On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Eliot Lear <lear(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
Mary:
On 3/4/13 6:51 PM, Mary Barnes wrote:
[MB] I don't think anyone has said an AD could be a manager with
little technical clue. I think Sam said it extremely well in his
email. What some of us have been proposing is that someone with
proven technical skills in another area that also is good at managing
projects/people could do a reasonable job. From what I have seen this
has certainly been the case in other areas - i.e., ADs that don't have
depth of knowledge in all the WGs in their areas, but are strong
technical individuals in other areas.
I am very sorry to have to say this, but we are all dancing around the
issue that we have experience of where the above has been shown to
simply not work well. And this is why it is important for a NOMCOM that
gets into such a situation to do exactly what this NOMCOM did: consult
with the IESG to determine the need to "have a body" versus have the
right person.
[MB] I mentioned in another email that yes, indeed, we do have
experience where appointing someone that didn't have the depth of
knowledge did not work well. But, as I said in my email, I don't so
much think it was because the filling of the position with an
individual so much as it was the fact that there is no way for a
Nomcom to anticipate how an individual will actually behave once they
are appointed. We've had some exceptionally talented technical people
that have been appointed AD that haven't performed nearly as well as
one might anticipate.
Since, this is also the exact same situation faced by the Nomcom that
I chaired and the issue was actually highlighted in my Nomcom report:
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-barnes-nomcom-report-2009-00.txt
It's not clear to me that the IESG every seriously considered the
problem nor put a plan in place to avoid it in the future. I don't
think anyone was surprised when Wes didn't re-up that it was going to
be extremely difficult to find the right replacement.
[/MB]
The problem seems to be that
folks value the technical expertise far more than they do project and
people management skills. The end result is that there are some
really strong technical people in leadership roles that have little
ability to manage things well and very poor people interaction skills.
The latter is certainly a very negative personality trait when it
comes to motivating and managing volunteers. [/MB]
That happens from time to time, let's agree. And maybe it is the price
we pay for the model we have. And maybe that's a trade-off worth
having. This is not to say that the IESG shouldn't evolve its working
methods, by the way. But it is possible to get it wrong.
Eliot