What is a table?

Many years ago a good friend of mine aced all his exams and went off to study clever things at Cambridge. While there he took a short course in philosophy and when we met up in the Christmas holidays he told me all about it, between lagers. It turned out that philosophy is all rather complicated and difficult and that’s why they only really bother telling you about it if you went to university. I confess that I don’t recall a lot of the information that was passed to me but I do remember one interesting bit where we talked about what a table was. My friend assured me that, over the years, many of the greatest minds in existence have attempted to answer that simple question, “What is a table?”. Why? Well, presumably because someone said ‘Please sit down at that table over there and do some work’ and rather than just get on with it most philosophers try to be all clever and ask what a table is first.

Anyway “What is a table?” is actually quite a difficult question to answer. “Something you put stuff on”, “Something you sit in front of”, “A flat surface with one or more legs” perhaps. They all seem reasonable if partial answers but none quite help determine how a table might differ from a desk or whether or not a cardboard box can be considered a table if, for example, you put your can of lager on it.

Happily we don’t need the definition to enable us to recognise a table when we see one. It looks right, it feels right, we’re comfortable and safe in the knowledge that we’re dealing with a table and not, for example, a chair, or less likely, a baboon.

Good IT Managers (good managers in general come to that) are like that. No, I’m not saying they’re baboons although some I’ve know have erred on the simian side. I mean it’s not that easy to pin down exactly what a good manager is or how one behaves but we can generally tell a good one pretty quickly when we see it. What is the quality or qualities that help us recognise a good or great manager compared to an OK one? Equally what anti-qualities allow us to quickly spot a dreadful manager? Why do we even need to know?

The car manufacturers know that one of the things people look for when they buy a new car is that reassuringly expensive door close “clunk”. They consequently spend fortunes getting the doors to make just the right sound. Of course, as a consumer, hopefully your entire car purchase decision isn’t just based on the doors. Hopefully you seek to check a whole heap of things and hopefully you know the things that really matter to your own personal decision.

If we know the qualities we’re looking for in a manager or a management style then a few things potentially slot into place:

1. We get better at distinguishing the good from the bad.
2. We enable ourselves to improve our own management style.
3. We may get to recognise those managers who just have a good door sound and not much else.

So what makes a good manager for me? In no particular order…
I want to be managed by someone I can trust and believe in which makes honesty high on my list.
I want to be managed by someone I respect which makes intelligence and integrity important.
I want to be managed by someone who recognises what I do well and helps and encourages me to improve when I don’t.
I want to be managed by someone who is able and willing to empower me and will show faith in my abilities (as long as I don’t screw up).
I want to be managed by someone who listens and respects my opinions.
I want to be managed by someone who is fair and even-handed.
And I want to be managed by someone who is willing to have fun and not take themselves toooo seriously.

And, incidentally, that’s the manager I’d like to be too.