Management gets a bad rap. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly it has to do with the fact that most people in management roles have no fucking idea what they should be doing to “manage” their teams.

OK, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but it’s a topic that I’m passionate about.

First off, people should not be “managed”. Sheep should be managed. Finances should be managed.  Finite energy resources should be “managed”.

People are people – note: not “resources” or “headcount” or “FTEs” – and they have lots and lots of capabilities, interests, ideas, and enthusiasms to bring to the table if we could just stop “managing” in the traditional understanding of the word.

A recent “Global Workforce Survey” of over 90,000 workers found some troubling data:

Here’s what the researchers discovered: barely one-fifth (21%) of employees are truly engaged in their work, in the sense that they would “go the extra mile” for their employer. Nearly four out of ten (38%) are mostly or entirely disengaged, while the rest are in the tepid middle. There’s no way to sugarcoat it—this data represents a stinging indictment of the legacy management practices found in most companies.

Ouch.

What are some of the typical mistakes managers make? There’s a thousand, but here are some big ones:

• Micromanagement
• Being too passive / avoiding leadership
• Assume expertise that they don’t have
• Incorrectly evaluating staff performance
• Infrequent or unclear communications
• Unclear goals, objectives, or priorities
• Thinking that “management” is more important than “people”.

That last one irks me.  I’m sorry, folks, but no piece of paper in the world, no date on the calendar, is worth even 1% of the output of your employees.  You commit yourself to your team, and the things written on your pieces of paper will start to look great, and the dates on your calendar will start to move backwards.  It’s magic.  People are magic when they are treated well.

I’m blessed with a team that, when I leave on vacation, everything gets done. 98% of that is due to the individuals in the team – I’m not about to kid myself here – but I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good manager and do the minimum, consistent, focused set of things necessary to align everyone’s objectives, clearly and quickly, and then step the hell out of the way and let them shine. I give lots of positive feedback where it’s due, and avoid nitpicky negative feedback about things that don’t matter. I try to develop a team-centric attitude. I like to celebrate shared successes. I like to give direct, clear, and immediate feedback if something is going haywire, and then follow up.

I’m not perfect. Far from it. By my own estimation, I do a lot of “manager”-type tasks poorly, still, even after 12 years of managing teams. For example, I’m notorious for forgetting birthdays and other special occasions.  But I like to think I’ve gotten the big things mostly right, and where I learn I have a gap as a manager, I try hard to fill it – first by asking for help, then demonstrating that I can do it myself, then thinking about doing it better and better until it’s second nature.

I also try to do one other thing as a manager: set a good example.  I work hard, treat people (mostly) well, am not afraid to show ignorance and ask for help, and I don’t bitch and moan in public (too often).  I try to be positive, friendly, and encouraging.  I think my team picks up on the way I conduct myself and I think some of my character rubs off on the team’s character.  Ergo: good team.

What do you do as a manager?  What do you hate about “management”?  Sound off in the comments!

“"Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about."

- Anon. A. Moose

I’ve given up on something I’ve been thinking about every day.  Reluctantly?  Sure.  But I’m conscious and aware and am not going into today and the rest of my life with this sort of half-baked semi- sorta- maybe- possibly- keeping one foot stuck in the doorway attitude.  At least I’m going to TRY not to do that.  We all fool ourselves, even the smart ones (*cough*), so it will be tough. It may be among the hardest things I’ve ever done.  I may backslide and think about things differently than I intend to.  But like I said yesterday, the goal is clear, even if the path is scary.

Yesterday was shredding day.  Yay?  I took several dozen pages of densely-handwritten journal entries and tore them up and put them in the secure shredding bin.  Another step towards closure.  I took the suggestion to clean house from a site on the internet.  Let me tell you, it didn’t feel good.  I suppose some people get off on physical manifestations of “moving on”, but for me it’s yet another opportunity to feel that ever-present twinge of sadness at something irrevocably lost.

Today is work.  Work, work, work.  Attempting to focus on that which I can control, which is this little laptop, and my fingers, and my eyes.  Let my thoughts go where they will, but I have code to bang out, projects to complete, plans to make.  I can’t keep living every day keeping myself an emotional hostage to what might have been, so I need to do those things that will move me forward to the next phase of my life.  For me, for right now, that’s work.  I enjoy it, I’m good at it, and it helps me achieve (some of) my goals.

I’m taking next week off from my day job and will likely work a lot.  Keep busy!   It’s way too much to expect that a single week’s passage will fix everything, but one week follows the next, and eventually one day you wake up and you feel … whole.  No missing parts. That’s what I’m shooting for.

In no particular order…

This morning I did eight reps on the Blaine Street staircase, or 8×293=2344 stairs.  It’s (again) a personal record for me by one rep.  I was nervous in the last 24 hours wondering if I could do it – both physical and mental stress have been fluctuating according to some random differential equation lately.  However, when push came to shove, I shoved, and, if you held a gun to my head, I could have gotten one more rep.  Maybe two.  Always leave them guessing and wanting more, right?

Today was Day 68 of my streak.  Tomorrow is Day 69 so I’ll have to think very creatively about what type of exercise I engage in tomorrow   Ha ha!  That’s more funny to me than it probably is to you, knowing what I know about my life.

Yesterday I had a wonderful time catching up with a good college friend who I had not seen, or talked to, in literally about 15 years.  He’s a great guy and I’m really glad he looked me up (on Biznik, of all places).  I’m looking forward to re-establishing a friendship with him.  He’s working on some really interesting alternative-energy projects.

Lately the side-project work has been a steady, if small, trickle: I got asked just yesterday for some information on what it would take to do some features for a web-based system that I had previously worked on.  I like the continual votes of confidence that getting asked to do additional work implies.  I take great pride in my work, my work ethic, and my sense of professionalism.  I think customers, managers, and coworkers all appreciate that about me.

We had a sort of oddball iteration at my day job this week – in addition to having to absorb a pretty significant hotfix, we also found out (on the last day!) that the work we’d done on a fairly thorny application wasn’t what the customer actually wanted after all.  I got my panties in a bunch for a few minutes, being the hotheaded Scorpio that I am, but just as quickly cooled down.  This stuff happens; live and learn and try to get everybody on the same page a bit more thoroughly next time.  The net result is that we’re going to release only a part of our work, and defer a decision on the rest of it for later.  More complicated?  Sure.  No biggie.  Work is not what’s complicated for me right now.

I’m going to try to do less personal-exposé blogging in the near future.  Now, I make no claim to consistency, only of good intentions, so if you’re reading this page next week and I’m going off about some private matter, forgive me in advance.  But I think it’s for the best, all things considered.  If there are any significant changes in my personal life (and there may well be), I may write about them, but I’m not going to do a Jim Lampley, NBC Sports-style focus piece every time I get my knee scraped, and I’m DEFINITELY going to try to keep personal issues in long-term perspective.  So – if you’re a friend, and you want details, e-mail me.

Closing with this thought: Sometimes you can only cross an ocean with a single leap.  Call this the quantum theory of personal lives.

How do I describe today?  Mixed?  Too tame an adjective.  Schizophrenic?  Too dramatic.  This is the curse of the writer – to never have quite the right word in the queue when the time comes.  Bloggers, at least bloggers like me who typically write everything all in one draft, are doubly cursed – we don’t have the time or the inclination to jump to the thesaurus when the proper phrase comes begging.

Let’s punt and call it up and down.  Up, in the sense that my head felt screwed on straight, and I was able to approach Topic X with as much sense, perspective, and calmness as I’ve been able to muster in – God, I don’t know how long.  Down, in the sense that fate conspired, in a bitter irony, to interfere in the life of a friend, throw down with intent, and raise all sorts of painful and exhausting trauma, both immediately, and, I foresee, for a long time to come.  So I feel terrible for my friend, who has to deal with this unwanted grief.  I don’t know how to console my friend – what’s necessary? What’s welcome?  What’s appropriate?  I just don’t know.  I know that my compassion knows (virtually) no bounds, but the protocol of friendship can be complicated in times of pain and suffering – you might want to give all, but perhaps that’s just not what’s called for, or asked for.

It sucks not to know what is the right thing to do.  People don’t always reach out in their grief; for comfort, for consolation, for someone to listen, for someone to vent on.  I’ve let my friend know that I’m there for them – in whatever capacity, and we’ll just leave it at that for now.

Speaking of friends, I expressed my appreciation to a different friend via e-mail a few days or a week ago, and last night got a return e-mail thanking me for the original expression of gratitude.  It’s a virtuous circle when you start telling people how much they mean to you, in whatever context.  What was that movie?  Pay it Forward?

On to other topics – today was day 52 in a row of exercising.  I went to the gym and busted my ass on the medicine ball and weights.  Again, I might sound like a broken record, but I’m definitely getting stronger.  But bad news on the exercising front – the soccer team I tried out with, The Spanish Inquisition, had a former player return to the fold so my only available spot on that team is as a sub.  I think I’ll go for that arrangement – it’s a good group, I’ll still get a bunch of playing time, and I’ll position myself for a full-time spot when spring league starts.

Regarding exercise, I’m thinking about writing an e-book called Rest Days Are For Pussies – And Nine Other Commandments That Will Get You Fit.  I guess I have to get fit first before I start yapping, eh?    But I’m really enjoying working out every day.  I look forward to it, to the variety, the various mild soreness, aches, and pains that result. I also love the changes I’m seeing in the mirror; in the fit of my pants, and in the random comments I get from friends.  It’s a win-win-win situation all around.

What else?  I killed at work today.  We’ve been working on an old, creaky, C++ program whose primary developer is long gone.  My best developer has been on paternity leave, and I’ve been, um, distracted with Topic X depending on which day it is.  Nevertheless, we’re knocking it out of the park.  My boss today gave me a big pat on the back with how fast and smooth the iteration has gone.  I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.

Ending today thinking long and hard about what my friend must be going through right now.  So I’m sending out good thoughts over the invisible Æther that connects us all together, and hope that they find a quick and safe landing in the mind and heart.

I’m intending to try to bury myself in work in the upcoming months (years?), as a way to give myself something completely overwhelmingly time-consuming to focus on.  I’m working on side projects, looking for more, dusting off old plans for applications and features, talking to others about new ideas, and generally want to spend most of my waking moments at the keyboard, working on this, that or the other software project.

I need to focus on something other than the last four months.  My heart can not take any more (self-inflicted?) blows.  I sit here deflated, worn, tired, ground under the heel of life and life’s less-than-stellar outcomes, and another mixed, painful ride on an emotional roller-coaster will surely end in some unfortunate result for me personally.  I’ll look down on the shattered pieces of atria and ventricles, icy and black, and will find no further depths of numbness to experience.  I’m tapped out.

It’s apparent at some point that I’ll have to strike out on my own, career-wise – for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost, working for someone else is simply not the greatest way to ensure long-term financial security.  Second, there are always new challenges that one should actively seek out and embrace, purely for personal growth reasons.  Third – well, third will be obvious to careful readers.  For the moment, however, I continue to give my very best, and continue to excel in getting high-quality product in front of our clients.  Our team dynamic is excellent.  Our productivity relative to peers is excellent.  Our ability to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances is excellent (thank you, Agile!).  So I feel good, and will continue to feel good for a long time, about my contribution to the success of my team and my company.  But ultimately…it will be time for a change.

Change starts today.  I learned that putting off change is self-defeating, purposeless, a wary and conservative approach to a life that is as unpredictable as the Lottery.  You think you can predict the future?  Let me rattle off the list of times over the last four months that I thought I had it nailed, and then you go back and think to yourself whether you really have the prognosticating ability you thought you had.  If you still answer “yes”, you’re as foolish as I’ve been.

To summarize: looking for interesting projects.  Know of any?  Throw some love my way in the comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my “ideal day” in terms of the ebb and flow of work. I’m at a new contract location which has required me to change my rhythms, and the initial lack of “flow” was definitely noticeable.

My ideal workday would go something like this:

Total work time: 8.5 hours
Total programming time: 6.5 hours

The longest heads-down session in this scenario is 2.5 hours, which is about as long as I can concentrate in one sitting. I find the frequent changes pleasant and refreshing.

How about you? What’s your ideal work day?