How NOT to lead geeks - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

How NOT to lead geeks - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog When the geeks at NCR in Australia threatened to go on strike, it was a move that could have paralyzed ATMs, supermarket cash registers and airplane check-in. This underlines the fact that IT has become so central to almost all corporations, that any disruption may cost a lot of time and money, which again means that keeping the geeks happy at work is an absolute requirement for a modern business. Happy geeks are effective geeks. The main reason IT people are unhappy at work is bad relations with management, often because geeks and managers have fundamentally different personalities, professional backgrounds and ambitions. Some people conclude that geeks hate managers and are impossible to lead. The expression managing geeks is like herding cats is sometimes used, but thats just plain wrong. The fact is that IT people hate bad management and have even less tolerance for it than most other kinds of employees. So where does it go wrong? I started out as a geek and later became a leader and an IT company founder so Ive been lucky enough to have tried both camps. Here are the top 10 mistakes Ive seen managers make when leading geeks: 1: Downplay training I had a boss once who said that training is a waste of money, just teach yourself. That company tanked 2 years later. Training matters, especially in IT, and managers must realize that and budget for it. Sometimes you get the argument that if I give them training a competitor will hire them away. That may be true, but the alternative is to only have employees who are too unskilled to work anywhere else. 2: Give no recognition Since managers may not understand the work geeks do very well, its hard for them to recognize and reward a job well done, which hurts motivation. The solution is to work together to define a set of goals that both parties agree on. When these goals are met the geeks are doing a great job. 3: Plan too much overtime Lets wring the most work out of our geeks, they dont have lives anyway, seems to the approach of some managers. Thats a huge mistake and overworked geeks burn out or simply quit. In one famous case, a young IT-worker had a stress-induced stroke on the job, was hospitalized, returned to work soon after and promptly had another stroke. This post further examines the myth that long work hours are good for business. 4: Use management-speak Geeks hate management-speak and see it as superficial and dishonest. Managers shouldnt learn to speak tech, but they should drop the biz-buzzwords. A manager can say We need to proactively impact our time-to-market or simply use english and stick to We gotta be on time with this project. 5: Try to be smarter than the geeks When managers dont know anything about a technical question, they should simply admit it. Geeks respect them for that, but not for pretending to know. And they will catch it geeks are smart. 6: Act inconsistently Geeks have an ingrained sense of fairness, probably related to the fact that in IT, structure and consistency is critical. The documentation cant say one thing while the code does something else, and similarly, managers cant say one thing and then do something else. 7: Ignore the geeks Because managers and geeks are different types of people, managers may end up leaving the geeks alone. This makes leading them difficult, and geeks need good leadership the same as all other personnel groups. 8: Make decisions without consulting them Geeks usually know the technical side of the business better than the manager, so making a technical decision without consulting them is the biggest mistake a leader can make. 9: Dont give them tools A fast computer may cost more money than an older one and it may not be corporate standard, but geeks use computers differently. A slow computer lowers productivity and is a daily annoyance. So is outdated software. Give them the tools they need. 10: Forget that geeks are creative workers Programming is a creative process, not an industrial one. Geeks must constantly come up with solutions to new problems and rarely ever solve the same problem twice. Therefore they need leeway and flexibility. Strict dress codes and too much red tape kill all inovation. They also need creative surroundings to avoid death by cubicle. Making one or more of these 10 mistakes (and Ive seen managers who make all 10) has serious consequences, including: Low motivation High employee turnover Increased absenteeism Lower productivity Lower quality Bad service Happy geeks are productive geeks, and the most important factor is good management, tailored to their situation. Caveats: Im not saying that all geeks are the same. Geeks are wildly different people and this post does generalize dangerously. Im not saying that all IT-people are geeks. Some are, some arent. I definitely used to be. Translations This post is also available in other languages: Portuguese: Como N?O liderar geeks, translated by Cesar Cardoso. Spanish: Como NO liderar geeks, translated by Mat?as Agust?n Bellone. Italian: Come NON dirigere i geek, translated by Marco Bertola. Persian translation by Nasser Ghanemzadeh: Part 1, Part 2. German: Wie man Geeks NICHT f?hren sollte, translated by Peter K?ves. Danish: Hvordan man ikke leder n?rder, translated by Flemming Laugaard. Related posts If you liked this post, I think youll also enjoy these: Book review: The Seven-Day Weekend Why motivation by pizza doesnt work Top 5 business maxims that need to go Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related