[lpr22]

Why skip secondary and jump straight to tertiary?

I've worked with a lot of really good managers who understand the role their group plays without having to delude themselves into thinking their team or function is primary. I think that's something that's really important regardless of the industry.

The most enjoyable jobs I've had have been those where there was good, self-aware management. While bad management is obviously a horrible time all-around, I've also had very bad experiences in the so called flat, self-managed models. For those to work, the greater majority of the team need to actually be self-aware, good (at least self) managers.

[cookiecaper]

I'm not talking about the group or the team. I'm talking about the contribution that each person considers their primary value-add to the company. Every worker will say of their own class of workers "this company would fall apart immediately without us", exposing at least an implied, though it's often explicit, belief that the class of contributions they are personally making are the most valuable.

The issue is not "My engineering group is most important". The issue, rather, is "My engineering group, and consequently the company, would cease to exist if I stopped performing my core competency".

In the case of managers, this core competency is schmoozing. Thus, when the engineering management must choose between engineers who advocate a better/safer/more effective engineering path and their bosses who advocate not that, they will choose to schmooze and give their bosses good news that generates tingly feelings rather than bad news that generates angry feelings.

This is where the manager puts his craft into play. The goal is to manipulate the engineering team into a set of compromises that will allow the manager to generate good feelings for the bosses. Because the manager is not an engineer himself, he doesn't understand the ramifications of these compromises and/or whether it's actually the correct and wise way to proceed. Yet, he will still feel that he has saved the company (and possibly his team's paycheck) for exercising his core competency: manipulating subordinates into taking uncomfortable shortcuts while keeping the bosses satisfied. Middle management is a massive distorter.