Problems are not things you really want to manage, maybe in the short run you can try to manage a problem, but ultimately the goal is to solve a problem as opposed to managing it. The goal of a manager is to assemble a team of people who can work together to solve problems.
Your issue is conflating management with superiority, you seem to think that someone who coaches a basketball team feels superior to its players. That couldn't be further from the truth. While Michael Jordan's coach was in his time a competent basketball player, he would never claim to have ever been better than Michael Jordan, and yet both he and Michael Jordan had an excellent working relationship without either of them feeling superior to the other [1].
The issue you have about superiority has nothing to do with solving problems or managing people. You could be a lawyer working entirely independently from developers and feel you are superior to them (or vice-versa). A good manager can cross multiple projects and multiple problems, because a good manager understands people first and foremost and lets competent people work on solving problems, as opposed to trying to manage problems.
Your issue is not realizing that many managers feel this way. They think that being a manager puts them above the people they are managing, and that their job as a manager is to boss people around (thus the genesis of that term).
Edit: I'll see your Phil Jackson and raise you Bobby Knight.
As someone involved in both the technical and business side, but heavily biased towards tech, it's amusing to me just how cliché the management parties after a 'big win' on a 'visible' project are. It's almost unbearable to be around save for the brilliant food.
Is that actually conflated? I manage a few reports and try to succeed by setting them up to succeed but every management position I’ve had, I have had explicit OKRs/goals/metrics/etc stating that the success of the team as it’s own entity was something I was rated on.
If my team managed to succeed without me putting in any effort that was actually ideal as I got a free goal hit.
It's literally in the post from GP I am responding to:
> Bobby Knight led the Hoosiers to three national championships and 11 Big Ten championships. I'm not sure the definition of "bad manager" would fit succeeding at the most important metrics in sports - championship wins.
This feels like it's conflated.
Thinking about this more, I find it hilarious to imagine that you would expect the same results from A and B given the same set of performant managers:
A - team of highly unmotivated, undisciplined players
B - team of highly motivated, disciplined players
Anecdotal:
There's a huge team here, wins most of the high level championship because they have a lot of money and end up buying worldwide players, so their access to the talent pool is broader. They also have the best coaches money can buy.
One year, one of the most famous players we've had decided to start up his own academy and create a new soccer team, with local people. He worked on it for a couple of years and came in and took first spot in the championship. Brilliant games.
They sold players due to their win, for a lot of money, and started the roster again. Next year, and since then, they have yet to achieve such a victory.
I would blame this situation on the synergy of the team and find it hard to imagine your world where the top management gets to decide who wins and who doesn't.
This is exactly the response I was hoping/dreading to get, as it illustrates my point so perfectly. Bobby Knight absolutely believed that he was above his players, and repeatedly physically abused them for perceived disrespect. He was a terrible person at Indiana and at Texas Tech, and no amount of winning answers that.
People glorify managers/coaches who succeed at the organizations goals, be they profits or rings, at the expense of the humans that report to them. These people are terrible managers and should be immortalized as shining examples of what not to do.
I deliberately chose words which do not draw a conclusion about "the norm" because I, just like you, don't know what that is. There is no such dataset, all anyone can do is assemble anecdotes.
> People are not robots
Exactly, people are motivated in different ways, have different backgrounds, aptitudes and weaknesses, the list goes on. A good manager takes these aspects into account to help people and teams do their best work. There is no generic template.
People are not spherical beings in vacuum. Of course, you have to manage people.
My experience is that throwing projects at people and assuming that they are all interchangeable cogs that will be able to complete projects if they fit the project is just asking for problems.
Now, managing people does not have to be tantamount to standing there and pointing with your finger what they have to be doing next. "If you do, you're a bad manager."
But there are other more subtle ways of managing people and learning to be a manager means learning to be able to influence people to do what you want them to be doing as much as learning what they should be doing.
Let me add a thought. You manage something that needs managing, that is to say, problems. If you see people as problems, then you are the problem.
This is based on the assumption that people want and can do their jobs well, or at all.
Lucky you, if this sounds strange to you.
If most people in an organisation are not interested in doing their jobs well, then something about the organisation is incorrectly set up. Humans have intrinsic motivation driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If the masses of people don't want to do their jobs well, the organisation has taken too much autonomy, mastery, and purpose away from their employees.
If most people in the organisation are willing to do a good job, but some outliers misbehave, there are, as another commenter mentioned, standard ways to deal with that. (Mentorship, counceling, retraining, warning, firing.)
But critically, the standard ways to deal with struggling individuals should not be applied if there's a large majority struggling, because then the problem is in the organisation, not the individual.
This is, like, the definition of managing people. Let's call a spade a spade.
> People are not robots you control.
Control is not management.
> they think their reports are their subjects to lord over.
Bossing someone around is not management.
> This is, like, the definition of managing people. Let's call a spade a spade.
That's not like. The definition of managing people. A project is some stakeholders (including the people you 'manage'), some wants, some resources (including the people you 'manage' as well as yourself) and some constraints. People are people.
>> People are not robots you control.
> Control is not management.
What does this even mean? If control is not management, therefore people are not robots you (not) manage, so, are they robots you do manage? I think GP was sort of leaning towards the 'people are not robots' part of that.
>> they think their reports are their subjects to lord over.
> Bossing someone around is not management.
It can be. If you're a shit manager. This 'is not management' thing feels very similar to 'is not Agile'.
You don’t manage people. If you do, you’re a bad manager. You manage problems and projects and enable people to do their jobs well. You facilitate conversations and make sure they have what info and tools they need.
People are not robots you control. You are not better than them. You aren’t above them. In fact you’re usually far easier to replace than them.
Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder but this is core to bad managers: they think their reports are their subjects to lord over.