(18b) What I Wished I Was Told

Young managers are usually chosen from among young engineers with excellent engineering skills and demonstrated results. They are usually interested in interacting with others and have an interest in the impact and financial consequences of engineering work. In some corporations, these individuals are ?anointed? and sent to a variety of training classes and this ?anointing? may be overtly communicated as well as indirectly.

There are several key things a manager must do that an individual engineer is not necessarily required to do. First, the new manager must be comfortable with people related decision making. There is virtually no corporation that does not have some form of a ?forced ranking? system meaning that annual raises and bonuses, if they exist, are not proportioned on current salary or linearly with group size. They are allocated based on a performance judgment and this judgment is relative to other individuals, many of whom may be performing substantially different tasks.

Second the new manager must be comfortable with discipline, outplacement counseling, firing an individual, and ability to deal with off work issues such as alcohol and drug issues.

Lastly, the new manager must learn to prioritize. There is never enough money in a budget to do everything that everyone wants to do and there may be overriding corporate initiatives and priorities that must be accommodated.

All of these issues may have to be dealt with in the context of managing individuals that previously were co-workers and friends. This workshop will describe some actual case studies and provide time fore group discussion.