Calling all "Lead Writer" or "Information Architects" -- what do you do? (take II)

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Bill Swallow responded to my note that "The manager is always right, 
even if they're wrong.": <<As a manager, the thought of that rule makes 
me sick to my stomach. But I know where you're coming from, as I've 
been on the employee side of that equation before, and it wasn't fun at 
all.>>

I have to say that in my experience, managers who are mature enough to 
recognize your value and accept your judgment over their own are quite 
rare. Bill described my suggestion that "The manager quite properly 
fears that all these added responsibilities will prevent you from 
keeping up with your writing work" as "a very shallow perception". 
Agreed. Again, I plead the Scott Adams defence: Perhaps Dilbert-style 
managers aren't quite as common as Adams suggests, but they're far more 
common than managers who treat employees as human beings worth 
listening to.

<<Personally, as a manager, I expect a lead writer to take over a good 
deal of these duties... it makes for a heck of a lot less 
documentation-oriented work for the manager, so the manager can focus 
on the MANAGEMENT portion of his/her job description.>>

I wish every manager had that philosophy. You're a gem among managers.

<<I wouldn't suggest the person avoid roles the manager enjoys... I say 
go out and do them in order to support your team, and keep your manager 
well informed of it. You may find that your manager enjoys you taking 
on the local-team-focused activities so he/she can focus more on the 
global-team-focused activities.>>

And if you don't find that your manager "enjoys" this, you've just 
stepped hard on their toes and turned a simple disagreement over roles 
into a potential pissing match, with the manager occupying the high 
ground. A good manager will offer forgiveness for doing something new 
without asking as readily as they offer permission; a bad manager will 
hit back hard if they perceive you as treading on their territory or 
ignoring their authority.

<<My honest opinion? Don't worry about your manager's feelings, as they 
are not important in the corporate sense... Address the elephant in the 
corner and deal with it up front, now.>>

While that's true "in the corporate sense", and will work fine for a 
manager like you, it'll also get you fired by several of the managers 
I've worked for and with. And I don't think that I've been unusually 
cursed with extraordinarily bad luck on the management front; on the 
contrary, anecdotal evidence suggests that good managers are relatively 
rare. I agree that you should confront the issue, but please note that 
the original poster was already doing this: it was the manager's 
opposition to her desire to take on more of these higher-level roles 
that prompted her question to techwr-l.

You're suggesting a more aggressive or confrontational approach that 
works well with some managers; it worked well with my previous manager, 
for example. But since I don't know the personality of the manager in 
this particular situation, other than from what I can (unsafely) infer 
from the original question, I feel more comfortable recommending a 
slower, gentler approach that's less likely to stir up the hornets.

<<By telling the team "you gotta get better before we can change the 
manager's mind" in any way, shape, or form, you are ruining your 
chances of becoming a leader in the group.>>

I confess, I expressed this part of my advice badly. What I meant by 
this is that if you want to enlist your teammates in this effort, you 
need to explain to them why the manager doesn't want you to assume the 
new roles (once you've found out the manager's reasons). For example: 
"We have to persuade them that productivity won't suffer because I'm 
taking on these new duties."

<<Find out why your manager doesn't agree with you. Sit right down and 
ask. While you're chatting, make note of the things your manager does 
on a daily basis and what your manager admits wanting to do but doesn't 
have time for. Then politely suggest small solutions... "I know you'd 
like to have more time to get our group more integrated into 
Development, but you also want that content management research done... 
Why don't I do the research and give you a weekly update on how it's 
going, that way you can free up your calendar to talk to the 
Development leads.">>

Agreed. This is excellent advice, with the caveat that the original 
poster has already tried this to some extent and been stonewalled.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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