From UIWeb, a nice piece of writing by Scott Berkun on How to Manage Smart People.
What he said...
One of the reasons I grew disenchanted with I/O Psych twenty-some years ago is that besides being the branch of psych that assumed everyone was rational, all the "how to deal with your staff" was based on the assumption that your staff was operating at a lower wattage that you were. Besides being insulting to your staff, when you're dealing with scientists and engineers, it's also going to be highly unlikely. I did some research on motivational methods for scientists and engineers, and then took off for Silicon Valley as fast as I could.
I've been on both sides, managing and being managed. And one thing that really cranks me is when I have managers who have decided to treat the local girl geek (me) like an escapee from a freak show. I had one manager who used to go into hysterics in meetings and repeately ask me "Laurie, how do you *know* all this stuff?". Gee, I dunno--maybe a high IQ, a good education, and a fair dose of eidetic memory?
I didn't like what he did, and it made him look like an utter ass.
The other reaction is the manager, usually one I inherited in a re-org, getting nastily into a "burn the witch!" mode. The painful part is that these have all been women. Is there something in the non-technical manager's make-up that makes them especially threatened by a technical, intelligent woman? Maybe it's just bad sampling on my part, but it's made me not want to have a woman as a manager if I have a choice. Oh well, guess the revolution has to proceed without me.
But given the choice, I want absolutely fucking brilliant people working on my projects, and I want to get them all into a room and discuss and argue concepts. And engineering group where there is no discussion or disagreement worries me, because I'm not going to get the best results, and they aren't going to be happy.
I've picked up more than a few "problem children" because of the inability of some managers to deal with smart people. Then I have people think I must either be putting psychotropics in the Diet Pepsi or have some magic method for dealing with the engineering hotbloods. It's all about respect and trust. Respect the intelligence, and trust them to know how to use it. It hasn't failed me yet.
Posted by lsefton at February 1, 2004 09:31 PM