May 1, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Given the technological advancement we see on a continous basis, I would submit that senior technologists will always prove their value to their employers, as long as they are commited to staying current. That being said, don't those who wish to remain technologists keep up with all the latest technology so that they can continue to contribute to a company's success? I'd have to say, in my experience, that is exactly what they do. Therefore promoting a unwilling technologist to a management role is a terrible business decision.
I've heard of some companies that are "upside down" in that the technologists are considered to be the most valuable asset in the company and that the company hierarchy or structure caters to cultivating that high regard for their contributions. These companies also appear to be "light" when it comes to management positions, especially when it comes to managing the technologists. I'm not a big fan of "Atlas Shrugged" but there is good sense to recognizing and cultivating the technology driven employees that contribute so much to a company's bottom line, including a career and salary track that rewards them appropriately.
May 1, 2012 at 2:42 pm
j_e_o (5/1/2012)
Given the technological advancement we see on a continous basis, I would submit that senior technologists will always prove their value to their employers, as long as they are commited to staying current. That being said, don't those who wish to remain technologists keep up with all the latest technology so that they can continue to contribute to a company's success? I'd have to say, in my experience, that is exactly what they do. Therefore promoting a unwilling technologist to a management role is a terrible business decision.I've heard of some companies that are "upside down" in that the technologists are considered to be the most valuable asset in the company and that the company hierarchy or structure caters to cultivating that high regard for their contributions. These companies also appear to be "light" when it comes to management positions, especially when it comes to managing the technologists. I'm not a big fan of "Atlas Shrugged" but there is good sense to recognizing and cultivating the technology driven employees that contribute so much to a company's bottom line, including a career and salary track that rewards them appropriately.
I agree, it is not good to promote or move unwilling people into a position, but if you spend enough time in this business most of us will experience this sooner or later. I know I have. People leave for whatever reasons and holes have to be filled, and sometimes you fill them with the players you got left and the budget you're dealt. Not all business decisions are smart, or of a company's own choosing at times. It is what it is. There are many times in the past I had to take over management responsibilities that I didn't voluntarily choose to do. Oh well...Thats's life. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 1, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Ian Elliott (5/1/2012)
Completely agree with this one. At my current job I've started as standard IT Support and in my many years here I've grown and now do additional roles like DBA, Developer, Process Manager. However my job title has never changed and as people in our dept leave (move on, fired, redundancy etc) I'm always thrust back into the standard IT Support role.It's very frustrating that after so many years and my increased skillset I'm still viewed as a support person. I've raised this point in many appraisals and while everyone agrees that I should have and deserve a career path it just never happens.
I'm now back to being a support person again and have been pretty much told that I'll be in this role for the foreseeable future and that there are no plans to hire another support person to allow me to continue becoming something more. Very frustrating. :angry:
WOW, Eliot, that really sucks.
Rod
May 1, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Doctor Who 2 (5/1/2012)
Ian Elliott (5/1/2012)
Completely agree with this one. At my current job I've started as standard IT Support and in my many years here I've grown and now do additional roles like DBA, Developer, Process Manager. However my job title has never changed and as people in our dept leave (move on, fired, redundancy etc) I'm always thrust back into the standard IT Support role.It's very frustrating that after so many years and my increased skillset I'm still viewed as a support person. I've raised this point in many appraisals and while everyone agrees that I should have and deserve a career path it just never happens.
I'm now back to being a support person again and have been pretty much told that I'll be in this role for the foreseeable future and that there are no plans to hire another support person to allow me to continue becoming something more. Very frustrating. :angry:
WOW, Eliot, that really sucks.
Yeah it really does. Been there, done that myself. It is called "pigeon-holing" and I have seen it derail many peoples career goals over the years until they got fed up and worked up the the gumption to leave and just moved on. What tends to happen is once you get good at doing something for the company particularly that no one else wants to do. You get "pigeon-holed" into that reponsibility for rest of the time you are there.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 1, 2012 at 3:00 pm
To me, this just seems to be par for the course. In all of my professional life, I have never worked for a company, either in the public sector or the private sector, that had thought of a good career path for individual contributors. Several years ago I heard that Texas Instruments did have a good career path for individual contributors, which paralleled that of people going into management. I don't know if that's still true.
Makes me wonder though; what's it like working for some of these hot startups, like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc? Companies that weren't even around 10 years ago; some weren't even around 5 years ago. It seems to me as though technical people are the driving force within such companies. Will technical people always be at the head of such companies? Or is it inevitable that all companies prize and promote management over individual contributors?
Rod
May 1, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Yeah it really does. Been there, done that myself. It is called "pigeon-holing" and I have seen it derail many peoples career goals over the years until they got fed up and worked up the the gumption to leave and just moved on. What tends to happen is once you get good at doing something for the company particularly that no one else wants to do. You get "pigeon-holed" into that reponsibility for rest of the time you are there.
Yeah that's pretty much the situation at the moment. The only thing thats stopped me from doing this already is finding somewhere better. Not the best time to be looking for jobs round here at the moment and then there's the old adage, "the grass isn't always greener." I've found this a few times and I really want to make sure that if I do move on that it really is worth moving on to.
But I suppose that's the risk with many companies these days. Many won't even confirm a salary let alone detail what type of career path they offer and you may have to work for them for a while before you know for sure and it's then, move to management if you can and if not move on again.
It's a shame that so many companies aren't more open and honest with people about what type of career they're willing/able to offer employees or even more companies that respect people enough to actually try to provide them with a suitable career path instead of viewing them as an asset/resource to be used up as required.:(
May 2, 2012 at 5:20 am
I have mostly worked in companies where technical people can become managers, and vice versa. There are some people who don't have the mindset/personality that senior administrative roles, some that don't fit senior management roles, and some that don't fit senior technical roles; and of course some that don't fit any of those roles. There are people who make good competent senior managers who are pretty hopless at any techical task, expert administrators who couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery, and terrific technical leaders for whom the administrative complexity of booking a table at a restaurant would render this a feat way beyond their capability, but there are also people who are good at two or all three role types (it seems to me that most people who are good at one of the three are also good at least one other of the three). The only way to find out who can do which is to ask (if someone says they have neither the capability of doing something nor the will to do it you can peobably believe them) and if the person thinks they can do it, try it but and see. Remember to provide a seriously useful mentor and at least some basic training - not a week long "basic management" course that covers less material that should take 30 minutes or a "programming in XYZ course" than lasts three weeks when the average high school graduate could master the subject in 3 days or someone who played with basic on a toy computer when they were knw-high to a grasshopper could learn in less than a day, but some training on which people will learn something commensurate with the time it takes and will not be bored out of their skulls.
At senior levels, if the people concerned are competent, it's very easy for the distinction between the three sorts of role to become somewhat blurred. In fact it's often a good thing if the distinctions are blurred! When I was young and innocent I used to enjoy a mainly technical job, but as I got older interactions with other people became more important to me and the jobs I've enjoyed most have been a mixture of technical and management. But so was the job I hated most.
Promoting technical people into management can go wrong, but usually not because the person concerned is incapable of doing management. There are two common reasons: first is that the person involved is being pushed into a management role against their will - that will hardly ever work; second is that the company's system expects its managers to be completely non-technical. It is very rare for it to go wrong when a techical person wants the promotion and is allowed to continue to handle technical things as part of the management role. (In my first serious management role I was provided with a technical clerk to deal with administrivia and with clerical stuff, so that I had plenty of time to be technical.
There can be problems caused by office politics too. Some managers resent there being any senior technical oversight over their staff, sometimes thinking that they can handle the technical oversight for themselves although they have decided to be a management-oriented manager and not keep up with the technical side. Some senior technical people resent not having control over massive staffs, despite being totally unwilling to put the required effort into maintaining morale, dealing with career progression, and co-ordinating the planning for a large department or division of a company. Some senior administrators resent having to administer systems over whose design they have no control, despite being willing to take neither management repsonsibility for the policy decisions that determine the functions of the systems nor technical responsibility for the design of systems to perform those functions. People with those attitudes are the ones who mustn't be pronmoted into senior positions where they may have to cover two of administration, management, and technology. I believe that most people won't have those attitudes unless they have learnt from working in the wrong sort of company that these are the attitudes that are rewarded.
Tom
May 2, 2012 at 8:05 am
Career path? I've never considered this even important, much less critical. I do my job, my skills continue to evolve and improve as I teach myself new things related to that job.
Is "keep doing what I'm good at and keep getting better at it and don't worry about getting a new, fancier job title that still has the same duties but sounds cooler somehow" a career-path?
I've been a company's best salesperson. They transfered me into IT, but they sure never promoted me. So I guess they complied with that rule. (Sales dropped by 30% that year because of my transfer.)
I've been a manager. Enjoyed it. Was good at it. Not sure I'll bother doing it again, since I enjoy what I'm doing now, and it pays well enough (just got a nice raise, too). Given the opportunity, I'd probably accept a promotion, but I'm not going to bother asking for one, since I'm not concerned about status. For that matter, it's pretty usual for a DBA to earn more than his manager does, and I suspect that may be the case with my manager.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 2, 2012 at 8:31 am
It's a shame that so many companies aren't more open and honest with people about what type of career they're willing/able to offer employees or even more companies that respect people enough to actually try to provide them with a suitable career path instead of viewing them as an asset/resource to be used up as required.:(
Ian, I feel your pain. Unfortunately most companies today don't give a tinkers dam about their employee's career, and even if they were upfront and honest, and came out and told everyone that, what do you think would happen? Unfortunately in todays dog-eat-dog world that's just the way it is. It's all about their bottom line, and filling the holes they need to fill to keep the business afloat.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 2, 2012 at 8:55 am
Actually, I am living the answer to most of what we have been discussing. Quite a few years back, my company embarked on a journey to embrace agile practices. We first started with TDD/CI then adopted SCRUM. With SCRUM, the teams are self managing. Are we perfect? No. Has there been significant improvement in understanding and quality? Definitely! Is it measureable? Yup, sure is.
What does all that mean? Well, it means that my company is about to undergo a radical change where we will start phasing out middle management. Folks who used to be technical will come back into the fold as technologists or maybe scrum masters (although we plan on rotating people in this role). The playing field at work will become much flatter and peer oriented and we will improve even more because of it.
What about reviews and career development? The team will conduct reviews of the individual members using a standard review form (anonymously) and HR will assist the team with career development.
I'm excited and looking forward to it-- because it really works.
May 2, 2012 at 9:04 am
j_e_o (5/2/2012)
Actually, I am living the answer to most of what we have been discussing. Quite a few years back, my company embarked on a journey to embrace agile practices. We first started with TDD/CI then adopted SCRUM. With SCRUM, the teams are self managing. Are we perfect? No. Has there been significant improvement in understanding and quality? Definitely! Is it measureable? Yup, sure is.What does all that mean? Well, it means that my company is about to undergo a radical change where we will start phasing out middle management. Folks who used to be technical will come back into the fold as technologists or maybe scrum masters (although we plan on rotating people in this role). The playing field at work will become much flatter and peer oriented and we will improve even more because of it.
What about reviews and career development? The team will conduct reviews of the individual members using a standard review form (anonymously) and HR will assist the team with career development.
I'm excited and looking forward to it-- because it really works.
Sounds great.
Make sure that the peer-review process can recommend training and similar actions beyond just "send the *#*&@ to HR so we can dump him". Important to plan for skill-remediation as well as advancement.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 2, 2012 at 10:04 am
Make sure that the peer-review process can recommend training and similar actions beyond just "send the *#*&@ to HR so we can dump him". Important to plan for skill-remediation as well as advancement.
We definitely will cover those kinds of issues, which often don't get the attention they deserve.
May 2, 2012 at 10:50 am
@TravisDBA - Yes unfortunately you're correct. It's an unfortunate situation that I don't see changing without some type of drastic global event that can change attitudes. Until then it's grin and bare it and moan about it time. 😀
@j_e_o - That does sound great. Nothing like a shake up in thinking to promote progress.;-)
May 7, 2012 at 1:13 pm
majorbloodnock (5/1/2012)
Eric M Russell (5/1/2012)
Most sales professions get paid on commission, so it seems to me that a company's "best" sales people (those who consistently open a large number of high value accounts) should be happy with their arrangement, and the company should be happy for all their productive efforts.If that's not the case, if the best sales people arn't happy with their commissions or the company isn't happy with what they contribute, then there is something wrong with the incentive program or the company's goals.
That's only true whilst money remains the sales professional's major motivator. In reality, we all move on as priorities change.
You show me a Salesweasel who is not motivated by money and I'll show you a **** Salesweasel
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
May 7, 2012 at 1:29 pm
TravisDBA (5/1/2012)
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to relate a difficult technical issue to a non-technical manager after he/she asks you what the problem is. My dad used to have a good analogy: "If you are going to manage a bunch of janitors, then you should know how to use a mop." 😀
I've been lucky enough to have some very good non-technical managers. One in particular was parachuted in, and initially found it a bit bewildering. For about 2 weeks. Then she sussed out one important question - worked for me and her. Ok - problem is "xyz", this is what I think we need, is there anything I've missed, and what you do you need from me? She was amazing at just going in and "doing the politics", bringing the other management together and accepting that "If you want <critical project> in by <time>, you will have to accept a hit in other areas".
Then again, I have also had "technical" managers who because database systems were a mystery to them, but didn't realise it, but because they were "technical" and knew better than the database specialist (being senior), made serial balls ups.
The bottom line is, I reckon - from my experience of managing and mentoring people - is that no matter how much of a Ninja you *think* you are, there's a reason why you have two ears and one mouth. If you're doing more talking than listening you're doing it wrong. (That's from my grandmother - who was not technical, btw)
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
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