Things people need to read: “The unspoken truth about managing geeks”
Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks
Written by Jeff Ello
September 8, 2009
Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks
September 8, 2009 (Computerworld) I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: “Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z.”
X, Y and Z are variable and usually contradictory between one expert and the next, but the patronizing stereotypes remain constant. I’m not entirely sure that is helpful. So, using the familiar brush, allow me to paint a different picture of those IT pros buried somewhere in your organization.
My career has been stippled with a good bit of disaster recovery consulting, which has led me to deal with dozens of organizations on their worst day, when opinions were pretty raw. I’ve heard all of the above-mentioned stereotypes and far worse, as well as good bit of rage. The worse shape an organization is in, the more you hear the stereotypes thrown around. But my personal experiences working within IT groups have always been quite good, working with IT pros for whom the negative stereotypes just don’t seem to apply. I tended to chalk up IT group failures to some bad luck in hiring and the delicate balance of those geek stereotypes.
Recently, though, I have come to realize that perfectly healthy groups with solid, well-adjusted IT pros can and will devolve, slowly and quietly, into the behaviors that give rise to the stereotypes, given the right set of conditions. It turns out that it is the conditions that are stereotypical, and the IT pros tend to react to those conditions in logical ways. To say it a different way, organizations actively elicit these stereotypical negative behaviors.
Understanding why IT pros appear to act the way they do makes working with, among and as one of them the easiest job in the world.
It’s all about respect
The author goes on to discuss the nature of respect from the perspective of an IT professional and the various character traits that come out of that mind set. How the stereotypes of the nerdy anti social and rude IT person actually are reflections of legitimate frustration among IT workers in an environment that doesn’t support their LOGIC FIRST attitude about getting things done, and being productive.
If you’ve ever even been the guy who helped fix your granmoms computer… let alone work in a “serious” IT environment. This is a great read.
I read it twice in fact when I was linked to it via Twitter, in fact…
I just need to figure out a way of tactfully making my bosses read it… all 3 of them *headache*.