Management Styles

Google and Apple are in opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of management styles. Google allows the developers to innovate and Gmail and Google News emerged as the by products. Steve jobs rules Apple with a iron hand and we have seen the iphone and ipod make history. The founders of Hewlett Packard had a really different management style “management by walking”.It is really difficult to predict the best management style for a company and it is unique to each company in the way they operate and mostly a common sense approach is the order of the day. A management style which allows managed innovation and generates revenue and motivates employees to sustain them will be the best approach.

A certain type of forcefulness and perseverance is sometimes helpful when tackling large, intractable problems,” says Roderick Kramer, a social psychologist at Stanford who wrote an appreciation of “great intimidators” — including Jobs — for the February 2006 Harvard Business Review. I believe strongly in this approach. Sometimes you can get the best out of people only if you apply pressure. Some of them may not be able to handle the pressure but then they deserve to get out of the corporate world.

I believe that work is not the place to fool around ; you can innovate but there is a thin line between innovation and wasting valuable work time. It will be a mess if all the engineers think they have the perfect ideas to change the world. It is the job of the business to have plans to change the world and the engineers should support and execute on it. A good manager will have the ability to identify folks who can create and deliver at the same time but it will be extremely unhealthy if you have individuals who have a personal agenda which does not align with the business. In most cases it will backfire and the business has to incur a loss so the best thing to do is to to treat it like pollution and take steps to eradicate it.

Trust is a key issue in almost all aspects of life and the work place is no exception. The engineers should be able to trust the product / business teams to be able to execute on the vision. Plain talk used to do the trick but not anymore. Accountability and a track record of success is very important. If the engineers know that too many decisions will not be tolerated and the product is closely managed in terms of reveneue and overall goals with a lot of transparency then there will it will be a lot easier to establish that trust.

Accountability is a key factor. It does not mean that the individuals who are not able to deliver or make bad business /engineering choices should be fired but they should not be given more opportunities unless they improve. Instead someone who is more capable and a better track record should be given opportunities. Steps should also be taken to make sure mistakes don’t happen too often by setting up policies in place for review and audit.If there are too many mistakes and they are repetitive then the employees should be allowed to go else it might affect the overall business.

I believe history can help you make decisions , if the company has not been able to deliver new cutting-edge products after a year of innovation time then that company is not suited to accommodate this. It does not matter if the business or the engineers are responsible but if a policy does not work then the best choice is to move forward and try other avenues.

Budgets are another key aspect . I have seen companies lay off employees when things go wrong. I believe companies can do a lot more than taking the extreme step. A lot of money is wasted on software which is never used and large companies have a lot of hardware lying around which is never utilized. Buying a software with an expensive support plan without a proper usage plan is a nightmare most companies have to deal with. The best thing to do is have a clear audit policy. There should be a designated person analyzing and questioning these kind of requests. Before taking desperate measures it makes a lot of sense to limit internet bandwidth and telephone usage and limit anything else possible to save money. The company has to spend that much more money to get new employees and then train them on their applications before they can be useful.

Management styles are changing in the web2.0 world Microsoft allows its engineers to blog. The CEO of Sun announces lay offs and major decisions via his blog. But no matter how different management styles are the rule is simple; employees have to work hard to make sure they support the business to improve and generate revenue. The business should make sure that they provide the vision and the platform for the employees to be productive. The employer has to make sure the employees who perform and have a track record of success are rewarded and encouraged .