Chief Cook or Manager?
February 18, 2008
When I was 16, I worked at The Beach Waterpark. By the end of my first summer, I was promoted to a “Lead Sales” position. This was one step below “Supervisor” and I really wanted to be a Supervisor. In order to move up, I took on any assignment that I was given. I moved around a lot and I learned from my Supervisor all the necessary tasks (like timesheets, money management, scheduling, etc.) and by the end of the second summer, I was promoted. Once I made it to Supervisor, it became my job to start identifying the next person that should become the next Lead Sales.
I worked in the largest food stand in the park. Things that were important in that stand were effeciency, cleanliness and timeliness. Essentially, we needed to serve the customers quickly, get them the right order, and keep the place clean. So, who to promote? Which of those qualities were most important and which would get you promoted quickly. The truth? None! What I learned when I was 17 was that just because you were great at your job, did not mean that you would be great at managing people. By promoting our fastest, cleanest, most efficient cook, we had to teach someone (who wasn’t interested), how to do timesheets, balance a cash drawer and order inventory. Now I had 2 problems:
1. I was 1 cook short and
2. My cook had no interest in cash drawers, inventory and timesheets.
I have found that the IT industry has similar challenges. We want to recognize and reward our best employees with advancement, but the only track available is typically to advance into management. For most technologists, this is not interesting or rewarding and we lose the best architect or developer in the process. Seems to me that we need to recognize that the advancement path for a technical person is not into management (most of the time). So what is the right path? It seems to me that a truly technical person wants to be recognized for their accomplishments and wants to take on bigger technology challenges. How can we make these fit together? Seems to me that there should be a track for that. A track that allows a person to grow into a leadership role that is more creative, challenging and innovative. The trick is to still give them a voice on the senior team, and remove the management responsibility. Is that possible? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Sphere: Related ContentHappy 15th Birthday LUCRUM!
February 15, 2008
Today is LÛCRUM’s 15th birthday. I have been fortunate enough to be with LÛCRUM for 10 of those 15 years. It has been quite a ride. We have had great success and we have seen some truly “downer” moments. People have asked why I stay. The answer is simple, LÛCRUM provides me with a company that cares about what I have to say and gives me room to chart my own course.
I started my career in a Fortune 100 company. I was making half as much as peers of mine out of college, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be “when I grew up”. While there, I changed positions a few times, but never saw a change in my income that got me closer to my peer group. Challenges where there when I asked, but the rules were pretty severe. I moved on…My next company was a small, privately held, poorly run firm. I loved the job! I had all the flexibility that I wanted and I was challenged every day. Unfortunately, my employer had routine cash flow issues that impacted the regularity of my pay. I moved on…I went to work for a small manufacturing firm. I was again given a lot of flexibility, but they weren’t able to keep my interest long. I moved on…to LÛCRUM.
While at LÛCRUM, I have see it all. I’ve had great success, I’ve experienced failure. Through it all, LÛCRUM has believed in me. I have learned that perseverance does pay off, and good ideas only get better when you share them.
I’m really excited to see what the next 15 years bring to LÛCRUM. We are growing out of adolescence and we are well into our teens. As with most 15 year olds, what you see may not be “finished”. We have our share of ugliness…things we’d like to change about ourselves, things we know we can do better. We’re finally figuring out what we’re really good at doing and we’re starting to repeat our success. For our next big birthday, we’ll be 20. 20! Can you believe it!?! Imagine all the maturity that we’ll have then!
Happy Birthday, LÛCRUM!
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