Ongoing Path to Management

Ongoing Path to Management is to discuss about my attempts to get a people management (for the sake of these series will just be shortened as manager) role. I have known this was not an easy path, but one I believe is beneficial to the company given my experience and my ability to connect with other employees.

I also do not have a need to be in management. I am well content to do my job at my current position and current pay. I would still prefer to have more responsibilities and/or more pay. That being said, if I were promoted to management, I believe I would do a good job and I am willing to do the extra work. The reason I want to do this because I believe in doing what is good for my group.

There are some other obstacles to my path due to my personal beliefs which I will address in another post. Today, I just want to address a more obvious problem for everyone that is interested in becoming a people manager.

Catch-22

One of the biggest obstacle to getting a management role is the need to have management experience. The follow up question is how many direct reports have you managed. But all managers must have had no experience or directs reports before they became a manager.

Opportunity

From my experience, the fastest way to become a manager is to know the right person. No experience, no skills, just being in the right place at the right time. I have seen fresh graduates promoted to management within a year of working. Even those who did not even want to be a manager. Majority of them have no idea how to lead a team: causing confused team members, setting unreasonable goals, creating many social impacts, etc. Simply by knowing the right person will get you promoted (for many different reasons).

And then there is the very long and difficult path that depends a lot on luck. The luck is primarily based on your work for a company that is mature enough to have a structured method of promoting. Although luck like knowing the right people is still important, but has less of an impact which could increase your chances. At these firms, you can work hard and work several years to eventually be promoted to management role. You will have a better chance if you work for someone that is in a volatile position.

By volatile position, I mean that the position (not necessarily the person but could be driven by the person) has a high potential to change. The simplest is that the person is going to retire. The person will leave and a gap needs to be filled. Next is the person that is ambitious or really skilled. Basically, the person needs to move out of the role so that it becomes available and you have to be the best option.

Leads

From my experience, I believe that most managers are more leads. They have the know-how, they delegate, they review the product, but most do not care for the person's growth, the person's career, or if very unlucky, do not care for you at all. They do not set you up for a raise or for a good review. They see annual reviews as a waste of time. They only want to lead and force you to follow, just as they have to follow their superiors.

Because most managers are leads in reality, this confuses the title of managers because that creates poor standards of what a manager should do. For those who are new to the workplace, expectations of a manager becomes much harder to maintain across the company.

Turnover

Perhaps I work in very unsafe work environments my entire career, but I see that there are very few good managers.

My speculation is that good managers rarely leave a company (or let go). So to me, most companies are hiring just bad managers. This is also my belief why I am unable to randomly find a good company to work for. Because good companies do not have turnover to have roles to fill. Good companies will have good managers who most likely have good references so there is no need to reach out to find random candidates.

Good employees leave bad companies. The silver-lining is that they learn why certain processes are in place or why certain good practices are done.

People, People, People

I was brought up that good work will eventually be promoted. I hated playing politics. I have had my work credit stolen. I have been passed by another with less experience who was later fired within months. I have been told that the company cannot afford to hire helpers but yet when I leave, they eventually have to back fill with multiple people. I have won contracts with clients who eventually canceled their contracts with my former company shortly after I left.

Sorry for all the negativity. So more positively, I have always been a go-to person for some people around me for advice on career, work, projects, or even very situational scenarios. I have always been the fastest to learn. Among my team, I have almost always had the most projects, most tasks with equal or better quality with no complaints.

But all this is not important at all to management (at least in today's corporate management). All that really matters is the people you know. Not just any person, the right person whether they work for a good or bad company. If you do not know the right person, you will never be promoted even if you are the star employee. Sadly, the "right" person typically is not someone who is a good manager (although possible).

If you work for a good company, time may be worth spending to achieve that goal. For a bad company, the expense of being promoted may not be worth the sacrifices. I do not just mean financially (or sexually). I mean sacrificing your morals.

I am unwilling to lie or cheat. I would rather work cheaply until I find the right place to work that truly appreciates their employees. My recommendation to all is to keep an eye out for good people. Do not be afraid to approach them. Connection is important in this world if you want to make an impact and have more control over your own life. Hard work can only get you so far individually in current workplace.

Writing for those who hate writing or are afraid of writing... say it out loud in writing

There are times when I wondered if I was blood related to my family because everyone in my family was art-inclined. They liked music, singing, and can draw with ease (in my opinion). While... I became an engineer and been blamed for being too logical. All the notes seem the same to me, drawing out of the line was blasphemous, and I cannot sing (still can't). Although there are a billion stories, I think we get the gist of my difference in the family.

But I suppose good is relative, like how some of my college classmates felt inadequate compared to the other students in a top tiered university. Yet I would hire any of them in a heartbeat in place of some of the coworkers I have had to deal with in the past.

I do occasionally sketch-draw cards for people. Primarily because it has a greater personal impact in relation to the cost of the card (free versus $5 at a store). Later in life, I found it to be good practice for the artistic side of me. Everyone says that I am good. At first, I thought they were just being nice. But after some time, you can tell when they seem to be saying it genuinely. So like my drawing, I also picked up writing because I wanted to share my ideas. And as I continued to write, I found different ways to write. And now when I read, I can see some of the structure of how other people write.

Although I cannot change your hatred towards writing or fear of writing, I can only suggest that you should start (or continue) writing even if you are the only reader like this blog of mine. Even just learning the difficulties of writing is worth the experience in understanding other people from a different perspective.

What should you start writing about? It does not need to be a book, a short-story, or even a blog. Even writing a review is good enough or even a tweet. Write how your day was, what you think is right or what was wrong. Write why your favorite color is your favorite color. Write that the food at A is better than B, or that it was comparable or it depends on certain factors.

Do not be afraid to write even if there is no reason or have no answer. Like, I do not know why my favorite colors keep shifting between blue, green, and black... yet blue and orange has a special meaning for me (the repressed school pride that I claim that I don't have?). I don't know why I enjoy being sarcastic all the time. They say it is because I am trying to hide something. It could be true, or it may not. I really don't know. And if you don't want to publish it, don't publish it. But try not to delete it, although there is nothing wrong with that either. Write on little scraps of paper. I wrote in a tiny notepad while I was on the plane. I wrote why the flight attendant was not smiling.

Once you have written a few things (this could be days, weeks, months, or even years), you should review what you have written. Try to figure out what you are trying to convey. Write about writing, write why your writing is so random, but pick up tidbits of what worked for you and if you are ambitious, what did not work for you?

Why write? I think we all succumb to our own beliefs and take for granted that others should know exactly how we are thinking or feeling without considering that they really do not. Even if we think that we are open-minded, we may not be as open-minded as we think we are. Even when I thought that I was open-minded, it embarrasses me to admit that positive-reinforcements (especially from my mom) has made my ego greater than it should be... no matter how hard I try to see through it. And the same goes with negative-reinforcements where my self-worth is lower than it should be at.

Writing is the mirror of communication. You can see how your ideas are delivered, how they fit together, how there is always a flaw and room for improvements. And like a mirror, we still need to be careful on our perception of the reflection. The flaw is like the blemish that you think everyone sees, but what everyone really sees is something else.

And to take this one more level, don't be afraid to try something that you are not good at. Although you may never be as good as your circle or even the majority of people, it is a good exercise to empathize, understand others, and really appreciate their talents.

Bored: 4 Basic Emotions

I thought this was an interesting read: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/study-of-dynamic-facial-expressions.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29

It discusses that the current theory is 6 basic emotions (which I did not know prior to the article) and this latest research suggests there may only be 4 basic emotions (approach, avoidance, happiness, sadness).

Work Life: LinkedIn, More Recruiters than Professional Contacts?

I occasionally log into LinkedIn to read some of their articles. Although somewhat amateurish, they are rather insightful in getting me to think although no always in agreement (at least not 100%) with the article. Every so often, I get a new request from someone that wants to be added to my contacts list.

If this keeps up (although would take a rather long time), I may eventually end up with more recruiters than business professional contacts. This got me thinking that LinkedIn really needs a new feature to separate recruiters from my regular contacts.

First, recruiters really know nothing about me. Personally, I think they are just poaching my contacts list. I have added one or two that I have worked closely with in the past but have since removed them from my list. I may consider keeping recruiters that really are professional contacts. I may consider adding them if my contact list was not shared with them.

Second, they do not care about my work. They do not provide any value to my professional portfolio except maybe to make my contact list look larger. But, I know plenty of excellent people with very few contacts. Do they really look at my list for referrals? How would they know who I actually work with?

Third, I do not want to be adding recruiters while being employed. I do not this it looks good when your managers or coworkers (who are also on LinkedIn), suddenly see an influx of recruiters on your new contacts news. I do not wish to risk my boss to think that I am a liability to the team.

But, I am curious what they have to offer. Although I am not interested in leaving, I still need to do my due diligence as a professional. LinkedIn would provide an excellent portal for me to see what other opportunities are out there. Somehow I am meeting more people who are also looking for work, and reference would be a much better way to introduce someone to an opening. I think there are some good benefits LinkedIn should look into for these types of avenues. It will grow higher quality candidates, as opposed to candidates from the masses (i.e. Monster, Dice, etc.).

Life: Narcissistic Personality Test

I found the title amusing and clicked into the article (link below). Some of the questions are somewhat obvious to which way it leans towards so I wonder if it is possible for a narcissist to actually answer some of them honestly. Could I be one too? Perhaps, I truly believe that I am humble but not in practice?

For example, I ask a lot of questions when I see a problem. These questions may or may not be related to the direct problem. I ask questions like where did it come from, should this be handled by me, should this even be handled by the person presenting the problem, what should be the proper protocol, etc. Then one of my coworkers who seem to have a problem with that started to do the same thing to me except that his questions do not even pertain to the problem and feeds it into his paranoia that the world is against him. He would ask, why are you asking, why are they asking, why are you doing that, why should you be doing that, etc. Although the questions are similar, his intentions are not the same as mine and does not help our group, in my opinion.

But what if I am really blind to see that I am actually like that? I can clearly say that I eventually use my information to provide better solutions either to preventing the problem or channeling the problem to the proper resources.

Or is my coworker the one that blindly sees that he is copying what I am doing? I have discussed that he is just wasting my time with a lot of the requests or questions that I have posed to him. He said that I do the same thing. After some thought, I can see how he thinks it seems that way. But, I the key factor (the intention of the question) is that it is not. I was unable to convince him of this.

Lastly, could we both be blind to what we do? I imagine it to be something like an addiction. I know that I am not supposed to do something, but I will still do it and may even deny acknowledging that I did it to ease my mind. For example, procrastinating but saying that I am just really busy.

Reference
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-16-pinsky-quiz_N.htm
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/02/student-narcissists-prefer-twitter-more.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29

Life: How much of what we do just to be accepted?

I just read the article, "It's easier than you think to get people to commit bad deeds." This got me thinking on how many little things that I've accepted to do just to appease someone, get them out of my hair, or wanting to belong.

I think it is interesting how easily we can be swayed in one aspect in life while trying to maintain another aspect in life. Even in work where I did a task something someone was supposed to do. I only did it because it was faster for me to do the work than to explain who should do it, why they should do it, and still risk that person will come to me anyways. Or in general life where I follow other jay-walkers but wouldn't jay-walk if I was the only one at the intersection. Or watching others speed because "everyone else is doing it."

Another interesting facet is how there are some people who take advantage of this social behavior. I think this should be an important lesson to learn in school because this would bring awareness how we can be easily swayed to do things we would normally not do or morally/ethically wrong to do. I think awareness will help me rethink the situation or even help someone else rethink their decisions.

Reference:
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2013/12/its-easier-than-you-think-to-get-other.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29