Hello and welcome to the September 2009 issue of the CCIE Flyer. This time around, I will talk about managers. They are the so-called whip lashers of an organization. There are times when people often wonder why they do not answer their managers back especially when they know that their managers are in the wrong. This especially holds true to the culture in Asia and in particular South East Asian countries. Managers are seen as one of the top brass people here. They are seen as people with years and years of experience and have gone through thick and thin to reach the level of where they are today. Managers are also believed to be intelligent people who at best have an intermediate level of the industry he is in. After all, managers are people who manage people. But is this just a myth or is there something else behind this phenomenon? I will first of all state it here clearly and firmly. I have great respect for good managers. What I say here is purely my opinions and also my sharing of experiences that came from many people who were willing to talk to me about this topic.
In South East Asia, a common organizational chart will list the manager somewhere in between the directors and the file and rank staff. Now to a file and rank staff be it an engineer, accountant, legislator, etc. managers are seen as having more authority and power over them. Managers are perceived as the people who decide whether you stay or leave in your department. The relationship between a manager and his subordinate especially in the South East Asian context is more like a master/slave analogy.
“I will tell you what to do and you will do it. If you have better ideas, fine. Let’s hear them out and if I think it’s good, you are safe. Otherwise, be prepared for a hadoken-style mouth lashing from me.” Sounds common? A few of my friends or I would say quite the majority of them had such managers. In fearing of losing their jobs especially when nowadays finding the ‘right’ job is not an easy task and the fear of having to start all over again will prevent these people from every answering back to their managers. The rule of thumb is here “unless you have an excellent relationship whether it is legal or illegal with your manager, the smartest thing is to keep your mouth shut and do what he/she tells you to do or risk losing your job and your career”. This is called fear. This also introduces a lot of office politics, boot-licking or ass-licking to some and of course the ever present people who tries to be the apple-eye of their managers. Very unhealthy if you ask me.
Fortunately not all managers are like that. There are managers who would train and guide you, giving you moral support, bailing you out of trouble and at times offer to assist you in problems that are not even work-related. Of course there have to be a fine line of balance between work and personal problems but a manager who genuinely offers his/her help in your personal problems clearly shows that he/she is trying to be a friend rather than someone who have interests only in themselves. In return, we have a whole different way of viewing our managers when cases like these happen. This is called respect on our side. I firmly believe that when you have a positive environment, a positive manager and a positive attitude, you will work diligently for the company. I wonder why most of the managers here can’t think like that …
CCIE Flyer readers from the European countries and the Americas may be a little shock of the environment above. That’s because I am told that in Europe/USA and yes, not forgetting our buddies in the Oceania part of the world, managers are seen as leaders. They are whip-lashers but their whip is not made out of leather rather words of encouragement, motivation and guidance. In an organizational chart, even though it may be seen that the managers sit higher than the normal file and rank staff, in reality they are almost on the same linear line with the exception that the managers are leaders. Again not all apples in the basket are good in quality, so I am pretty certain that there are a bunch of managers out there who practices the “do what I tell you to do and don’t do what I do” kind of attitude.
Some of you might argue that leaders and managers are two different things and I totally agree. But think about this, a leader is a person who leads a team and usually have the qualities of a manager. Otherwise how would a person lead but not manage? The Spartans had a great leader and good management so that’s a little something to think about. On the other hand, a manager is a person who manages a team of people but may not have the skills and qualities of a leader. Give you an example? Look at Dilbert’s boss. I rest my case.
Nickelby Thane, a CCIE blogger who maintains his blog at http://cciecisco.blogspot.com have been spending time lately on preparing for v4 of the CCIE written examination which he will take next month. He is also spending time during his study breaks looking and inviting people to the CCIE Flyer Facebook group as well as doing local promotion for Narbik Kocharians’s bootcamp in Malaysia this coming October 2009. When Nickelby is not in CCIE mode, he tries to spend time on attempting to mod his StormTrooper armor where he will soon apply to be a member of the 501st legion in his region. Other than that, he is also spending time on Wiresharking although not as much as he likes as he has another problem on hand, which is to keep his wife at bay from his Transformers Dinobots collection. Should you need to contact Nickelby just to say hi or just to harass him with pictures and phone numbers of cute Japanese girls, you may reach him through his email address, nickelby at hotmail dot com.
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