A while back I mentored a gifted software engineer—let's call her Priya. Priya wields code like a Stradivarius and, as reward, had just been promoted to Engineering Manager. While initially elated by the promotion, joy soon turned to frustration as her weeks morphed from writing elegant code to adjudicating annual-leave quarrels and unpicking a conflict about whose turn it was to refill the office coffee machine—not to mention the inevitable blame game she had to endure as more senior managers punched down on her about team performance. Nobody had told her that was the job when you become a people manager.
Priya's predicament is hardly unique. In the United Kingdom, 82 per cent of those in management positions admit to having received no formal management training—hence the unfortunate label accidental managers. In Australia, the numbers are not much better. While more people have the benefit of formal management training, 73% still report feeling feel overwhelmed, stressed or burned out and 65% don't have enough time in the week to accomplish all they need to do. Damning statistics, and the result of a disturbing trend in organisational planning circles.
The fashion, often motivated by needing to be lean, is to crown the brightest technical specialist, often with the sharpest elbows, as manager and hope people-skills arrive by courier. Rarely do the much needed management capabilities manifest, and despite a growing body of research which shows that organisations prosper when they invest in specialised people managers, management is too often seen as a mere 'generalisation' and a very distant fifth, if it is rated at all, to the more technical aspects of the role.
Sadly, for our story, this is not a new observation. It has been over 70 years since Robert Katz wrote about this issue—yet here we are still trying to resolve what continues to be a pressing problem. Time for me to put on the pads and go into bat to make the case that technical, people and conceptual skills are distinct. While it would be wonderful to have this triumvirate embodied in a single person, the laws of the universe in which we live and the frailty of the human condition means that we are better served to plan for reality than hope for unicorns. The latter approach simply increases the pressure on everyone as key roles remain vacant for months on end.