NatureBoy

Our CTO is an opinionated, misinformed, unpleasant man who is a very poor people manager, even though he is capable of seeing the 'big picture' when it comes to IT at our company. To be honest, I really don't think he does much work at all. He's very vague about what it is he expects from you and is very sharp-tounged when you don't do exactly what he wants. While one minute he will say that he wants IT to drive the income of our company, he will also say that he doesn't want to invest money into retooling our constantly breaking online store (an obvious money maker). I think he believes he's the greatest thing to IT since the transistor, but he also admits that he knows zilch about the languages that we use to develop in-house applications.

Unfortunately, his mannerisms have driven away two of our senior tech people already (one of which has been heard to say he'll never work IT again due to the trauma he experienced working under our CTO). One of those senior techs happened to be my boss, which now leaves me with the great pleasure of reporting directly to the CTO.

I have no desire to harm him and only a minimal desire to expose his substantial ineptitude and forward-thinking-ness to the CEO.

What sort of things do you do to deal with supervisors like this? What sort of things has your supervisor done to you? What can you do to combat this sort of egotistical idiocy?

phredgreen

well, unless he's the fellow who owns the company, you need to go to the person to whom your cto reports and let them know what is going on. let this person know that you've lost two very valuable personnel assets to your company and are losing money because of this cto's faulty desicions. if you can provide solid figures about how the cto's desicions have negatively affected your section and therefore the whole company, they will have to listen or they will simply ignore you, a sure sign that it's time to book it.

good luck.

__________________
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
- Thomas Paine

onetime2

Alright, let's see, quite a bit here.

First off, he got to where he is for some reason (whether it's good or bad) and whoever made the decision to put him there will not be happy if that decision is made to look idiotic in front of others. Second, going over his head as suggested by phred could do you a ton of damage (especially if there is a close relationship between the CEO and your CTO).

You can look at his faults as either opportunites or barriers. It's your choice. If you really don't think you can get along with him then make sure you're polishing the resume and looking for something new. If you can get along with him, you'll probably get a few opportunities to move up into those higher level positions that keep going vacated. Reporting directly to him could work out very well for you.

While working for a Fortune 200 firm, my boss was fired about three months after I started. The department was only me and my boss, so this left me in a difficult situation. Suddenly I found myself reporting directly to the President of a couple of $ billion company. This President had a BAD reputation. He held grudges like no one I've ever seen but was a really amazing businessman.

My ability to get along with him kept me from losing my job and enabled me to be extremely productive in everything I did at the company. People knew I was one of the few that held his trust and there were almost no barriers when it came to getting stuff done across departments or divisions (which was typically a MAJOR hurdle as no one wanted to be outdone by anyone). He brought me into some extremely high level planning sessions which gave me several opportunities to inject my thoughts around the direction of the business.

This even resulted in giving me a smile a couple of weeks ago as I was driving down the highway. I left that company almost 3 years ago but coming upon a construction area I saw a product with the company logo on it. This was a product which I had done the due diligence on, contacted the corporation that built them, and helped to set up the deal which brought them into the family, so to speak.

On the other side of things, there are relationships that can not be continued. I again find myself working for a boss who is less than ideal. Many people don't get along with him as he's pretty arrogant and wants everything his own way. The problem is he's heading up a department that's critical to our business and there is no rush to achieve anything. He's had 5 months to get the department up and running and there's little evidence that it will be functional before the end of the year at the earliest. There is no vision beyond a software application he is developing and I don't feel there is much to learn here. In this case I may just have to cut and run. If there's no reward in putting out the extra effort, then I'll be damned if I spend my waking hours dreading going to work.

Just my .02.

Cynthetiq

a book for you to read...managing up

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...36047?v=glance

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

lurkette

Figure out what needs to be done to manage things properly and then make him think it was his idea.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

HeyAgain

I like that idea a lot. In addition, make sure whatever he states is consistent. I really hate supervisors tell you one thing and another something else. This basically creates an environment where their employees don't know what the supervisor really wants completed.

Rodney

Lurkette and HeyAgain have good ideas. In addition, simply keep him informed of everything you're doing. When all you can get out of him is a vague idea, go ahead and make an action plan based, to the best of your ability, on what you think he wants, with all caveats and danger points pointed out. Give him/ Email him the plan and tell him you're proceeding in this way unless you hear from him otherwise. Then go ahead, don't wait for him.

He'll either blow it off and not answer you, or give you an answer right away. If he blows you off and later comes around to bitch, you're covered because you told him your plans. If he comes back right away and tells you you're wrong -- well, at least you forced him to give you clarity.

Loki

by doing that, all you do is reinforce his notion that he is god's gift to IT. I hate people like this. i will bet you $10 that if you ask him a direct question, he will hide behind either a degree/diploma, or prior experience.

Perhaps im not being fair, but nonetheless, If it were me, i would go to my CEO, and tell him that i think the CTO is a inept fool, and incapable of managing an IT section. I would also inform him that i can no longer work under him, and as such, i am resigning.

Maybe if your lucky, you will be offered an alternative section, but if not, pack your bags up, sunshine, and look for an alternative source of income.

However, if you really need this job, for whatever reason, grin and bear it. It just boils down to assessing what you want to do, and working from there.

guthmund

Everyone knows that in the corporate world you put the idiots where they can do the least amount of harm.....management.

Sounds like this guy doesn't know anything. He probably knows how to reconcile numbers and kiss ass appropriately. If you have the opportunity to promote an idiot to management it's a certainty that the yes-man is first in line.

Loki, from my standpoint at least, is right on the money. If you can't tolerate the idiot tell the bossman about him and his ineptitude and then walk away.

If the guy is smart.....which he probably isn't, but if he is.....then he'll offer you a viable solution. Unfortunately, even idiot management gets promoted, usually to a higher management position.

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.