David Emery Online

Management Material

29 November 2006

This week had been an interesting one for me personally, as we’ve taken on someone new at work which has put me firmly in the position of “management”. This is new thing for me – I’ve ordered people around quite a lot in previous jobs, but this is the first time I’ve had to do it officially.

First things first; it’s hard. Not hard as in difficult, but hard as in tiring. Going from a position of the delegated to one of the delegatee is actually quite a radical mind change – more then I had initially anticipated at least. My primary concern has changed from getting my work done to making sure that he’s got enough work to do; not having any problems; not got any questions needing answers.

It’s certainly given me a whole new insight into the field of people management – in all honesty I hadn’t considered it too much from the point of view of a manager that actually cared about their employee. This is mostly due to my abysmal outlook on the rest of humanity – I always assume the worst – but it really adds up when I compare against previous manager-underling situations.

It’s always fascinating when a whole other way of looking at things is opened up to you.

I always try and strive to look at things from other people’s point of view, but their is only so much you can do to put yourself in their shoes – until you do it, you’re always going to miss something. This is why, of course, problem solving always works best when the problem you’re trying to solve is your own, not someone else’s.

If you don’t have direct experience, things are always going to be different then you expect.