Came across this article from Harvard Business Review with the above title and I quote the following passage which struck a chord with me:
The world is no longer as simple as your opinion — it’s now about our. You will encounter a new set of tradeoffs. You don’t get to sit in the cheap seats and blame “management” anymore — because you are now management. You can’t take simple positions like “the customer comes first” because you have to balance cost, quality, schedule, and other factors. When you take the job you leave a world of value simplicity and enter one of value complexity. You will have to advocate positions that you may not totally agree with because you are now a part of a management team. Are you ready for that?
In a nutshell, the article attempts to explain that becoming a manager may be different from your initial expectations and there are certain opportunity costs to take into consideration when taking up the post. It was the above part about losing simplicity especially the statement in bold which hit home.
There is this Chinese saying that says 人在江湖，身不由己 which essentially means that you are unable to make your own decisions or do whatever you like if you are in a particular circle. Even if something is right, you are told to do otherwise in order to protect specific interests or to choose a lesser evil so as to minimise the undesirable effect. Often, it results in frustration because there seems to be no room to explore a better option. There is no such thing as win-win and often, not enough time for you to think thoroughly to dissect the issue.
I think this is the part which frustrates me the most about being a manager other than the people management issues. I don't consider myself to be a perfectionist but it makes me really upset whenever I have to accept something as the easy way out without even trying to resolve the problem. However, it is often futile to resist the tide because other people just don't want to make things difficult for themselves. Or rather, they don't care if it affects other people adversely as long as it doesn't hurt them.
Much as I don't really regret taking the post because I did learn new skills and experience various things along the way, I find myself thinking about the "what if I didn't agree to taking up the post then?" each time something like this happens. And the frequency of this is getting higher as time goes by. Deep down, I may be doubting my decision more so than I think.
Perhaps, this should be the song to remind myself not to be too hung up over these issues and make my life a little easier. ^__^
The world is no longer as simple as your opinion — it’s now about our. You will encounter a new set of tradeoffs. You don’t get to sit in the cheap seats and blame “management” anymore — because you are now management. You can’t take simple positions like “the customer comes first” because you have to balance cost, quality, schedule, and other factors. When you take the job you leave a world of value simplicity and enter one of value complexity. You will have to advocate positions that you may not totally agree with because you are now a part of a management team. Are you ready for that?
In a nutshell, the article attempts to explain that becoming a manager may be different from your initial expectations and there are certain opportunity costs to take into consideration when taking up the post. It was the above part about losing simplicity especially the statement in bold which hit home.
There is this Chinese saying that says 人在江湖，身不由己 which essentially means that you are unable to make your own decisions or do whatever you like if you are in a particular circle. Even if something is right, you are told to do otherwise in order to protect specific interests or to choose a lesser evil so as to minimise the undesirable effect. Often, it results in frustration because there seems to be no room to explore a better option. There is no such thing as win-win and often, not enough time for you to think thoroughly to dissect the issue.
I think this is the part which frustrates me the most about being a manager other than the people management issues. I don't consider myself to be a perfectionist but it makes me really upset whenever I have to accept something as the easy way out without even trying to resolve the problem. However, it is often futile to resist the tide because other people just don't want to make things difficult for themselves. Or rather, they don't care if it affects other people adversely as long as it doesn't hurt them.
Much as I don't really regret taking the post because I did learn new skills and experience various things along the way, I find myself thinking about the "what if I didn't agree to taking up the post then?" each time something like this happens. And the frequency of this is getting higher as time goes by. Deep down, I may be doubting my decision more so than I think.
Perhaps, this should be the song to remind myself not to be too hung up over these issues and make my life a little easier. ^__^
No comments:
Post a Comment