#27-1-30-07: Bush & Leadership & Management
Bush & Leadership & Technology
“What can we learn from President Bush about Leadership and Management?”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Ttuesday, January 30, 2007
Good morning!
Everywhere around us there are good and bad examples of management and leadership. In fact, a perfect example of the distinction between management and leadership is currently being represented by our government, that is, the government of the United States.
Now without getting into whether I’m for or against the Iraqi war, for or against the “surge” of troops, for or against pulling out, or for or against the resolutions currently working their way through congress, I will talk about the leadership and management of the Iraqi “situation”.
So as we look at the Iraqi “situation” what does it tell us about management and leadership?
First and foremost, lets talk about what the general consensus is about George Bush’s leadership. Most people would say that Bush is displaying “leadership” (whether they agree with his policies or not) because he is picking a direction and he is pointing the nation in that direction. That direction may not be a consensus direction, but as the leader of the United State, as the Commander In Chief, his responsibility, his duty, is to select a direction and point the county in that direction. By most accounts that’s leadership and I would agree (not necessarily with the direction, but with the concept of leadership).
As the old song line goes, “Is that all there is”? Is the leadership being displayed by Bush and the resulting situation in Iraq the way it is because Bush is just a terrible leader, or is it because he is a good leader in a terrible situation, or is he a terrible leader in a terrible situation.
My answer is that it’s not so simple, even though for some it might seem a simple answer. For some people, leadership and management are simple concepts. The leader sets direction and says what is to be done, and the manager implements, and does what the leader wants done. To some, the perfect example is George Bush and his administration. Bush set the direction as the leader; invade Iraq. He then turned it over to his “managers”, Rumsfeld and others on his staff, to implement. That’s how it goes for some. The leader decides on the direction and hands off the implementation to managers. Bush hands the goal of Iraq to his managers, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush team. In general, this is the accepted definition of leadership and management.
I don’t think so! That my friends is not the way it works and I’ve seen it not work over and over and over. So let me tell you how the world really works. Let me tell you a better definition of leadership and management.
Think of it this way. Management and Leadership are like two sides of a coin. You can’t have one without the other (another song line). Management and Leadership go hand-in-hand. I have seen so many leaders who have failed because they did not manage. I have seen fantastic leaders and they were fantastic because they were also managers. You can’t be a successful leader without being a good manager. You can, however, be a great manager, without being a leader.
The leader who doesn’t manage is doomed to failure as a leader! However, often people think that the leader “out-grows” the need to be a manager and somehow the manger must grow into being a leader. The fact of the matter is that to be a successful leader, the leader must manage as well.
There you have it. Management is the implementation of goals and the achievement of desired outcomes. Leadership is the pointing toward the desired outcome. The manager can just be a manager with the desired outcome handed off to him or her by the leader. However, the leader must create the desired outcome. But, the successful leader must also be a manager or they will end up with the mess, like the mess that was produced by Rumsfeld who is a terrible manager.
You see this is President Bush’s downfall. He considers himself too much a leader and not enough a manager. In Bush’s case, a better approach would have been to set the direction (leadership), whatever that direction, and then manage the managers who have been selected to implement the tasks. It’s quite clear this is why Bush had such a dismal career as a businessman. He thinks that his role is that of the “decider”. But in reality, to be successful, a decider needs also to be a manager. A better approach would have been to manage Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheny, and others throughout the implementation process so that the outcome could and would be achieved; the unified outcome that Bush wanted, not the disjointed outcomes that each of his managers wanted.
If he had understood that in order to be a successful leader one must be a manager as well, he would have managed his Secretary of Defense much more closely. It is absolutely critical for the successful leader to know how to manage and to be willing to manage. Leadership and Management go together and for the leader to separate them is to court disaster. As is evident in the Bush handling of the Iraqi “situation”.
Now I’m not saying it was an easy situation. But from the outset, people in the administration were so focused on “leadership” that not enough attention was placed on “management” of the situation. And for Bush to believe that his job was primarily to display “leadership” and the “management” would be done by others .... well, need I say more.
One more point. I’m writing all this based on what I read and see in the various news sources that I use. What comes across from those new sources is that Bush has kept a very hands-off approach to his staff and therefore, has not managed them closely. If this perception is incorrect, if President Bush actually manages closely his staff and he doesn’t let the news media know it, then his staff is indeed implementing his direction… and… once again, need I say more.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/30 at 10:08 AM (0) Comments • Permalink
#26-1-22-07: The Technologists Dilema
The Technologists Dilema
“What to do when you are good at everything”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, January 22, 2007
Good evening!
This weekend I went to the birthday party of a colleague. At the party I met an engineer, we’ll call him Pete. Now Pete was in his mid-forties, a post-doc at a major univeristy and, working at a small software startup. We struck up a conversation and after he found out what I do he invariably made the statement, “Wow, maybe I should attend some of your classes.” As we talked about his career, or lack thereof, it became clear that Pete was in a fix and it was not going to be easy for him to advance his career. After thinking about Pete’s situation I thought you might be interested in how this whole situation is structured and how Pete might help his career along, and so I’m writing about it in this blog.
So here is the lay of the land. Pete is (if my memory serves me) a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He is working at a software company with about 30 employees. The CEO and owner of this company has several other companies, some which are very large. The company Pete works for develops software and the way they do this is they design the software in the U.S. and then ship the requirements to India for coding. (We’ve all heard this before, right?)
Now Pete’s real job is to work with product development to define the requirements, develop a rapid proto-type, archetect the software system, and then ship all these requirements to India. Since Pete is Indian, he does a great job of bridging the gap between the team in the U.S. and the team in India. And since he’s been with this company for a number of years, he really understands their products and their processes. Pete is the guy who truly understands all the inner workings of the company and it’s product development process. That’s the situation.
Oh… one more thing. Pete just got a new boss who knows next to nothing about software. But Pete’s new boss has a lot of marketing connections. (We’ve all heard this before, as well.) So Pete is constantly helping his boss understand what Pete is doing and when the opportunity comes about to include Pete in his boss’s high level meetings, Pete’s boss excludes Pete. So you are probably getting the picture that Pete is loosing respect for his boss.
However, Pete is a decent guy. He’s not about to go off ranting and raving; but he’s not happy either. Pete wants to get into management but he just seems to be stuck in this “product development - requirments definition - architecture - rapid proto-typing - software development interface” role and he doesn’t see a way out of it.
So Pete asked me what I thought.
He probably hoped for a different answer than the one I gave him because the answer I gave him was this:
“Pete, if I were the CEO or if I were your boss, I say you are in the perfect position. I wouldn’t want you to move anywhere else. I wouldn’t want to give you a managment position.”
Why you ask? Why wouldn’t I be more supportive of Pete’s desire to move into management? Because Pete understands the process from product development to the handoff to the coders in India. The better job Pete does on the U.S. side of the process the fewer mistakes will be made by the coders in India and mistakes in coding can cost a bundle. So Pete is most knowledgable and most valuable right where he is.
So if Pete is in the perfect position, how does he get out of that spot and move into management without quitting? That’s the $64,000 question isn’t it?
The answer is actually very simple to state and difficult to implement. The simple statement is that Pete can move into management if he can structure his move (and any increase in staff necessary with the move) so that there is either an increase in profit due to an increase in margin or an increase in revenue. It’s that simple. If I’m Pete’s boss and Pete can’t satisfy the profit motive, and he is not going to threaten to quit, then I’m not moving Pete. Now I might consider it if Pete’s move keeps revenue and profit flat, but I said I’d consider it.
You see, short of Pete quitting, there is absolutely no motive to change Pete’s position. After talking to Pete for 30 minutes it was clear to me that he was exactly where the company needed him. Therefore, if Pete wants to move into management the only way it’s going to happen is if Pete takes the following steps. He must:
1. Decide on a position Pete can move to, either one that already exists or one he will create.
2. Determine how many people will have to be hired or change positions because of his move.
3. Determine how the revenue will increase, or the margins will increase so that revenue and profit stay in synch.
4. Determine the impact of these moves on the whole organization (think systemically).
5. Develop a schedule for the changes to be implemented and develop a plan to minimize the impact to other departments.
6. Present the plan to Pete’s boss and perhaps the CEO and to other departments that might be affected.
7. Keep pushing it, because the odds of Pete’s boss accepting the plan on the first go around are slim.
8. Make it clear, but not in an antagonistic way, that if some movement into managment is not on the horizon, Pete will quit sooner or later.
This is what is necessary if Pete is to advance into management. Now the only question is… how badly does Pete want a management role?
Until next Monday.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/22 at 09:35 PM (0) Comments • Permalink
#26-1-16-07: Technorati link
This is a post to establish the Technorati link
Technorati Profile
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/16 at 09:41 PM (0) Comments • Permalink