The problem of going into management without having started at the groundfloor ...

My recent reading included noting that US* General Francis Barlow started the US Civil War as a private, and ended as a General. 

That reminded me that, for a lot of my life, I have thought there are advantages in managers etc knowing what the experience of workers they are managing/supervising/leading is like - in fact, I still consider that essential: the issue is, how does one get that?

Direct experience of the type mentioned above is one, and has the advantage of being personal, but has the disadvantage that not everyone's experience in a given situation will be the same. 

In a factory situation, a single, childless, white cishet male’s experience - especially around doing an occassional bit of unscheduled overtime - will be different to that of a parent who is going to be slugged with fees for collecting their child late from child care. 

In an office, a neurotypical’s experience will be different to that of a neurodivergent’s experience. 

But in any case, that personal experience will be enough to give some confidence in countering rubbish spouted by a management lecturer/consultant/“expert” - and, in my experience of such management lecturers/consultants/“experts”, they can woefully underestimate the amount of time that is required to complete a task. 

(Especially if they are so incompetent/amathiac as to think everything is taught in graduate University degrees ... )

A similar problem is the fallacy that project managers do not need to know anything about the technical details of work they are managing. 

If they don’t, they can be misled, or they can issue instructions to resolve problems that are actually harmful. 

My experience of too many project managers is that they have basically been hired to facilitate meeting the KPIs of others who are too gutless and/or incompetent to take on doing the project management that they should.

There are, of course, some excellent exceptions - Project Managers who deserve the respect of capitalisation.

So ... there can be problems all round, although I still consider personal experience of the field/work you are trying to manage is far more likely to be helpful than not. 

What to do? 

Listen. 

I’ll “say” that again, in case you didn’t hear it the first time: 

LISTEN

In fact, actively engage and seek feedback - and not only in the formal surveys most companies do, but by NOT selling the company message/position/optimism, forming a human-to-human connection, and then listening to get a FEELING of what it is like. 

That is inherently going to be difficult, as you are in a position of power, and no matter how much you try to be friendly, that will ALWAYS influence what is being said to you (by most people: I think many - not all - managers hated my bluntness and refusal to just play along with the neurotypical “be a team player” game). 

People may try to give you advice about how to minimise the filtering, but you are ALWAYS going to have to exercise your skills and judgment and adjust what you are hearing accordingly. 

If you think you can delete the filtering entirely, you are both wrong and unfit to be in the position you have. 

I have heard quite a few times of managers and people further up the hierarchy being surprised when they find out after someone leaves that they weren’t actually friends.

Don’t set yourself up for that, but do set yourself up for better outcomes by acknowledging that your qualifications are in a particular area, and those actually doing the work may have infinitely more relevant qualifications - especially the qualification of lived experience - and need to be listened to carefully. 

 

 * Descriptions of the sides in the US Civil War are often characterised as Union vs. confederate, but the truth is that the  “Union” side was actually the United States, and the “confederates” were rebelling against the USA as they wanted to leave so they could continue their slavery (which is also why Texas rebelled against Mexico - so Texas could join the USA and continue their slavery, which Mexico had just banned). Thus “Union General” can and should be US General.

PS - I actually consider the disadvantage of lack of experience so severe that I considered describing it as a disability, rather than a problem, in the title. That’s going too far, detracts from disability activism, and is just quite simply wrong in so many ways, so I decided not to, but the fact that I considered it should be kept in mind when contemplating the seriousness of this problem. 

Also this goes both ways: workers without skills in management should not consider they are free to comment the other way, and for the same reasons I have been writing about in this post: they do not know.

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

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