May 28, 2009 at 5:54 am
A lot depends on whether your employer recognises technical ability; the last company I worked for took the view that if you were a techie and didn't want to progress into management, you had no ambition and were therefore cannon fodder to be fired at will!
I had a go up the management path myself for a couple of years, and although I managed it (pardon the pun! 😀 ) I hated it to the point where I woke up in the morning not wanting to go to work. In the end, I took the conscious decision to go back to what I enjoyed the most, even though you don't get the same sort of money having the technical ability that you do in management. Haven't regreted it for an instant and even moved jobs to work for a company where I made it clear in the interview that I wasn't remotely interested in a management career and they accepted that with delight!
Personally I intend remaining a techie until I feel I am unable to learn - which as far as I'm concerned will be never!!
May 28, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Long live the geek. Could you imagine Dilbert in a management role?:-)
May 28, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Bob Griffin (5/12/2009)
It's the Peter Principle. Everyone talks about it but hardly anyone follows it. Management assumes that excellence at a technical role whether it be DBA, welder, programmer, etc automatically means that person will be excellent at managing. It's just not true.A really good way to determine if you or someone you know would be a fit for management is DISC personality profiling. With a 10 minute test it's very straight forward to determine if someone's 'bent' is toward people skills or techie....
http://www.48days.com/products/personalityreport.php#careerProfile">
http://www.48days.com/products/personalityreport.php#careerProfile
I used this when I held a Director position with a company to help make the decision that I needed to get back into a purely technical role. It just confirmed for me what I already felt. It was nice having some type of metric to back up my decision though.
I took one of those DISC tests once. Was "correctly administered" and all that. Results said that I was pretty much useless for anything except being the office gossip.
Whole company took them, split up into teams. One part of the test involves something where it gives you a list of four words, and you pick which one is most like you and which is least like you. Part way through the test, one of the other people taking it asked, "What does 'gregarious' mean?" Turned out I was the only one in the room who knew what it meant. Same was true for nearly half the words used on that part of the test.
How can someone possibly pick "which word best describes you" when they don't even know what the word describes at all? But everyone who got results from the tests said, "oh yeah, that's me!" about their results.
Upon further examination, they each would have said the same thing about most of the rest of the possible result sets outlined in the book on the test.
I once saw a cartoon (newspaper, not TV) that had the title, "Astrology before it was a science", and it had a list of the signs, each of which was followed by, "Today, you will assume general advice about life and work applies specifically to you".
The DISC test measures, honestly, how much you will agree with someone telling you what your personality is. The vocabulary issue alone invalidates every test ever given that didn't include a dictionary in the test-taking.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 29, 2009 at 10:43 am
There are several versions of the test out there. The one I took didn't really have any difficult verbage. It also gives a score of how you percieve yourself and how you think others percieve you. So it comes at it from both angles. There's an optional section that allows your friends to score you as well. This piece maybe an improvement over the test since you last took it? I found it very useful. What it boiled down to for me was understanding the frustation points in my job at the time. Some were relational and some were a function of the position I held.
Here's another good site that talks about the different profile types and there relationships to each other http://www.axiomsoftware.com/disc/interpretations/default.php
May 29, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Bob Griffin (5/29/2009)
There are several versions of the test out there. The one I took didn't really have any difficult verbage. It also gives a score of how you percieve yourself and how you think others percieve you. So it comes at it from both angles. There's an optional section that allows your friends to score you as well. This piece maybe an improvement over the test since you last took it? I found it very useful. What it boiled down to for me was understanding the frustation points in my job at the time. Some were relational and some were a function of the position I held.Here's another good site that talks about the different profile types and there relationships to each other http://www.axiomsoftware.com/disc/interpretations/default.php
I have a tendency to be cynical about some things, including "personality tests" and "aptitude tests". It's probably because I'm out in the oddball fringes of so many bell curves.
The problem is, I've taken a lot of tests, and no two have ever agreed, no matter how authoritative or "scientific" or what accuracy they claimed.
I've had IQ tests vary between 145 and 200+, in the same year.
I've had aptitude tests tell me I'm a perfect fit for technical and would be horrible at sales, while I was holding a sales and marketing position and making over 75% of the company's revenue (sales team had 6 people in it).
I've had them tell me I would be horrible at technical, and really belong in some sort of PR position, while I was being very successful as a DBA and system architect.
I've had personality tests tell me I'd be miserable as a manager or executive, but I've done that too, and enjoyed it while I was doing it, and did well at it.
The one thing they haven't ever told me is that I'd be bad at certain types of physical work, when I am absolutely the wrong person for anything that requires consistent hand-eye-coordination.
No test has ever told me that I have the patience and attention span of a hyperactive ferret, but I do. Unless what I'm doing is really mentally challenging or involves heavy imagination exercise, in which case I can spend all day on it and not even realize I've skipped both lunch and dinner. But repetitive tasks or anything that requires no real engagement? I can pay attention for about two seconds at a time.
And the results I've consistently seen on other people have fit the pattern of the Astrology comic I mentioned. I'm not saying that's applicable to you, I'm saying that's what I've seen with far too many. Can't say it's universal, just my annecdotal observation.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Since this thread seems to have taken a left turn. I'm going to say thanks to all those who responded and unsubscribe.
David
May 29, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Yeah, I'm good at left turns. Sorry about that.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 29, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Good post GSquared...I think you should change your nickname to 'Renaissance Man'
May 29, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Bob Griffin (5/29/2009)
Good post GSquared...I think you should change your nickname to 'Renaissance Man'
Nah. That requires at least some artistic aptitude. I'm not exactly top shelf in that category.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
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