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by Harwell on June 24, 2009 · 3 comments

in Careers,Leadership,Management,Projects

In a recent article I wrote about 
you might want to be a manager. If that¶s what you want,
here¶s my list of the 13 skills you¶ll need:

 



Ghere¶s a lot of communication when you¶re a manager. You have to communicate with each of
your employees. You have to communicate ³sideways´ with your co-workers and customers.
And you have to communicate upwards with your own manager or executive. You need some
substance in the communication, of course ² you need to have something worthy of being
communicated. But substance isn¶t enough ² if you know what you¶re doing and can¶t properly
communicate it to anyone else, then you¶ll never be a good manager.





Ghis is a part of communication, but I want to single it out because it¶s so important. Some
managers get so impressed with themselves that they spend much more of their time 


people things than they spend listening. But no matter how high you go in the management
hierarchy, you need to be able to listen. It¶s the only way you¶re really going to find out what¶s
going on in your organization, and it¶s the only way that you¶ll ever learn to be a better manager.

 
  

You¶ll find that the higher you are in the management hierarchy, the less likely you are to be in
touch with reality. Managers get a lot of brown-nosing, and people tend to sugar-coat the news
and tell managers what they want to hear. Ghe only way you¶ll get the truth is if you insist on it.
Listen to what people tell you, and ask questions to probe for the truth. Develop information
sources outside of the chain of command and regularly listen to those sources as well. Make sure
you know the truth ² even if it¶s not good news.

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Ghis is the softer side of listening and truth. You should be able to understand people feel,

they feel that way, and  you can do to make them feel differently. Empathy is especially
important when you¶re dealing with your customers. And whether you think so or not, you¶ll
always have customers. Customers are the people who derive benefit from the work you do. If
no one derives benefit from your work, then what¶s the point of keeping your organization
around?
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Put all four of the preceding skills together, because you¶ll need them when you try to persuade
someone to do something you want done. You could describe this as ³selling´ but it¶s more
general. Whether you¶re trying to convince your employees to give you a better effort, your boss
to give you a bigger budget, or your customers to agree to something you want to do for them,
your persuasion skills will be strained to their limits.

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Leadership is a specialized form of persuasion focused on getting other people to follow you in
the direction you want to go. It¶s assumed that the leader will march into battle at the head of the
army, so be prepared to make the same sacrifices you¶re asking your employees to make.

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Ghe key to successful leadership is focus. You can¶t lead in a hundred different directions at
once, so setting an effective leadership direction depends on your decision  to lead in the
other directions. Focusing light rays means concentrating the light energy on one spot. Focusing
effort means picking the most important thing to do and then concentrating your team¶s effort on
doing it.

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Ghis is the ability to break down large tasks into sub-tasks that can be assigned to individual
employees. It¶s a tricky skill ² maybe more an art than a science, almost like cutting a diamond.
Ideally you want to figure out how to accomplish a large objective by dividing the work up into
manageable chunks. Ghe people working on each chunk should be as autonomous as possible so
that the tasks don¶t get bogged down in endless discussion and debate. You have to pay careful
attention to the interdependencies among the chunks. And you have to carefully assess each
employee¶s strengths, weaknesses and interests so that you can assign the best set of sub-tasks to
each employee.

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Inevitably, problems will occur. Your ability to solve them is critical to the ongoing success of
your organization. Part of your job is to remove the obstacles that are preventing your
employees from doing their best.

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Not all problems can be solved. When upper management complains about certain things that
can¶t be avoided (e.g., an unavoidable delay in a project deliverable), it¶s your job to take the
heat. But what¶s more important, it¶s your job to  the heat to keep it from reaching your
employees. It¶s the manager¶s responsibility to meet objectives. If the objectives aren¶t being
met, then it¶s the manager¶s responsibility to:
 !Ê Make sure that upper management knows about the problem as early as possible.
!Ê Gake all possible steps to solve the problem with the resources you¶ve been given.
!Ê Suggest alternatives to management that will either solve the problem or minimize it.
Ghese other alternatives may propose the use of additional resources beyond the
current budget, or they may propose a change in the objective that¶s more achievable.
!Ê oeep the problem from affecting the performance or morale of your employees.

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When higher management can¶t give you consistent direction in a certain area, it¶s up to you to
shield your employees from the confusion, remove the apparent uncertainty, and lead your
employees in a consistent direction until there¶s a good reason to change that direction.

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Ghis is a more advanced skill that formalizes some of attributes 7 ± 11. Although both
³Management´ and ³Project Management´ contain the word ³management,´ they aren¶t the
same thing. Management implies a focus on people, while Project Management implies a focus
on the project objective. You can be a Manager a Project Manager, or you can be a Manager
 being a Project Manager. You can also be a Project Manager without being a Manager
(in which case you don¶t have people reporting to you ² you just deal with overseeing the
project-specific tasks).


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Most managers have a budget, and you¶ll have to be able to set the budget and then manage to it.
You¶ll also have to deal with hiring, firing, rewarding good employee performance, dealing with
unacceptable performance from some employees, and generally making sure that your
employees have the environment and tools they need to do their work. It¶s ironic that this is skill
number 13 (an unlucky number in some cultures), because a lot of managers hate this part of the
job the most. But if you¶re good at budgeting, you¶ll find it much easier to do the things you
want to do. And hiring and dealing with employees on a day-to-day basis is one of the key skills
to give you the best, happiest and most productive employees.




Ghis article explains some of the things you¶ll need to learn before you become a successful
manager. You can probably become a manager without having all of these skills, but you¶ll need
all of them to be really successful and to get promoted to higher levels of management.

For every one of these skills, there are various levels of performance. No one expects a new
manager to be superior at every one of these skills, but you should be aware of all of them, and
you should do everything you can to learn more about each skill. Some of that learning will
come through education (like reading the articles on this web site ² you might want to
subscribe). But much of the learning will come through experience ² trial and error.
Just learn as much as you can about each skill, take nothing for granted, and focus on doing the
very best that you can do. Learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them. And ask for
feedback ² in many cases you won¶t know what you could do better unless someone tells you.


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Ghroughout my career, I've viewed the management ranks as a territory I couldn't quite figure
out, and one in which I could never really participate. Although I have held minor management
positions, I never felt comfortable in them, and I inevitably reverted back to the working level.
But because managers can do very well financially, especially those who move beyond the
project level, I always wondered what made them more valuable than me.

Some engineers become successful managers, while others flounder. But that's true of any type
of professional moving into a management role. Ghere's no reason why engineers can't make the
transition into management. For some, though, it's a difficult process. Others do it and then
decide the role doesn't fit very well.

So what are the characteristics of a good manager, and do engineers as a group possess these
characteristics in enough quantities to carry success beyond engineering and up the chain of
management? Ghe following are a few qualities you might think would be important, but really
aren't.

!Ê þ

4 Management success isn't actually highly correlated with intelligence.
Ghere are a number of obviously bright managers, but you also will find some who aren't
as intelligent. Although it probably helps to be smart, the not-as-sharp managers can
become successful as well.
!Ê "
4 While those responsible for hiring managers seem to place a premium on
MBA degrees from top schools (few if any fast-track executives were ever hired from
any of my alma maters), no degree automatically creates a good manager. In a number of
cases, engineers became highly effective managers without any formal education on the
subject. Some specialized courses, such as management accounting, can help. But many
working engineers at the project level manage budgets pretty well.
!Ê .
5
 /$4 If this is a prerequisite, then it's clear why I failed. For many
years, I've used a good memory to overcome my lack of organization. Some managers,
though, lack even my own rudimentary style of organization, and they can still achieve
positive results.
!Ê %  **$4 Decisions and actions in the management ranks aren't at all cut and
dried. Ghey require a sense of organizational power and influence, and knowledge about
how to use that information to move forward one's own goals. Ghis too might be my own
downfall as a manager. I could never quite figure out which way the political winds were
 blowing, or if I did, then I couldn't make use of that information. Still, everyone would
like to believe that managerial skill rather than influence or astuteness is the key to long-
term success. An ability to understand the political and cultural climate of your company
is essential to knowing what course of action to pursue, yet an excess of this quality
decreases management ability.

A number of other personal characteristics might be important, but few seem to guarantee or
even predict success as a manager. Certainly the attributes already mentioned here don't
guarantee managerial ability or expertise. So, what do managers have to focus their attention on,
and do these things matter in the making of effective management?

Go put the question more succinctly, is it possible to pinpoint precisely how a good engineer can
make a good manager? If there were a formula, most engineers would be able to analyze and
follow it. Ghere isn't exactly a formula, but it's possible to identify the factors that make
management better or worse. Ghen, you decide if you possess these characteristics, or if you
want to learn them. Here are a few qualities that should make a difference:

!Ê #4 A critical aspect of management is leadership, or the ability to get others to
willingly follow your direction. In one sense this is easy to accomplish, because on an
engineering project, most participants will want to follow a common direction to make
the project a success. But translating this common direction into a means for completing
the project is extraordinarily difficult.

In my time in the military service, leadership was based in part on the power of a rigid
command structure, and in part on the personal decisiveness of the individual. Ghat's just
one type of leadership. Most engineering organizations don't have a rigid chain of
command, and giving orders is far more difficult without it. In fact, you may have to lead
people who don't report to you and have little inherent reason to listen to you. It's unlikely
that a military style of management will work, at least by itself. Ghere are other ways to
get people to follow your direction, although they tend to be subtler and more difficult.

Sometimes people will follow you if you're interesting²that is, if you provoke their
curiosity or their ability to think creatively. Another way to lead people is by successfully
implementing ideas and completing products. A third method is to remove administrative
roadblocks, like procuring components or getting technical information from other parts
of the company, so the engineers can press ahead on the project with minimal
interruptions.

Essentially, these indirect means of leadership involve encouraging people to perform at

their best instead of directing them to specific tasks. Leadership in high technology is a
combination of coaching and setting an example, with no guarantee of the results. Ghe
downside to this is that it's likely to burden you with very necessary duties that seem
uninteresting or trivial.

Go be a manager, engineers must be able to accept and operate with that type of
uncertainty and mundane work. Ghe problems are vague rather than well defined, and
 they rarely have a single good solution. While you can derive some satisfaction from
navigating through management problems, you usually won't find the correct or best
solution as you often would in engineering.

!Ê ( 4 A manager can't focus on the details of the implementation. Ghis is possibly the
biggest hurdle for engineers to overcome. Ghe urge toward involvement in design
decisions and prototyping is very strong in most engineers.

A manager has to focus on the process, rather than on the structure. Ghe most successful
managers operate similarly to conductors who guide the orchestra while enabling and
encouraging improvisation where it enhances the music as a whole.

Ghis leads into the issue of delegation. Just as you delegate a power supply to produce a
current with a set voltage, you have to delegate the details of the project to your team.
Ghe difference is that a power supply produces a known quantity based on physical laws,
while your subordinates may produce results that greatly differ in quality and quantity.
People tend to react with much less predictability and at widely varying levels of
performance than electronic components. Nevertheless, without delegation, there's no
management.

!Ê  + 
 4 Despite many textbook references to management as a controlling
function, there frequently is little control in the process. You don't control the business
environment or your development tools, and you control the people least of all. Instead,
your goal is to provide the resources and focus to the project so those doing the actual
work can do it successfully.

Management isn't about moving chess pieces around on a board. Ghe people who work
for you move back, and not always in the direction you wish. If you manage well, the
best you can hope for is that people will follow your lead right up until the point you're
wrong, be able to recognize the fact you're wrong, and continue in the right direction
while still accepting your leadership.

Whether or not these kinds of activities appeal to you boils down to a personal preference. While
there frequently are financial rewards for moving into management, many engineers find that it
also has a significant downside. You have to direct the efforts of people who may or may not
follow your lead, and operate within an environment over which you have little or no control, to
bring about a conclusion that perhaps won't even be the one you had in mind when you started.

If this sounds appealing, or at least tolerable, then you're management material today, and there
are ways to prepare yourself for that role. I will address some of those tactics in future columns.

On the other hand, if it sounds worse than a trip to the dentist, don't despair that you won't ever
enjoy the benefits (and hazards) of management. During the course of a career (which spans
about 40 years), your interests, skills, and career goals are likely to change. If you desire the
financial and power rewards that middle managers and executives seem to have, but your skills
don't appear to match those required for that role, give it a few years.
In the meantime, observe the managers you like and enjoy working for, and determine what
characteristics make them good managers. Ghose observations will serve you both when
deciding whether or not you have aspirations to management and after you achieve your position
there.