Management Rules: 50 New Rules for Managers

CHAPTER 11

MANAGING OTHER PROFESSIONALS

Some offices are awash with people flaunting one, two or even three degrees. These highly-skilled professionals expect to be managed differently from the masses that sweated their lives out in the factory system.

Professionals typically share some common traits:

• Good education and high skills, which makes them high value and high cost.
• High self-esteem: they know they are smart and may well think they are smarter than you. They may quietly resent being managed by someone who they do not necessarily respect, although they will never tell you that.
• Determination to achieve, and to overachieve. They will see ...