In the big corporations, front line managers have so many direct reports (20 on average) that they are unable to directly manage anything. Most of my communications w my mgr have to do with 1) I can make the deadline or 2) I can't make the deadline. Otherwise, I'm on my own. Which is fine by me.
In small corporations, say, a few hundred workers, the manager is usually also a worker part time and most of the interaction has to do with planning and, again, deadlines. Mostly I'm on my own.
Even in the coding world, managers mostly deal with other managers; it's the technical lead that prioritizes projects, sets up deadlines, etc.
Joanna
----- Original Message ----- On 6/25/12 8:27 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> At any rate, I take it that anyone who actually manages their own time,
> sets their own deadlines, gets their work done so that others depending
> on that work don't have to way is simply working for the mini manager in
> their head?
That's a good question, but I don't think it necessarily captures the full context of what I posted, in which three conditions were present: a boss who eliminates formal hierarchy, employees who are tasked with self-management, and new software which allows each of them to monitor all of their performances, and create peer-ratings which replace the formal hierarchies. The suggestion was that it is possible to frame such a system in less-than-glowing terms, of which "cultivation of your inner mini-manager combined with technologies of surveillance" was a facile and improvised example. Obviously it could be explored with greater depth. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk