TECH NOTES

Everyone who has been in the Information Technology industry for any length of time will have a host of “war stories” when it comes to experiences with dealing with bad managers. In fact, it is rare to find a professional technician these days who can recount a career with mostly good managers.

In a recent study (the name of which I can’t remember though I just finished reading it) in which a large swath of managers and technicians were asked as to the reasons employees leave companies, the results were not just astonishing but provide a complete disconnect between the two groups interviewed.

The bottom line was this however, “Employees leave managers, not companies…” as articulated by the CEO of the major Indian IT firm, Wipro.

Bad management in Information Technology is the sole reason for failed and cancelled projects, employee retention issues, and poor performance as IT relates to the requirements of business which seems to always “pander” to the needs of business managers who have little or no idea of what they are requesting. And to make it worse, few technical managers know how to control such situations through developed techniques of artful negotiation.

Bad managers come in all types; the technically incompetent, the useless, the harmless, the “nice guy” who accomplishes nothing, and of the course the outright dangerous who for some reason upper management loves while they allow him or her to create mayhem in the ranks below.

None can be worse than the manager who is a “control freak”… and a “control freak” who not only tries to control their own world but the world of everyone about them as well.

Many who have come in contact with such people initially react to the situation with the response that they have done something wrong which is exactly what such a person is always trying to convey. However, those that take the time to analyze the circumstances they have found themselves caught up in will often find a much more sinister set of forces at work that have little to do with their own performance.

This type of “control freak”, as the article below demonstrates, is a seriously, emotionally ill person who is trapped inside a body with a very high level of anxiety about losing control. The results in their relationships whether it be with family, spouse, or employee are often disastrous for everyone.

Though the article provides some counter-measures that can be used to make the situation bearable such counter-measures provide very little for the emotions of the person trying to employ them. They are only short-term fixes to a solution that is often never-ending.

Thus, if you were to move beyond the mere psychological emphasis on such situations to that of the more beneficial world of military tactics in the more severe situations, you would find that you are really left with only a single choice; “retreat”. In other words, what must be done is to simply take control away from the offender and leave the situation which the article also prescribes as the most self-preserving resort.

Read on for a stark description of what you may be facing and if you are in such a situation notice how many symptoms you keep on seeing in your supervisor. You will be somewhat relieved and amazed…

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