I've written before about playing the role of a manager versus an individual contributor (IC). I've always enjoyed being an IC so much that I've never really given the role of manager a passing thought.
Until now...
Come September I'll be an official manager for 5 college new hires. It was an offer that I simply could not pass up, because there's a giant loophole that I found extremely attractive: I will have little to no responsibility for their day-to-day efforts.
The five reports will be part of ten new college hires that are joining Rich Napolitano's organization for a 27-month rotational program. Every nine months they will receive a new assignment from "a real manager". For the sake of continuity they will report on paper to one manager. I will work with their rotational managers to handle stuff like collating performance reviews from two different jobs, and I will work with them on their acclimation into the EMC culture.
Why would I do such a thing? Well, if you ever were to take a look at my whiteboard or notebook, you would see a plethora of ideas that I'd like to prototype. They are ideas that are simply waiting in the wings. The program is a great opportunity to work on 5 different skunkworks projects without any of their managers knowing (or perhaps one HUGE, multi-year skunkworks effort).
I'm also lining up a few field trips into the JFK Library, the MIT Media Lab, and other inspirational locations. These trips will be followed by night-time gatherings at Fenway or the Boston Garden (I assume Rich has a budget for these things, I don't know, this will be my first run as a manager).
In all seriousness, the conflict between efficiency (e.g. doing what your manager asks) and individual innovation (e.g. solving customer problems via the side-channel pursuit of new ideas) will be an excellent theme to explore with these individuals (who, by the way, had to go through a pretty rigorous interview cycle to qualify for these particular ten spots). If all goes well the next batch would be hired in summer 2011. We will be putting the current crew through 27 months of some of EMC's toughest training/education programs, including EMC Proven certification, virtualization certification, and Archer/RSA certification.
By the time they are done, they should know a lot.
Stay tuned as to whether or not they earn their Skunkworks Certification.
Steve
http://stevetodd.typepad.com
Twitter: @SteveTodd
very sweet position you got. Best thing is they will learn various things. Knowing you I can only bet they are great ideas.
Posted by: NerdBlurt | August 12, 2010 at 08:04 AM