By Anne Louiselle
|
|
| Greg Bartlett, Marguerite Krupp, Bud Samiljan, and Carol Marsh-Hobday | |
| Photo by Anne Louiselle |
On May 22, 2002, the Boston Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication presented the Ask the Manager program at the Sheraton Lexington Inn. Attendees directed their questions to a panel of managers that included Bud Samiljan, Carol Marsh Hobday, Greg Bartlett, and Marguerite Krupp. Taryn Light moderated the program. This article provides a summary of their combined responses.
Question: To what extent should a manager solicit the input of employees in decision-making regarding the creation of templates, style guides, usage, and other standards that employees will be expected to follow?
Answer: The employees should be very involved. The framework should be put together and reviewed by a team of writers who should discuss the style guide and negotiate it. This is critical, because writers are the people who will use it and they need to be comfortable with the style guide.
 |
|
| Ed Marshall and Nicole Cerimelli | |
| Photo by Anne Louiselle |
Question: Are there limitations on how friendly a manager can be with the employees that he or she supervises? Should there be a particular distance from employees? If so, what purpose does that distance serve?
Answer: There are limits as to what is acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable behavior, particularly in a professional setting. When you are working in a startup company or some other high-pressure situation in which projects must be around quickly, everyone gets involved and contributes. A good manager moves things out of the way and does not place things in the way. While there is some distance built into the situation, the managers are right on the line with the writers and editors.
 |
|
| Taryn Light | |
| Photo by Anne Louiselle |
As a manager, it is important to care about people. In order to care about people, you have to get to know them. It is good to be friendly and informal, but it should not appear that you have favorites because that can cause bad feelings.
You should remember to carry over the same behavior as you would in any professional situation and take your degree of personal contact from that.
Question: Do you have any experience or advice about situations in which managers come up from the ranks and have former peers reporting to them?
Answer: The dynamics do change. You have to be conscious of your level of frankness. It is not something that is easy to deal with.
Treat everyone with respect and work out the individual relationships. There is, in fact, a distance built into the situation. If you ignore this fact, then you cause more problems than if you had just acknowledged the distance in the first place. You have to change the dynamic when you are a new manager.
Question: As a manager, are you more in touch with the nerve center of the company? If so, how does that change things?
Answer: It depends on where you are in the organization. You do become more involved in the programs and become privileged to more information, sometimes more information than you want to know. Sometimes you are asked for your input as a manager and sometimes you are not. If your manager wants to involve you, then he or she will. It is a different perspective.
 |
|
| Cindy Cookson and Deborah Carley | |
| Photo by Anne Louiselle |
Managers have different perspectives. Individual contributors deal with tools and providing deliverables. Managers have people on the team and deal with projects, processes, and people. Managers have a different toolbox, and managers are trained differently.
The panelists said they have met individual contributors who have been managers and do not wish to work as managers, because they have a passion for writing and they do not have that opportunity as writers.
Question: Do you have training as a manager? If so, at what point did that occur?
Answer: There are many training programs, and managers should attend them early on in the process. They are very helpful. There is usually additional or refresher training provided, but it is usually based on the same ideas. Training is an excellent way of introducing new managers to other people in the company who can help.
Question: What resumes catch your attention?
Answer: Good ones and bad ones. It is not necessary to talk about which tools were used on a specific project. A list of tools is more effective. It is effective to list company involvement in something other than the writing process on the resume.
A good resume uses key words from the job requirements. It should highlight skills that match the position.
A resume that refers to a Web page is nice because it allows the manager to research skills in more detail. A manager can review writing samples this way.
Question: Is there a particular length for a resume? How far back should a resume detail?
Answer: A resume should detail as much as is relevant to the position. If you are very experienced, then it is acceptable to have a two- to three-page resume, but the material should be relevant to the position. The resume should be focused on the job.
Question: Do you expect candidates to know everything in a job description?
Answer: The core of the ad is usually from the hiring manager. Human Resources managers also add some information. The list in the advertisement is the best-case scenario that the hiring manager hopes to get. In most cases, the successful candidate does not know everything in that list. Don't be discouraged from applying if every detail does not match your experience.
The Ask the Manager program was well received. One attendee described the program as "one of the best—maybe the best—program all year!"
For more information about the STC's Boston Chapter programs, visit the Programs page at http://www.stc-boston.org/programs/programs.shtml.
Anne Louiselle has been a member of STC since 1997. Anne can be reached at alouiselle@attbi.com.