Insecuriy in the Dirty Clone

Insecurity is an interesting phenomenon. What we are talking is the professional insecurity. Now imagine a person on the chair of power. An appointed leader.. We will come to the appointed part later.. But someone like him has this feeling.. Insecurity… Now can you imagine what effect this might have…

Let’s just take an example of the software industry as it is now. As one knows, the management in a software industry is just a “Dirty Clone” of the core industries like engineering with half of the DNA structure in cancer. So who can actually do this job are the ones who can handle this anomaly that exists and prevails; the anomaly that the software industry is not about computers or processors but the people who use it. The so called “resources” or “Bench Strength”. So the output of a resource in a software industry is not predictable unlike in a manufacturing industry where it depends on the machine which is so so predictable. But then since the processes are just a dirty clone, what the plan predicts never considers this fact that the deadline and the output depends on the people and not the computers and people being people one can imagine what all can go wrong. Also just like this process, the process of having someone is the management as a manager is also borrowed. The more experienced the person is, he is fit for management. What one fails to realize here is unlike the other industries, in S/W the output is not tangible and hence not track-able. So any experience in the s/w industry doesn’t guarantee that the person can manage to manage a s/w project. Hence I used the word appointed!!!

Moving ahead, say in this sorry “state of affairs”, when a manager comes in who is Insecure. The effects are catastrophic! Initially due to the anomaly, it always happens that to meet the deadline the most efficient person will be slogging his ass off since he has to pitch in for the wrong plan that was done and for the less efficient people whose efficiency was not considered in planning. The after effect of what we just mentioned is that, the client or the end customer is really impressed with our efficient guy. Now the insecure manager comes in and sees what is happening. He sees that this fellow is doing far too well. So he decides that this might hamper his position as a manager. So he starts omitting the person from important discussions, from mails etc etc… Or “accidentally” forgets to add his name when mailing the customer about the solution that he worked his ass off to find and just sends an “fyi” of the reply. So in general, the efficient person is made to feel insignificant and naturally he is gets pissed. And as I mentioned above, people being people this reason is more than enough for him to either leave the company or say stop working as efficiently as he used to. He thinks what the use, if it is not recognized. After all this is not the time of Arjun and Krishna right…
So what happens at the end of all this is there is another dead weight in the project doing nothing really productive and every time the insecure manager says this to him, it infuriates him further and as many call it the “vicious cycle” is set into motion.
Now who is the loser here… The manager or the efficient person… Well actually it’s the project and thus the client and thus his business.
Until and unless we handle anomalies like this and find a way through them and not around them; just as today software implementations are going to be in the same sorry state bleeding money from everywhere.