David,

I'm going to have to disagree strongly with you about that. It's this myth that managers are born that has led, over many years, to organizations being 'managed' by people who really don't have a clue. This has been demonstrated in well documented and validated studies and was identified as a major factor holding back British organisations back in the 1990s, leading to the development of the Management Charter Initiative, the first documented specification of performance criteria for management. I can't remember the exact number of competemcies as I don't have my copy with me currently, but there are somewhere in the order of 15 competency areas, divided into five (it might be six - I'm going from memory) groupings - managing operations, managing finance, managing people, managing product, and managing communications.  It is a very similar structure to UKSPEC. 


I have seen so many 'managers' who believe they are born to be managers stumbling around making bad decisions, mismanaging people, and failing to ensure that their service/product delivery is of an appropriate standard because they don't meet those performance criteria. 


There are people who do have a flair for certain aspects of management, whether it be a natural affinity with people skills, communication skills, financial accuity, etc. just as there are people who have a flair for certain aspects of engineering, but it's no more true that this makes them competent managers than in the engineering analogy..


The improvement in performance of organisations that focus on appointing - or developing - managers who have been suitably trained, and assessed against these performance criteria has been measured and demonstrated repeatedly. 


I repeat, the idea that anybody is born with natural management skills/ability is a massive and dangerous myth, no more true than it is for engineering. Let's not confuse entrepreneurial ability with management ability  I can accept (but don't take it as a given) that there may be born entrepreneurs, but there are many instances, some quite famous, of entrepreneurs whose businesses have completely nose dived because they've not been competent managers, indeed, there is strong evidence to indicate that the two are almost mutually incompatible - the wise entrepreneur either studies/develops management skills or appoints others to perform the function, the latter being a proven success formula.

David,

I'm going to have to disagree strongly with you about that. It's this myth that managers are born that has led, over many years, to organizations being 'managed' by people who really don't have a clue. This has been demonstrated in well documented and validated studies and was identified as a major factor holding back British organisations back in the 1990s, leading to the development of the Management Charter Initiative, the first documented specification of performance criteria for management. I can't remember the exact number of competemcies as I don't have my copy with me currently, but there are somewhere in the order of 15 competency areas, divided into five (it might be six - I'm going from memory) groupings - managing operations, managing finance, managing people, managing product, and managing communications.  It is a very similar structure to UKSPEC. 


I have seen so many 'managers' who believe they are born to be managers stumbling around making bad decisions, mismanaging people, and failing to ensure that their service/product delivery is of an appropriate standard because they don't meet those performance criteria. 


There are people who do have a flair for certain aspects of management, whether it be a natural affinity with people skills, communication skills, financial accuity, etc. just as there are people who have a flair for certain aspects of engineering, but it's no more true that this makes them competent managers than in the engineering analogy..


The improvement in performance of organisations that focus on appointing - or developing - managers who have been suitably trained, and assessed against these performance criteria has been measured and demonstrated repeatedly. 


I repeat, the idea that anybody is born with natural management skills/ability is a massive and dangerous myth, no more true than it is for engineering. Let's not confuse entrepreneurial ability with management ability  I can accept (but don't take it as a given) that there may be born entrepreneurs, but there are many instances, some quite famous, of entrepreneurs whose businesses have completely nose dived because they've not been competent managers, indeed, there is strong evidence to indicate that the two are almost mutually incompatible - the wise entrepreneur either studies/develops management skills or appoints others to perform the function, the latter being a proven success formula.