High-tech management crisis: How you can help

Before reading this article, please answer the following questions. Do you:

• Have an official-looking piece of paper that says you've completed some formal education?
• Walk on two legs most of the time?

Yes? Then why not be a manager in a high technology company?

This was the question asked at a conference sponsored by the high technology sector that I attended in Bournemouth on the weekend. What I learnt about the critical shortage of high tech managers shocked me. As a result I have been persuaded to add my voice to those who warn of impending catastrophe if this all-important industry is allowed to flounder. A little education is in order, since I find that most people don't understand the true nature of things digital.

In our modern society even people without money, family connections, brains, or talent can become rich and successful. The high technology sector is a premier example of this phenomenon. In times gone by carrying a little extra weight was a status symbol; it meant you could gorge to your heart's content. Nowadays, who could respect a high tech company that doesn't have a few dozen layers of unnecessary management? Potential investors would laugh and take their money to a place that knows how to waste money properly. So why not join them? They need you. If the divisional manager doesn't give you a job she loses part of her budget. And that might make her empire smaller than the chap in the office down the corridor. And that won't do, will it? If you don't help her, who will?

These jobs pay very well. With your new-found wealth your politics can and probably will swing somewhere to the right of a certain Austrian corporal. You can mutter such things as "benefit scum" under your breath, secure in the knowledge that the Volvo in your driveway and your super-looking office prove to the world that you are a productive member of society. After all, all those on benefits could simply do what you have done, no matter what their problems might be. So Johnny burnt down his council flat because his brain chemistry isn't everything it could be. He could still manage to keep a few scruffy software engineers in line, couldn't he? In fact, if you have had a problem or two with wonky neurons, you wouldn't let that stop you from attaining a better life, would you?

In fact, a history of encounters with the mental health profession is no barrier to entry. We do, however, recommend that if a particular medication works for you that you stay on it at least for the interview. After that you can go cold turkey and run screaming down the corridors with a manic grin on your face, or sit in your office and do whatever it is that the voices tell you to do. In the former case this will simply be accepted as your managerial style. In the latter, chances are your job performance will be as least as good as if you'd bothered opening that paperback Management for Beginners you bought. What about meetings? Experience shows that even the those worst afflicted by bad brain chemistry can get through meetings by simply saying "that sounds great to me," as appropriate. (Or even as not appropriate, since no one seems to know what really is appropriate for a manager.) Remember: your fellow managers are free of your problems not due to any constitutional superiority over you, but because they are too far down the evolutionary ladder to be susceptible to such things. (Ever hear of a wacko cabbage? How would it behave differently from a "well" one.)

A word of warning: small high tech companies, as well as the occasional division within a large one, are sometimes actually staffed by competent, hard-working people who keep a lean and efficient managerial structure. This phenomenon is believed to date back to earlier, less-prosperous times when things had to be done efficiently or the tribe starved. Poor bastards. You will know you are in one of these backward places if meetings only occur when there is something to discuss and if you're expected so produce something in between. But don't worry: if you have been reading this article while nodding your head, smiling, and making appreciative noises, the chances are that you will not be invited to join them anyway. Not even to clean the toilets.

So you too can have a high salary and buy all those things you really don't need like a Blackberry so the dog can keep track of his walk schedule. Now, if you could just teach him to walk on two legs, at least some of the time. No need to go to the office at all...

Previously

• Shorter working hours destroying families
• Man with six O-Levels makes bid for monarchy
• Secretary quits job