Engineer as Manager

Updated Friday, January 01, 2010

After thinking so much about running an organization, my mind has become dislocated from traditional theory therein. I would even say that my role with my companies is not to run then, but to engineer them to run.

That has lead to other thoughts on the traditional view of management. Particularly from my point of view as a person that loves to build – I see management as something that is better to decrease rather than increase.

Take a generic scenario: A direct report comes to you with a problem. You solve it by giving him/her management (direction, guidance , dictatorship, suggestion, e.g. management). Is that better than, when possible and realistic, improving the system, honing skills and solving the problem without the dependency of a manager?

Consider this: more management is needed when less (proper) information is available. You might deduce that management is only necessary when change or uncertainty exists. Why else would you need to be managing unless your reports didn’t know how,when,what,why to do something? Sure, inspiration, learning, coaching, and the general touch of a human is always welcome, but that doesn’t fall under the technical definition of management.

Some things always need management though. For example, customers. Generally the don’t conform well to a non-commoditized service/product. They have their expectations and problems, and that’s just part of serving them. They need management since there is always change/misinformation/lack of information when dealing with them. That’s generally why they are coming to you in the first place.
Still, through better systems, even this management should be decreased.

As a enterprise engineer, I get kicks out of thinking like this. Making a machine that is people friendly, efficient, and constantly improving, it keeps me up at night and gives me hope. Put me in charge of a $50M company without permission to grow it? Not ideal. I think that board of directors would be better off hiring a manager.

This might be an argument of semantics or emphasis, but I do have one more way of stating this concept. It’s better for me, in the long run, to manage the system that produces the results, rather than managing the results. If that’s true, you have to ask yourself, would a skilled manager be the most desirable candidate to engineer a complex system (a company)? It seems disingenuous to call this role anything other than an Engineer.

About the author. I'm Adam Temple. After a degree in religion I ended up in the business world and just love it. Sermonspice.com was my first big splash as it's now a multi-million dollar company (which I love saying!). Bixly.com is the next notable effort. Expert programming seriously low prices. It came about as a last ditch effort to avoid working security detail. Bixly reminds me of adolescence: thriving with health and potential, but still learning.