The question I asked my General Manager.
What is your career guidance to me to reach your place?
During the COVID-19 lockdown, there was a change that happened to the position of General Manager for the company I work. Everyone was eager to know about the new Manager, but it was quite difficult during the lockdown times to meet and exchange, as there were several restrictions to travel across states.
To acquaint the colleagues with the new Manager, a session was arranged by our HR with General Manager. The session started with all the personal questions posted by the colleagues who participated in. Then it was dragged down more to official stuff.
Finally, I placed a question which everyone would like to ask.
What is your career guidance to me in order to reach your place?
Of course, everyone would like to achieve and play the highest role of a company ever. And that was the base of the question. He replied…
“If you want to pursue a career of General Manager, then you need to be knowledgeable in different domains like
- Resource management
- Financial management
- People management
- Project management
- Handle all stakeholders
- Carry out innovations
Actually, these were some of the ideas which were given by him at that instance. But I know surely some of them missed by me. So let me concentrate and digest the above suggestions.
According to Maslow, a human is motivated by the level they have not yet reached, and self-actualization cannot be met until each of the lower levels has been fulfilled
Resource management
A manager should be conscious of managing resources wisely. It can be either people or inanimate things like power, hardware, software, workplace, hygiene, and much more. A company needs to have a resource cockpit and monitor the status of its usage periodically. If there are many unused resources present unnoticed e.g. unused software licenses which were not canceled, or if a resource like power is used more than expected e.g. switching on a hardware instrument for longer times without using it, then the cost to the company incurred for these resources affects the overall finance and this might impact the employee’s appraisal budget.
Usually, some employees tend to go into a no-care mode sometimes, due to ignorance or unawareness and defaults in handling the resources provided. But a manager should guide them and introduce robust resource management procedures.
Financial management
If a person needs to learn about money management then he should start by managing personal expenses, which are his stepping stone. A manager should be wise enough to know how to manage the expenses for all who work for him.
A small leak can sink a great ship.
He should work along with the finance team and manage taxes as well. More taxes would have to be paid if the expenses were unnoticed and unidentified the ways to reduce them.
People management
People by nature have different viewpoints. When it comes to a company, it is the responsibility of the head to bring all in one notion. He should spend money on arranging workshops and make them active in the workplace. He should also ensure comfortability at the workplace by maintaining a hygienic environment.
He should be the mediator to bridge the gap between the management and them. He also should act as the persuader who brings an innovative mindset within the people and make them achieve their career path.
He should learn the art of delegation. One cannot pile up and do all the work in the world. Work should be delegated to the appropriate person who specializes in the topic and achieves the results in no time. He should learn the art of distributing and parallelizing the work.
Project management
This is the basic level that should be reached by everyone who pursues a management career path in the software industry. He should know about articulating the requirements to the team, estimating, planning, scheduling & cost management, resource management, risk management, maintain quality, monitor metrics, retrospect the mistakes periodically, presentation skills, and communicating with all the stakeholders. He should be acting as a director who directs a project from start to end and even in maintenance.
The least requirement expected for a project manager is to be certified as a Project management professional.
Handle all Stakeholders
Art of Communication deals with 4 types of people.
- Director
- Expressor
- Thinker
- Harmonizer
Director 😠 — This kind of person does not like to beat around the bush. They are always direct to the point. He makes immediate decisions if he likes what he hears. So one should communicate with this person in a direct and serious tone. Meetings held with this type of person should be short and succinct.
Expressor 😮— They are effusive and talkative persons, with a constant flow of thoughts and ideas. They are intenders and procrastinators. One should pin them down to a commitment. They lack a long attention span and they give more than what is required. One should understand their feelings and express the ideas confidently.
Thinkers 💭— These people speak in measured tones and will be interested in the detail of things. They may want all arguments to be proven logically with statistical claims. They tend to take a longer time in arriving at decisions as they are perfectionists. They ask a lot of questions. One should give them space and time to think and decide. He should also be cautious and perfect, or he might be disapproved of the instance of speech.
Harmonizers 😊 — They are warm, friendly, and helpful. They are concerned about the impact on themselves and others. They may look for help from others before deciding. One should make them comfortable and converse calmly. Avoid saying no to them and explain gently.
The above is the classification which I learned as part of a workshop “The art of communication”.
Carry out innovations
If you carry out Innovations, it will automatically carry the business to the next level. Innovation is a founding stone for a business to succeed.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible — Arthur C. Clarke
He should be the chauffeur who drives the people along with him in the context of innovating new principles, practices, and technical stuff.
Above are some of the brief understanding which I gained by researching about the different areas of management after the guidance received from my General manager. Being a developer I started my work in the context of achieving the first step of Project management. I believe this post will be helpful for the person, who is at the beginning of his career path and tries to look for the ways one should follow to achieve a higher place of management and the dilemmas about the areas in which he should specialize himself. The above areas of domain not only apply to the role of General manager (CEO) but also can apply to a technical role (CTO) where one should know the basics of all managements alongside the technical stuff.
