Designers or managers?

Please Sir! Me Sir! I want to be a designer Sir!

But I want to be paid my worth. Why do so many companies have a wage/salary structure where designers top out and need to become managers to be paid more?

A manager should have no problem if one (or more) of his team is paid more than him because of their expertise.... but just doesn't work that way. .

I've had managers varying from good leaders to totally incompetent and one who would have made a good progress chaser but couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag.

I'd guess a good percentage of stuff get achieved 'in spite of' rather than 'because of ' managers.

You sound like you should be in the forces, 'managing the Rupert's'.

So. what you're saying is, you want to be a designer on a managers salary? I could go for that. But I'd still like to have a productive and creative job sir?

I have to agree, but some designer's that move onto management can't cut it and are lost, for a number of reasons one is they feel they still have to design it themselves, and they do not have or are not uncomfortable with thier management skills set as to their designer skills set.

And a good manager, places the people he manage's in the most effective. and yes a good designer should/can be competsated for it. (even if its more than the manager itself).

i.e. Manager does his/her job, designer does his/her('s)

I always found that, as a manager is that one responsibility is always more than any perks (finiancial or otherwise) one might recieve.

Then again it can be that way in designing too.

Ah..responsibility......

That's a game of politics, and why I left my last job for a smaller Co.

My old Tech' Director left, everyone thaught I'd get the job (I wasn't fussed) but they brought in a guy who would have made a good progress chaser but was incompetent. He gave a Ministry Design Job to production engineering (who came under him) and then went to Mexico for 2 weeks. As you can imagine, the Ministry job went belly up...

Who gets the blame? Chief Designer ... me!! LOL.

Responsibility ..yeh right...tell me about it.

I voted with my feet.

Yes, along with responsibility, I should also have added accountibility for all, And working at a smaller company that becomes more visibly.

And I'm sure things did'nt just go belly up. It took a path. You may have recieve alot of heat, and Your "manager" also may not be to blame. But who hired him and who keep him on while going down this path may well be.

Office politics should have no business in a technical field. The risk is hard enough. No matter where yon work, you can't ignore it, because one can get spanked from politics.

The problem really is that many companies pay higher salaries to managers to get the most highly qualified personnel to overcome their disdain for the mundane task of managing and be interested. However, what you tend find the mediocre personnel are also interested (and usually more interested) to the point of focusing their efforts on becoming management, and the existing mamagement being of similar mind promote those people who try hard and want to be managers, even if they lack skills as a designer. Some companies i have seen are extremely fat on middle management, but can not overcome the technical overturn in staff, because this process has become som embedded in their career promotion process (and the manager know the cause, but it a paradigm shift could put them out of work). If you promote the most competant and smartest people, the workers tend to respect their abilities and work towards a production goal consistent with managements expectations realizing they know what they are talking about, even if they do not like them. On the other hand, if you promote the guy who most wants the job, you get that guy who was not competant and wanted out by moving up, he doesn't know what quality worksmanship looks like and the workers lanquish towaard mediocre products that favor a simplistic bottom line. It always is a good sign when you have MBAs directing professional engineers in what a design process should not include because of project profitability(and of course the PE goes to prison not the MBA).

I do both. I design, but I'm the design lead, so there's a certain amount of management involved. But it's relevant management - all about how we get things done.

I too had done both concurrently, politics does play a role. As a manager and a designer, I felt for my designer to do the job, I basically put interference between politics that could jeopordize their work as at times to a cost to myself.

But when it comes to taking heat from internally politics, that can be forgotten and one goes on, " as Del puts it "vote with his feet". But if a project goes bad at the time or later on that can come back to haunt you.

Because I looked at it when they've done well, I've done well thats how it should be rated, Make it work.

When you talk about relevant management, I take it, it has to do with the department itself. That is somewhat different.

But when your dealing with other departments with in an organization, the relevancy changes...... oh, oh here comes compromse.

Every place I've worked I always explain to my manager, "As far as I'm concerned, your only purpose in life is to give me interesting work to do, and the tools I need to do it. Any other "managing" you do beyond that is superfluous." That seems to work pretty well.

"Any other "managing you do beyond that is superfluous."

Sounds black and white, when the work that comes in to you is important and critical, but can be menial and rather boring and not very interesting, and with budget restrains you can not have you upgrade your equipment.

Do you still call any other managing superfluous, because now effects you.

And if this never happened to you, or experienced it, good for you.

Depending how long your into it, a day will come when it or something like it will happen.

Managing is more that just a word, and it does not just happen. People have to make it happen, whether it comes from the manager, or if incompetent the people he manages.

And managing multiple people with different personalities. at times can be a challenge. Because its not all about workload.

As a manager its about quality output at a reasonable price and by price I mean, budget, employee, safety, product performance. And doing that, is that employee('s) willing to go that extra mile for you because he realize that you've done what you may call "manage superfluously"?

No it's not black and white, and the design office is not Shan gri la.

I have told designer's that I've managed if you want my job you can have it. When they had a taste of it, they knew I was serious.

I am not quite sure we are talking about the same thing.

One post you explain to your manager what you need, and the earlier post states that you do both?

Comprimise though between a design engineer and corporate marketing or management leads to structures that collapse because corporate wants to interpret the standards and scope of work to favor the greatest project profitability many times with only consideration to very short term liabilities (many times this is because the corporate guys anticipate moving on or up within less than 5 years and will no longer be linked to the liability).

Well put, compromise future for short term gains.

When you look at the corporate management (CEO) and their track record while in command. It can be stellar. 5 years after they took control, took profits and took off. The company. they move from is now floundering

is this the same guest from "should control engineers become CEO's" blog

I do want to add, a good manager has to have a backbone to stand up against corporate, if corporate try pushing items that comprimise design integrety. But not many manager can do that, there are alot more of them that take the easy way out and say yes sir, And corporate likes that because than they have allies, (politics) because when the axe falls it starts from the bottom (the front lines) and then goes up.

Exactly...

If everyone just concentrated on 'getting it done' instead of blame allocation and responsibility avoidance and smarming up to the boss by telling 'em what the want to hear instead of the hard truth...

Oh don't get me started on 'truth' a concept that seems to bypass most sales marketing and manegerial staff.

May biggest issues came by tryng to make an honest man out of a sales staff to the customer.

Off on a tangent, customers use to ask me to come on the start ups more often. My reply was if you see me on a start-up and commissioning its because you were having problems, its a good thing you do not to see me there.

Oh! Don't get me going on sales Reps! (Reps = reptiles) I've never known a sales department managed effectively.

As engineers, this is common ground for us all, even when the so called sales assci. (on commission) claim to have been an engineer (in a past life, or maybe sales engineer)

Unfortuately, when the customers want the true information good news or bad, if they could they would by-pass sales and talk the engineer they felt more comforable with. Allot of sales were generated that way. But any engineer or designer I know (who had confidence in themselves) would be too embarressed to call themselves sales assci.

These were the easiest commission the sales assci. made.