Re: Not fighting back: [was] challenging and oppressive SME situation

[Mark Baker <mbaker -at- OMNIMARK -dot- COM>]

Rowena Hart wrote:

>2. Bosses, no matter how good they are, don't like refereeing
>these kinds of fights.  I don't know many bosses/supervisors
>who have direct training in conflict resolution.  They usually rely
>on their own personal judgement, and they often make mistakes.

I don't know about "bosses", but good managers make the resolution of the
kind of disputes we are discussing a very high priority. In fact, a good
manager should make it their business to find out if these kinds of
conflicts are occurring. In technical communication, where the professional
standing of the technical communicator is often under recognized if not
actively under attack, a manager needs to be particularly attentive to these
matters.

No technical communications manager worth their salt would not want an
employee to withhold information such as this. Indeed, since the situation
originally described clearly impacts quality, the writer involved has a
clear professional responsibility to report it to their manager,
irrespective of their personal feelings. The manager has a professional
responsibility to intervene and correct the situation, both for the sake of
the employee concerned and for the sake of the quality of the product.

For me, and for all the good technical communication mangers I know,
(mutually exclusive terms, of course), improving relations between
development and documentation is one of the primary motivations for entering
management. Indeed, if there was no conflict, what would we need managers
for? Please, let no member of this list ever shrink from bring a substantial
conflict to the attention of their manger. Please, let no manager ever
shrink from their responsibility for handling such conflicts.

---
Mark Baker
Manager, Corporate Communications
OmniMark Technologies Corporation
1400 Blair Place
Gloucester, Ontario
Canada, K1J 9B8
Phone: 613-745-4242
Fax: 613-745-5560
Email mbaker -at- omnimark -dot- com
Web: http://www.omnimark.com

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