Why are managers afraid to manage?

I have found this good article on Tech Republic blog site

John McKee discusses the reasons many IT managers are reluctant to deal with personnel issues. Having been a personnel manager for a number of years, I wanted to stand up and applaud his words.

And I have to tell you, now being just another employee in the crowd, I want to stand up and applaud them even more. Here’s why.

Nothing demoralizes employees more than working with a co-worker who is a problem that no one will deal with, either because doing so would be “uncomfortable” or the happiness of the team is just not a big priority. Basically, it ends up with the crappy employee holding everyone emotionally hostage.

I learned a long time ago that, although it’s never pleasant to deliver criticism, the burden should never outweigh the need. If someone is a personnel problem, he or she has to be responsible for the consequences. I’m not suggesting the criticism should be blunt and loud, by any means. It can be finessed. But a manager should never be apologetic for having to criticism the work performance of a team member. If Employee A exhibits behaviors that negatively impact the rest of the staff, then Employee A needs to be made aware that it won’t be tolerated.

If not, what’s the message to the rest of the team? I can show up late, push my work off on others, be intimidating, be toxic, and watch YouTube videos all day at work. Who’s going to say anything? And the other message is that I am not important enough to straighten things out for.

Much of the time, a manager will turn a blind eye to a bad employee even though all the signs are there. Then they’ll wait until a co-worker comes in to complain. At that point, the manager gives the “You should talk to her and explain how that makes you feel” speech. First of all, and I know I’m going to get creamed with feedback on this, we can try to be all kum-ba-ya about it, but nine times out of ten, such a “talk” will result in one employee being directly in the “hate radar” of another. Most unbearably unpleasant people also happen to be defensive about their unpleasantness.

Second, isn’t that what the manager gets the extra bucks for…managing?

The Doctrine of Necessity

by Mr.  Saleem Rizvi (Posted on website related to PAKISTAN)  .
No matter how powerful and compelling the arguments may be, in the face of a predetermined and/or preconcluded decision, the outcome would remain the same; the outrageous slaughter of justice at the hands of its guardians. The notion of letting the strongest decide who shall survive raises many problems. Instead of using legal jargon, I thought a literary touch to this discussion may help enlighten souls better. The moral of the story implicitly covers the ongoing off-going deal making discussions between Benazir and Musharraf and its possible potential outcome. Consider the treatment of the problem offered by Don Marquis in Archy and Mehitabel 40-42 (1973):

A Spider and a Fly
I heard a spider and a fly arguing.
“wait” said the fly “do not eat me. I serve a great purpose in the world”
“you will have to show me” said the spider

“I scurry around gutters and sewers and garbage cans, said the fly and gather up the germs of typhoid influenza and pneumonia on my feet and wings then I carry these germs into the household of men and give them diseases all the people who have lived the right sort of life recover from the diseases and the old soaks who have weakened their systems with liquor and iniquity succumb it is my mission to help rid the world of these wicked persons I am a vessel of righteousness scattering seeds of justice and serving the noblest uses.”

“It is true” said the spider, “you are more useful in a plodding material sort of way than i am but I do not serve the utilitarian deities. I serve the Gods of beauty. Look at the gossamer webs. I weave they float in the sun like filaments of song if you get what i mean. I do not work at anything. I play all the time. I am busy with the stuff of enchantment and the materials of fairyland. My works transcend utility. I am the artist a Creator and a demi God. It is ridiculous to suppose that I should be denied the food I need in order to continue to create beauty. I tell you plainly mister fly it is all damned nonsense for that food to rear up on its hind legs and say it should not be eaten.”

“You have convinced me” said the fly, “Say no more” and shutting all his eyes he prepared himself of dinner and yet he said “I could have made out a case for myself too if I had had a better line of talk.”

“Of course you could have” said the spider clutching a sirloin from him, “but the end would have been just the same if neither of us had spoken at all.”

I am afraid that what the spider said is true and it gives me to think furiously upon the futility of literature.