Traditional Wisdom LO9206

Ben Compton (BCOMPTON@novell.com)
Sat, 17 Aug 1996 15:26:28 -0600

Replying to LO9157 --

Paul has some good things in LO 9157. He concludes by saying,

> I wonder how much of the teams acceptance of the change is because
> they know that I have been a foot soldier?

Glad to hear, Paul, that you're respected because "you've been there."
This is a problem, IMO, with managers: They're hired to manage departments
they don't understand. . .and, thus, they create silly and often
counterproductive requirements. I believe organizations need to hire
managers who are competent at the work the department/company does, and
who have good managerial skills (or, who understand the theories behind
the management practices).

On a side note, since accepting the position as QM I've had well over 50%
of the people in my department make two requests of me:

1) Write a process/procedure to fire the incompetent/lazy people.

2) Force management to be more responsive to the engineers.

I'll let everyone decide for themselves what these two requests imply . .