Dinosaur Wrote:Managers are, in the natural order of things, (hopefully) the people with the greatest aptitude towards managing things - you wouldn't see me dead anywhere near any post with 'manager' in the title for instance, I'd be c**p at it - and I suspect that this principle follows through into IFA, so that those 'managing' IFA will always tend to be employed as managers in their daytime job. I've noticed over the years that 'manager mentality' never switches off in some people (however drunk, and however much everyone else at the party is trying to have a good time), conversely anyone who prefers to spend their time out in the mud earning half as much (or less) clearly doesn't have it and is unlikely ever to get to the point of having much say in IFA, however much their good intentions :face-stir:

kevin wooldridge Wrote:Another 'opinion' about the IfA being touted as a fact.... The IFA is 'managed' if you want to use that word, by an elected council which is broadly representative of the profession. I have just checked the 20 current members of IfA council and I know for a fact that at lkeast half are currently actively employed in positions that involve field work, probably Dinosaur not unlike your own. At least 2 others, I have had the pleasure to work for in the past and can vouch for their proficiency as 'dirt' archaeologists. So having killed off that myth what is left...oh here we go. You wouldn't want to meet any of them at a party!!.....Some of the best parties I have ever attended have been organised/arranged/peopled by folk currently on the IFA council ....

RedEarth Wrote:Oh Jebus, 'manager mentality' is called responsibility, and possibly also being a grown up, which is something that in theory happens to everyone. If you don't want to, don't castigate the boring old farts who do.

Dinosaur Wrote:Wasn't castigating anyone, merely stating the obvious, 'managers' are always going to end up doing the 'managing', the rest of us aren't (and spending your life playing in the mud for peanuts would not, in much of society's eyes, be described as 'grown up', unfortunately), so chucking in a load of extra non-'managers' is hardly likely to change anything :face-kiss:

RedEarth Wrote:Ah, I didn't realise that managers were born fully formed. A bit like the nobility is it - some born to the entitlement of management, others to playing in the mud? Is there ever any cross-over I wonder... If you described it as playing in the mud obviously it won't look very 'grown-up'. But then, being an air traffic controller is just 'playing computer games' and a secretary just polishes their nails all day. What are you talking about? Some people need to admit that they love playing the down-trodden digger, don't like responsibility beyond their own site, and are happy complaining about how the other half lives.

Dinosaur Wrote:You're surely not denying that some people are born with an aptitude to managing and some aren't? And I'd contend that a there's a certain similarity between air-traffic-controlling and computer games (the screens and moving things around on them anyway, even if the rules are different) - if you've been watching the recent Channel 4 series on troops in Afghanistan, quite a few of the guys commented on how 'computer game' they felt a lot of what they were doing felt like, despite all the physical side and using real weapons. Its been demonstrated that F1 drivers brains are just hard-wirred differently from us mere mortals, and I'd imagine at a smaller scale the same applies in other lines of work, you need the basic physical aptitude before you can develop the skill. A lot of my workforce are never going to be able to work out levels in their heads, for instance, whereas I find it a lot quicker than using a calculator (and less chance of hitting the wrong key!). We're all different, and some people are always going to make better managers than others - I habitually ignore the phone and forget people's names instantly and I'm incapable of costing projects (but good at bringing in the project on time and in budget to a decent standard) so I'd be useless and no training's ever going to improve that. Do secretaries still spend their time doing their nails? Thought things had moved on, but, hey, it's a skill, I'm never going to knock anyone for being good at something, however bizarre, wish I was better at plenty of things (but haven't got the nails, sadly) so I concentrate on the ones that I am good at :face-approve:

I like playing in the mud, but I'm afraid I've never regarded myself as a down-trodden digger, just someone who's spent their life doing something they (generally) enjoy and I've always been prepared to graft/be useful enough to pay the bills and be noticed by those nice 'management' people enough to get promoted/those little double-time Sunday watching briefs etc. Seems to work fine and I'm none too happy with people I've never met telling me that apparently that isn't allowed any more cos they've got an agenda

Dinosaur Wrote:Can't actually recall me ever saying on here that management are useless? - if they were I wouldn't have a job (and good management makes that job a lot easier) - although plenty are still crap at digging! (same as I'm crap at managing). Doesn't change the apparently management-led agenda of the IFA (mine and other people on here's perception as has been made quite clear on this and previous threads, feel free to disagree).

Right, I'm off to eat food and drink wine and hope my minging cold gets miraculously better overnight......

RedEarth Wrote:It's a shame, because my agenda is a belief that anyone can do pretty much anything they want given enough opportunity and training. Maybe they won't be the best ever at it but they could still give it a go. I do feel, and I'm not saying that this applies to you (as you say, I don't know you), that there are a lot of people in archaeology who enjoy the field side of the job so much they can't face the idea of not doing it, and it is assumed that the role of management will make this happen. Eventually, however, perhaps they will realise that those field skills, including (I presume) the ability to organise, delegate, and deal with people, make them perfectly able to manage and that this is not a bad thing. In the meantime others will be doing just that - will those who don't carry on griping about useless management?

Jack Wrote:I'd say that although that seems a worthy agenda........its also one I apply to myself (when I'm being lazy and thinking that I can't do something and give up)..........I'd probably fall more on the negative side.

We are not all genetically equal. Some will be predisposed towards certain activities.
Equally a lot of a humans ' basic skills ' are taught from a very early age.
Some of these seem to get kinda fixed at a later age.

This further predisposes an individual towards certain skill-sets.

Hmm...that doesn't read like it makes sense. Guess what I'm driving at is humans don't all end up equally able to do all tasks and whereas 'anyone can '...try to...'do pretty much anything they want given enough opportunity and training'. Some will find it a breeze and others will just not get it.

There does seem to be a limited number of people who seem to be able to do almost anything with ease though..........but I suspect that is a function of their upbringing and a genetic predisposition.

Some of this also seems to be down to 'social programming'. Many people wont do or try certain things as they see it as 'not what everyone else does'. Driving at 30mph in a 30 zones comes to mind.

I classify people into two crude categories......those that follow (the sheep) and those that challenge (the thinkers).

Sheep tend to check what everyone else is doing before they decide whether to do something. They find the unusual silly, or worthy of mocking or destruction. You can see them look up and check to see if anyone is watching before they do something that might be out of the norm. These folk also tend to believe stuff on face value i.e. what the TV tells them, or what Joe bloggs down the pub said, or its in a book so it must be true. Folk who start a 'fact' by saying.....'They say that...' Sheep also love to dress like everyone else so that they don't stick out in a crowd. When questioned about, or presented with a discussion about something they aren't sure about they get defensive, angry or dismissive.

Thinkers forge their own (often seemingly overly difficult) paths. They day-dream, they question most (if not all) the treasured 'truths' just for the hell of it. Thinkers like to demonstrate their individuality and mock anything they see as uniform as grey and boring. Thinkers do strange things just for the experience and love to endlessly debate unsolvable problems and theories (getting no where). Thinkers are drawn to the 'big questions' like moths to a flame. Thinkers often suffer bouts of depression and/or paranoia but also get obsessed by something trivial for days/weeks until it is conquered.

I see the sheep as the forces of order and stagnation and the thinkers as the forces of chaos and disruption.

Society needs both as out of the conflicting motives and objectives of the two factions a balance of adaption with stability is created.

So to bring this ramble (it is Friday after all) back to its source..........I'd argue that not everyone can do everything. Its a part of evolution for Humans to be different.

Unless you start training them young enough that is, but even then, some will be better at some things than the others.