Weak links in the chain of command

It is quite famous for where I work, that our IT systems are pretty bad. We have an insane number of applications supporting a large variety of different business processes. I've never seen so many in my life. In Paris, they have a single team supporting a single application. In Tokyo, we have no such luxury and we need to support the entire business chain while Paris sleeps.

For a guy that worked in R&D in Sony, one of the miraculous things that I never had to deal with were business applications. Perhaps the only things I ever used were in house sites for procurement, holiday booking systems and career reviews. That was about it.

For where I work now, there is a system for referential data, booking, position keeping, making deals, risk management and more. If anyone of them breaks, our traders could be in for a bad time.

But from software chains there are also chains of command. The global head of IT came out from our Paris HQ and had a Tokyo onsite visit on Monday. I am part of the non-infrastructure IT team in Tokyo and we are not particularly big team-- a team of 5 people supporting over 100 people in their daily operations.

For once in a long time, this is actually the first time I met or spoke with a global boss that I was actually impressed with. Most other bosses are true management types (ie the pointy haired boss), but with this person, you could tell that there was things that were different about. He could look in your way and already understand the kinds of struggles that you'd have to deal with in great detail and we'd also listen to him and find out that even with great power, that he isn't super human and the struggles for change he is working for (which are worthy goals), are real challenges. I don't envy him but he certainly does have the right plan in mind.

I would have thought that an organization with a good leader would have great positive impacts, but as I understand now the more I learn about middle management that these people are the weakest links in this company-- because they are the biggest barriers between good people at the top and the people below that really get things done. That and a lot of things that get done at the lower levels can and do get filtered on the way up, because it is in the best interest in middle management to say that things are ok when reporting to the people higher up. It's all pretty standard stuff when you come to think about it.

How is that to change? Well, that is a good question. But the one thing that I really learned from this experience is that getting ahead in organizations like these is only part about getting your job done and knowing how to pick up the phone and convincing other people to help you.

Learning the power of soft skills is incredibly important and probably one of the strongest takeaways from the job that I work in now.