Originally published in Computerworld - May 22, 1989

I once worked as a programmer/analyst at a modest-size company. It was a good shop to work in if you had a passion for what you did and an ability to police your own work. Management took a hands-off attitude in running the department.

At the time I came aboard, this policy worked fine because the tasks were challenging and plentiful. About 10 months later, after completing the outstanding major projects, the work ran out. It didn’t take much time after that for the department to fall apart. Paradise Lost!

I have found this problem to be a common one throughout most of my 10 years of experience in MIS. In most companies, the responsibility of MIS falls under the supervision of former programmer/analysts without any background in managing people. Often they have been rewarded for having done good work keeping the machines alive and then been promoted right out of what they do best. Frankly, they are usually not up to the task of running a computer shop.

I’m not talking about a lack of experience or knowledge. The simple truth is that computer people, generally speaking, make lousy managers. Computer people have egos the size of the great outdoors (myself included), and speaking from my experience as a director fo data processing at a small shop in New York, our egos make us impossible to manage.

It’s an understandable phenomenon. Computers have revolutionized in a very short time the way the world functions. Techies are a part of that revolution, and it has been a real ego-boosting experience. The world cannot survive without computers, and computers cannot survive without programmer/analysts making them dance.

If management works effectively, slow periods in an MIS shop become highly productive. This is when the seeds of new ideas are nurtured - a time when the company gets to take advantage of creative minds without pressure of deadlines. People are free to brainstorm and build better systems.

But when management is ineffective, a period of stagnation results. The staff becomes bored and begins to look elsewhere for new challenges. Self-motivation doesn’t create new work, but it serves as the fuel that gets work done on time and within budget. It is the responsibility of management to create new work by assigning tasks and setting a course of action. Without direction, self-motivation dies.

Management is the art of delegating responsibility. With a staff of big egos,delegation can be tricky prospect that requires an MIS Director to be a salesperson, a technical genius and a diplomat. If he is doing it right, all ideas have value because brainstorming promotes a sense of contribution among the staff.

Back to my tale. After a few months of very damaging stagnation, the vice-president decided to hire a director of MIS to put the department back on track - a very sound decision. The person they brought in fit the needs of the company from an MIS standpoint. He had some experience as a consultant and a knowledge of computer systems.

Unfortunately, he did nothing to encourage the sharing of ideas in the department. A self-confident man provides strength and leadership, but self-confidence with a closed mind is arrogance. It took him less than a week to alienate his already discouraged staff, creating a deeper rift in the department. Ultimately, a loyal and talented group of people moved on to other jobs.

If there is a moral to the story, it is this: When hiring a manager for an MIS department, technical ability is not the most important skill to look for. Employees will spend more than 40 hours per week at their jobs, and most of them will take the job home at night. Employees need a sense of value, belonging and purpose to have a feeling of self-worth. Without feeling part of a team, those 40 hours are long and hard to handle.

I’m no authority on how things are supposed to be, but I’ve watched some fine MIS centers dissolve because the people managing them can’t seem to work well with the employees as they do with the hardware.

We have to look more for the human qualities in our managers. Technical knowledge is an easy commodity to obtain: It comes with experience. Maybe it’s time we started looking for managers who manage people as people and not as machines.