One of the slightly curious things I am coming to realise about the different things I am doing at the moment is how things can be looked at in terms of management. In any number of things, one is being managed; as a customer, as a consumer, as a person with an enquiry (I am sure there is a better word for than than enquirer, but I don't know what it is). However, in a curious way one is oneself the managing party perhaps more than we realise it. An obvious example of this for me, is my chairmanship of the College riding club. Despite my enjoyment of it, it does make me think about some fairly dry-sounding things like Myers-Briggs and Belkin personality types, and where I am, in them. This could be for several reasons, I don't want to be the sort of chair that is sat on, etc, but listing the directions they point one in sounds rather false, even laughable in the wrong context, however I shall be an ENTJ and a monitor-evaluator forever more if they are to be believed. But I digress.
I knew from the start that my PG studies at IC would be a project management exercise, both as the current dictionary definition, and also as that implied by the APM. I have four supervisors, all quite different in many ways, but the fact remains that there are four of them and one of me. Clearly they are more senior than I and in order to get the best out of them I have to consider my approach. I don't think I necessarily did that especially well to start with, however, a working relationship now exists between my supervisors and I so that is less important. The approach, for the want of a better word, needs to be at least co-ordinated, bi-directional and flexible in order for things to flourish. This is a tighter line to tread with one's senior colleagues (or 'suits' as a former senior colleague from a quite different place has recently put it to me) than I might have imagined, but remains interesting. It certainly provides a contrast to the chairing of the riding committee, where my position is the most senior in the club. What it means is that meetings to discuss club business (like the one yesterday) proceed rather differently compared with those to discuss the work I am doing (like one I had today). I attempted to take a line towards completing lagging unfinished bits of the project, but was 'managed' by one of my supervisors (who is the out going head of the department, so a manager himself needless to say) towards a more bi-directional approach. I had ideas of what I wanted them to do, and he had ideas of what he wanted me to do -- he even said it quite straightforwardly -- 'you're giving me work, so I need to give you work as well'. It worked. We're both busy until the next time we meet now. I am also busy with the out fall from the last riding club committee meeting. I find myself needing to manage myself as much as anything else. So I am managing on the same level as myself as well. This is starting to feel like a 360° approach already...
Is 'management' something I like thinking about? Well, it interests me because it involves the relationships between people and getting things done, so yes. Is it all a bit keen? Probably. Which is better, managing up or managing down? Well, I think that's rather like asking which sort of snobbery is better, snobbery looking up or snobbery looking down. Inevitably, those who think of themselves as at the bottom of the pile (even if they won't admit that), or those with a mis-guided The Guardian-esque idea of political acceptability will prefer snobbery looking up, and those who look down on others will have no idea of anything else whether they are snobbishly indiscriminate or not. Is there an objective reason why either should be 'better' there, or with management? -- I have yet to find one.
So, ignoring myself, I have two contrasting forms of management, if I choose to see it that way. It is a worrying thought though that someone who is in a middle management position in an organisation -- and it is perhaps middle managers who come in for the most flack prejudicially -- could be both snobbish looking up and looking down. Or neither. So I think let's not be choosy or snobbish. Let's get the best out of all three.
Thanks for writing this.
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