Management, was:Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

["Anders Wirzenius" <anders.wirzenius@pp.qnet.fi>]

"Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3F607DC5.5070408@attbi.com...
> Marin David Condic wrote:
>  > And you have to optimize "profit" - not  "technical superiority".
> That's something
>  > that most engineers have a hard time grasping.
>
> No!  And that is an even harder lesson.  What you want to do is to
> maximize the long-term survival of the company.  That is the hard
lesson
> for non-engineering types to learn.
>

It also depends on what you mean by "profit": short term profit or
long term profit (which is much the same as long-term survival). I
experience in many businesses a slip against short time span
management where you focus your attention on end_of_this_year or, even
worse, end_of_next_quarter. Why bother about a longer time period if
your career plan is to move on to your next life (company) latest
within, say, three years?

Another thing that is a hard lesson for some managers:
The higher up in the organization you are, the longer time span it is
between your decision and the result of the decision.
I see often impatient managers who bypasses lower level managers and
who go directly to sub-sub-sub-ordinates and give orders. The only
reason is that the sup-sup-superior doesn't have the patience to wait
for the organization to carry out his decision properly. This leads
easily to low motivation among lower level managers and complaining
about lack of time among higher level managers. :(

Anders