Donald's Place

I am taking a security management class and had to comment on managements styles listed in the book.  I however add thoughts from an audio book I just finished.

While I was reading Chapter 5 and they were talking about Management styles, it reminded me of a recent episode of Boss Swap.  In the episode one boss changes, for two weeks, with a boss form a different company.  It is “reality TV,” so they pick exact opposite bosses.  One boss was extremely demanding; authoritative to the point that he had surveillance cameras and watched everything the employees did all day long.  He even said he did not trust them and that they would not work if they could get away with it (obviously Management X style).  On the other hand the other boss was a woman in an all woman office who trusted everyone and figured they would eventually get things done (obviously Management Y style).  I know I did not like either approach.  The Y style manger, when she moved to a used car lot, received no results and lost the respect of the men in the office.  She did have a point I agreed with: if you are going to by a high-end sports car, the bathroom that the customers use should not smell like urine.  The X style manager obviously returned sort-term results as style X will do.  Unfortunately, the business they were in required long-term relationships with clients, unlike a used car lot where you don’t expect to see return customers.

Both styles were over-the-top and extreme in their own way.  Most mangers fit someplace in between both extremes.  They will pick a spot on the management style spectrum that is comfortable for them and use it on all of their employees.  This is the easiest method for managers to handle.  The flaw is, each of your subordinates are people and they all are unique and have different needs, skill, desires and will react differently depending on their temperament.  The challenge for supervisors and managers is to take all of this input and have a unique measured response that is different based upon the needs of the individual employee.

So, if you plan to treat each employee individually, how do you determine how much to control (Management X style) or how much you should empower them (Management Y style)?  This can be determined by two traits of the employee: their character and their competence.  If they are weak, in either area, you need to apply controls for that area.  (Sounds like risk management)  So, if they are not competent, you need to give them more direction and check their work more.  If they are competent but are weak on character and are taking-short, cuts you need to apply controls specific to them.  If they are strong in both areas, in other words they know how to do the work and will execute faithfully, then you will tend to trust them more and you can empower them to get the job done.  (See diagram below)

I got this from Stephen R. Covey’s seminar on “Principle-Centered Leadership” (Audio Book Available at www.audible.com, tell them sobca sent you).  Thanks to the audio book, I can now better articulate my abhorrence of management X & Y styles.

One last thing I learned in that audio book was about micromanagement.  There is nothing I detest more than micromanagement, especially against me.  Stephen Covey points out if you tell someone how they have to do some task you are responsible for the failure.  If you think about it that is true, I have said to a boss or two before in my life “I did it the way you told me too and I told you it would not work.”

Attached is a diagram (can you tell I like diagrams, I am a visual person)

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These are a list of funny RFCs - look them up if you don't believe it.

RFC 3252: Binary Lexical Octet Ad-hoc Transport

RFC 3251: Electricity over IP

RFC 3093: Firewall Enhancement Protocol (FEP)

RFC 3092: Etymology of "Foo"

RFC 3091: Pi Digit Generation Protocol

RFC 2795: The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)

RFC 2551: The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III

RFC 2550: Y10K and Beyond

RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

RFC 2325: Definitions of Managed Objects for Drip-Type Heated Beverage Hardware Devices using SMIv2

RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

RFC 2323: IETF Identification and Security Guidelines

RFC 2322: Management of IP numbers by peg-dhcp

RFC 2321: RITA -- The Reliable Internetwork Troubleshooting Agent

RFC 2100: The Naming of Hosts

RFC 1927: Suggested Additional MIME Types for Associating Documents

RFC 1926: An Experimental Encapsulation of IP Datagrams on Top of ATM

RFC 1925: The Twelve Networking Truths

RFC 1924: A Compact Representation of IPv6 Addresses

RFC 1776: The Address is the Message

RFC 1607: A View From The 21st Century

RFC 1606: A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9

RFC 1605: SONET to Sonnet Translation

RFC 1438: Internet Engineering Task Force Statements Of Boredom (SOBs)

RFC 1437: The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium

RFC 1313: Today's Programming for KRFC AM 1313 Internet Talk Radio

RFC 1217: Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR)

RFC 1216: Gigabit Network Economics and Paradigm Shifts

RFC 1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

RFC 1097: Telnet subliminal-message option

RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option

I like this quote for so many reasons.

"Marines have a common bond that is only understood by those in our profession. There is a love and devotion that is silent between us, and it is found to be deadly by those who try to break it!"

I find it rings true.