A Good Manager in times of Knowledge

I don't remember it happening, but in the 1980's the role of management began a paradigm shift as a result of a new business tool called the PC. In any management responsibility data is power. It used to be that you became a manager because you had spent years doing the job you were expected to manage. That resulted in a lot of on the job education. Generally you knew more than the folks you managed because of this experience. Even in large organizations that had information systems, the system was designed to feed managers information in the way and format that some operational manager had asked for.

In 2005 there were 100,000 petabytes (PB), that's 1,000 terabytes of data available on the internet. It is estimated that by 2010 there will be over 1 million PB of information. Today, the employees you manage can access more knowledge at their fingertips than you can keep in your head based on life experience.
What that paradigm shift has caused is a shift in what it takes to be a good or great manager because the constant is the people factor.

In summary it used to be that you could be an OK manager if you just had enough technical knowledge. If you had technical knowledge AND good people skills you had the makings of a GREAT manager. Today you MUST have the people skills, because you can't keep up with the growth of knowledge and today's work environment means you MUST have the people skills to be an effective manager, because everyone you manage has the ability to have more knowledge that you do.

And you thought learning to play well with others wasn't important.