What is the role of a Manager?

I started my career back in 1975. I was installing intercom and telephone systems for ITT Terryphone. These systems were based on technology developed in the 1940s. We even worked with cable that was covered in cloth and paper. Sometimes it was terminated with soldered connections. I was happy with my little life as an installer and thought that this would be a pretty good way to spend my days. Things were about to change.

I often think back on those times. It must have been easy to be a manager in those simple times, right? Well, maybe. For sure management and a manager's role has changed over the years.

I've read where the managers in the 1940s and 1950s were largely taken from the rank and file. The most important quality for a manager to posses was the ability to do the job of the folks he managed. Jobs didn't change much and there was a lot of value in that system. That type of managment no longer applies. At least not in technical areas.

The best description I've ever heard regarding the role of today's manager is:

The manager's responsibilily is to ask the questions.

So it must be the staff's role to answer the questions. That would make sense. The consolidated statement would then become: Management's role is to ask the questions and the staff's role is to answer them. In thinking this through I determined that there must be more to it. Here's why.

How, as a manager, do you know what questions to ask? Are you smart enough to ask all of the relevent questions?

So here is my expanded thinking on the question of a manager's role. Certainly a manager must ask questions. Sometimes these questions are insightful and sometimes they aren't. More to the point, a manager must be able to get the staff, and others, to ask questions.

So my latest theory is this: The manager must make sure that questions are being asked and must participate with the staff in getting the answers. It's simple and it works for me.

Certainly there is more to management than one simple idea. But this one simple idea is a useful way for managers to determine how to spend our time.

That's all for now......
9:39:08 AM    comment []