs. That's how I define a good management role. If a manager feels that they need to micro-manage their staff, to me that's a manager that has given up and knows that they totally failed and are trying to cover up their failings as a manager.
The cook, for example, was SO much better if I was there cleaning up for him, grabbing things he needed from the freezer, covering when he needed a break, running errands for him and whatever it took to make sure that he could be the best cook that he could be than he could possibly be with me standing over his shoulder second guessing someone who does the job more than I do.
Those examples to me aren't them directing you, it's you working with them. So sure, you were making the situation better. And as long as you being in the trenches didn't take away from you doing the jobs they can't do, that's fine. But the moment that it does take you away from those other duties, you're doing a disservice to the company by not bringing in a non management person to replace you on the line thereby allowing you to do your other manager duties. it's also your responsibility as a good manger to have the right staff.
I think we all agree that most managers do a poor job of getting rid of bad employees and hiring good ones, or they are just bad at being managers. I know I can't manage people, I have no desire to do so.
