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Well, after working harder than I ever have these past 2 years in my over 25 year long career in IT, I was fired recently for 'performance issues'.  I am just beside myself in this and it will take some time to unravel the knot of confusion concerning how it had gotten to this point.  After all, I did my best to follow the recommendations given in numerous podcasts, in The Effective Manager book, and countless 'Things I Think I Think' and other such helps from this website but to no avail.  Perhaps management is just not for me.  As much as I'd like to think that it was, this past 2 years has been stressful, relentless and unrewarding.  In this may be the key and perhaps I should have left the company long ago especially considering that the signs were there and were for a very long time.  Most attempts at applying the recommendations given by the podcasts and the book were resisted by either my own boss or my co-managers in the organization.  I was neither allowed to run staff meetings per the recommendations nor was I allowed to have weekly one on ones using the recommended format, for instance.  Peer one on ones with my colleagues were also resisted despite the importance and impact my team had on theirs and the wider organization. The expectations, the workload and the chaos was simply unsustainable or impossible to facilitate delivering effective results without consequence to the operations of the business.  After a long series of outages related to infrastructure improvements and/or maintenance-related incidents, per a director friend of mine at the organization, management staff above me were looking for a 'scapegoat' (his word, not mine).  And so here I sit today, suddenly without a job (and without an MT license as a result) feeling like a failure as a 'Manager Tools' manager.

tlhausmann's picture
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Sometimes, leaders and managers get painted into corners. I was "re-organized" out of a role many years ago.

How can I help? What do you want to do and where do you want to do it?  I have served as an IT director and CIO for nearly 30 years after leaving a university teaching role (computer science.)

-Tom

[email protected]

P.S. I have been an MT listener and participant in the forums for many years.

angelicdoctor's picture

Thank you, Tom.  I have sent you a PM.

SHP's picture
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To a reasonable extent, I've had to find a way to make my system of management happen despite circumstances forced upon me by others beyond my sphere of influence. 

For me, it's not a black & white line between "murdering the unchosen alternative" and focusing on "results & retention."  You can fire me for insubordination, but if my VP orders me to march my department off a cliff... I'm trying to find some way to make the boss happy without destroying my department and any chance of long term success. 

Sometimes it means marching them right up to the edge before getting a reprieve.  Sometimes it means rolling cannon balls on the deck.  Sometimes it means sticking your neck out there in a management meeting and telling the emporer he has no clothes.

But no one is going to stop me from doing what's right by my company, by my people, and by my own career (order is intentional).  I'll sleep better unemployed (been there) than holding on to a j-o-b in which I have no influence.

Make the most of this opportunity you have now to find an organization which will support and challenge you to make your own future.  Good luck!

angelicdoctor's picture

Thank you, SHP.

ZITTER's picture

very well said from a tough guy! kudos