Thoughts on Importance of Managers Being Technical

This article re-ignited a thought that has been kicking around in my head for a long time. As you read a post on “unadulterated nerdery”, I’m sure it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out my opinions on the matter, but I’m also not just burying my head in the sand and plugging forward with the concept because I’ve already purchased the domain. Even if you find yourself in the non-technical camp, you have to give me that “perfectly measured generalist” just doesn’t have the same allure. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts both military and civilian. For my military readers, I am specifically talking about unrestricted communications officers, but the general idea should be universally applicable.

The two main concepts that article brings out that really resonated with me were:

Don’t have technically blind leadership running one of the most critical functions in your organization

and

Technical training programmess are critical for your development team to keep apace with change, and investing the time for IT management to do the training too can pay dividends.

Communications are never going to defeat the enemy by themselves, but they are universally lauded as one of the most critical aspects of fighting and winning wars. One of the frequent criticisms of the “technical CommO” is they tend to be brilliant communicators, but are unable to relate 1’s and 0’s to mission accomplishment (seeing the big picture). Not to discount the criticism, because it is critical, but it would be significantly easier to teach someone how their really technical job relates to the mission compared to teaching someone who really understands the mission how to be a technician. Additionally, the job is not getting any less complicated. Today’s gear is significantly more complex to configure and maintain than the gear I was initially trained on, and the cyber threat has upped the ante through complexity in architecting and configuring defensive measures. We’d never accept an infantry officer who doesn’t know which end of the M-16 the bullet comes out of, so why do we accept a CommO who doesn’t know how IP works but is a good MAGTF officer?

Somewhat along the same lines, it is critically important we continue to train our managers in technical skills. It was less than 10 years ago that I was trained as a basic communications officer and in that relatively short time span we have undergone drastic changes. For example, I was initially trained on tactical switching (military specific telephony systems), then we moved to circuit switching (TDM based telephony, T-1s and the like), and then moved to IP telephony. We need to make sure the officers throughout the ranks are continually trained to keep pace the rapid change in technology. If we fail to maintain the learning continuum we will have junior officers and Marines without any senior officers to technically lead and develop them. I’ve seen on many occasions where leaders are ineffective because their lack of technical ability became an extreme obstacle to their credibility. Where many go wrong is operating under the assumption they have to know the most about everything. I’m not arguing for that. I tried finding the article I read this, but can’t locate a link. The gist is that many successful low to mid level technical managers fail when they move up a level in the organization because they previously succeeded by buckling down and learning everything, always knowing more than their subordinates. Eventually their management scope makes it impossible to know that much about that wide of a subject matter.

I’m not arguing we need to know more than our subordinates, but we also can’t stop learning. The two most convenient arguments I have heard from senior leaders are that “we need to save training dollars for the Marines who actually do this” and “I’m a generalist now, being technically proficient is important for company grades” (mid-level mangers). These are both cop out answers. When it comes to training money, or school seats, or however you want to look at it there is some utility to the concept of “taking care of the Marines” and letting them take the class/quota/etc. Ask yourself though, who is the most appropriate choice? I frequently think of this quote from Gen Lejeune:

The relation between officers and enlisted men should in no sense be that of superior and inferior nor that of master and servant, but rather that of teacher and scholar.

I could certainly see Gen Lejeune being comfortable with many of his Marines being smarter/more knowledgable than he was, but I can’t imagine him saying he was a generalist and giving up on his craft. It is about being willing to devote yourself to a lifetime of learning AND being able and willing to pass what you have learned onto your Marines. This is how it makes sense to send managers to training, because if they take advantage of the opportunity they will not only technically contribute to the organization, but they will pass what they have learned onto their subordinates.

5 Responses to "Thoughts on Importance of Managers Being Technical"

Tyler says:

October 9, 2015 at 1:36 am

The more solid of an understanding you possess of the technical subjects, the more simplified and accurate you should be able to articulate them. The more simplified and accurate you can communicate them, the more effective you are at teaching your Marines.

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jason.kirk says:

October 10, 2015 at 10:59 am

John,

Managers can get away with being less than technical as long as those under their charge are subject matter experts and there is a great deal of trust and understanding between the leader and the led. I’ve worked for some Communications Officers that were very successful because they knew how to surround themselves with competent people. However, I can think of a few reasons why managers should remain technical:

1. What are the odds that a manager’s people will always be prepared for the technical demands of their jobs? It is an unfortunate truth that many of our subject matter experts are not. A manager/Communications Officer who has a good understanding of the technical side of communications can at least tell the difference between a subordinate who is putting up a smoke screen to hide their ignorance and one who truly is an expert in his or her field.

2. As a continuation of the last reason, a manager/Communications Officer has the responsibility of evaluating his or her subordinates. If the manager doesn’t even understand what the subordinates do then how can the manager accurately evaluate subordinates? Personally, I feel that a lack of technical prowess on the part of the leader often leads to improper evaluations of subordinates resulting in many people who are promoted past their level of competence… You owe it to the institution to at least know enough about your trade to accurately evaluate your subordinates, especially in the military where we grow all of our talent from the ground-up.

3. Sometimes the team of technical experts can’t agree on the way-ahead. The manager/Communications Officer serves as the decision maker when the team needs one. A manager/Communications Officer must have a technical understanding of the network coupled with a thorough understand of the operational implications and requirements to be of any value in this situation.

4. The manager/Communications Officer is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the communication information system. This alone should compel the manager to remain technical enough to thoroughly understand the solutions that his or her subordinates implement.

I’m a technically oriented person and I work for Communications Officers. I really appreciate working for a technically competent Communications Officer because we all need measured advice and sometimes a little nudge in a different direction. It is nice when the manager doing the nudging knows what he is doing!

Thanks for all you do on this blog John!

S/F

Jason

Reply
1. Tyler says:
  
  October 10, 2015 at 9:28 pm
  
  I think to better compliment a technically oriented manager would be the ability to do two-way translation (Reversible NAT if you will…)
  
  Translate non-technical objectives and requirements from the boss/CO to technical implementation, or being able to take technical situation/ variables affecting the implementation and translate it to how it’s affecting what the boss has in mind
  
  Reply
Jon says:

March 10, 2016 at 5:58 pm

John,

Great article! I could not agree with you any more!

Your quote “We’d never accept an infantry officer who doesn’t know which end of the M-16 the bullet comes out of, so why do we accept a CommO who doesn’t know how IP works but is a good MAGTF officer?” is now hanging on a piece of paper in my cubicle at MARFORCYBER.

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Company Grade Lance Corporal says:

February 7, 2020 at 7:24 am

This post is 5 years old, but still relevant today.

Technical expertise in managers is desirable but the doctrine, theory, and art of communications theory is so nonstandard across the MEF’s that it often makes “leveling up” in an area such as routing and switching secondary to soft skills such as project management or even maintenance. Like jason.kirk mentions, the best managers understand their people and their capabilities. For most CommO’s, there are diminishing returns to learning CLI commands, as it goes well past merely learning what their Marines are doing and veers dangerously into stepping on their SNCOIC’s mandate to train their Marines.

Even so, I agree in that there are a lot of Signals Officers and CommO’s in the military with supbar tehnical skills. In order to make managers technical, the specification and threshold for technical expertise needs to be clearly defined. 0602 education, for example, waxes and wanes with the quality of the instructors, who are often Company Grade officers fresh from their first billet. Is this person qualified to teach HF/VHF/UHF theory? Depends on where they came from and who they led.

This is a unfair criticism of MCESS, who has the unenviable task of teaching to the antiquated equipment in the USMC inventory and to a standard of technical expertise that is already 3-4 years old by the time it rolls off the presses. The officers’ IT education is probably the best in the Marine Corps and even so, the 6 month course we take is inadequate knowledge for the fleet.

Telecommunications management education needs to be standardized — the DoD should create a program that delivers education modules to all the services’ major schools. Ideally this program should be up to date and delivered in a manner that still allows the each service space to teach to their unique doctrine and systems. This would free up the teachers to share leadership skills and practical knowledge while shifting the burden of writing technical curriculum to industry professionals who would be able to keep up with the times.

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