For Better or For Worse…

Eric Steven Raymond once mentioned in an article,

If you treat your beta-testers as if they’re your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

This principle of acting the way you’re treated is far reaching and extremely important in a managerial position.  I’ve personally seen this work both for and against managers.  While working at a retail store years ago, I had a manager who was sometimes referred to as “The Machine.”  He was an intense workaholic who assumed that his employees were either lazy, or trying to steal from him.  Some of the employees responded by hiding out in the break room, and a couple of them stole from him.  On the flip side, when I first started working with my current manager, he said, “I’ve managed top-level engineering teams in the industry for 24 years.  I’ll manage you the same way.”  At first I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I soon found out.  It meant that he respected us.  Despite being student employees, our boss treats us as professionals, and we respond by being professionals.  He expects us to work hard and to meet our deadlines, so we work hard and meet our deadlines.  How different would the industry (and working in general) be if all managers understood this? Often, for better or for worse, how our associates act is a reflection of how we treat them.