You are not in a unique position, as a matter of fact, I think it is more common place than you'd think. It seems that upper management has this idea that IT professionals aren't good business people with business sense. One thing that they tend to overlook is that it is easier to teach a techie business skills than it is to teach a business person techie skills.
I've learned that management tends to lean toward lower echelon managers who think the way they do. However, this situation tends to reveal the error in logic within a very short period of time. The caveat to that is that even when the error is obvious, it generally doesn't change anything except for the worst in most cases. Generally, VP's, directors and upper level managers are full of themselves and when they see that you could have been a better candidate, they're committed to their decision. Two things can happen, they promote that candidate out of that position to another position or they hire someone else with additional skills and appoint them as the assistant. In either case, you're stuck where you are because you're a reminder of their poor decision and life gets even tougher: and you get more frustrated!!!! Been there, done that!!! Eventually, 1-2 years goes by and then you find yourself so bitter or unappreciated that you leave. This is a problem with the management style of today. Too many egos because they see that making a mistake would make them appear weak and a poor manager. I've learned over the years that surrounding yourself with people smarter than you and people that aren't afraid to disagree with you is a good thing. Companies need to be more objective and less subjective. If IT management would leave subjectivity to HR and financial business practices and be more objective, such as in sales and marketing, there would be many more productive IT/IS departments. Many IT/IS managers/directors/VP's (CFO's especially) are unable to see a strong IT (technical) resource that has real business sense as well. If you are familiar with HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) you find that most IT people are heavily BLUE (Problem Solver, analyzer, logical, technical, mathematical) and very light in RED (Talker, Interpersonal, Emotion), YELLOW (Imaginative, artistic, intuitive, holistic, impetuous) or GREEN (Organized, administrative, planner, controlled). This tool should be a good indicator of your strengths but it isn't really valued for management as much as it should be for IT. I for one am almost balance across all four quadrants, so this has intimidated some of my bosses because they see me as a threat to their domain. If you are a consultant, which I am, it is a very valuable trait. But if you're a corporate employee then that's a different story. I do not envy you in your position but I am empathetic. I have lived in that situation and once you're boss gets it in his head that you're not the right person for the job nothing changes for your career. I have a friend who has accepted the status quo and he has been with the company for 35+ years. He should be a director by now but I don't believe that will ever happen for him at this company. He has managed many large projects and been very successful, but he'll pretty much always fill the role of second fiddle. If you are okay with that then let it go. If you're looking for a more hands-on leadership role then you have some self-evaluation that needs to take place. Be diligent in your decision. NO KNEE JERK REACTIONS!!! This is your career that you're deciding on. But whatever decision you make, be committed to it or you'll appear indecisive and verify the decision of your manager that you weren't the person for the job in the first place. Good luck and I hope this helps. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of avid_diver01 Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 1:22 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [SPAM][EDI-L] Management Question Please help me understand my situation. I have been a mainframe Cobol and CICS programmer since 1985 and then Genran MVS mapper since 1990 and had been a Gentran MVS administrator along the way. Now, I am not allowed to manage EDI group but instead Sr. Manager hired a contractor who does not know mainframe and Gentran at all. I have never been in this situation in which I know a lot more (EDI system and process as well as business process) than the person I report to. So, my question is: Is it common practice for a knowledgeable employee to report to a non- knowledgeable contractor? Thank you. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... 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