Who do we need more; the Manager or the Technician?

The past few weeks have been rather interesting. I have found myself in debates about two words; ‘technical skills’. It all started when I sought clarification on a bid that we were working on that needed ‘technical skills’. These skills groups were pre-determined. However, given that the assignment involved provision of entrepreneurial training, we chose to be the entrepreneurs that we are and became innovative.You guessed right, this resulted in a ‘new’ technical set of technical skills. These involved basic accounting/bookkeeping skills, and other management tools. The officers behind the tender agreed with us that indeed in small businesses these things were required and, indeed critical skills, but then politely advised us to also include technical skills. These, they said, were not technical skills.The same organisation, whose mandate is to offer technical and vocational services offer, for example, an ‘Accounts Technician course’. An accounts technician is basically a bookkeeper. They are very much part of the accountancy family but as the title suggests such a person is also a technician which makes the skills ‘technical’.Maybe I have been naive, but I still find ‘technician’ such a cool word/title. Look at the technical bench in football, or any other sport. What they do is highly skilled and they pretty much put a team’s performance apart and re-arrange to ensure victory. They offer techniques otherwise the game would be a happy-go-lucky haphazard affair.They examine their strengths and weaknesses; the players’ fitness and where they are best suitable is decided. The opponent’s strengths and weaknesses are examined and decisions on who marks which opponent and how they should do it made. Who are the substitutes and how they will come in is also determined. This is all before the game has even been played.Once the game is on, the technical bench monitors its progress against the game plan and adjusts accordingly. They always evaluate everything after the match. Incidentally, the head of the technical bench is called the team manager.According to the dictionary, a technician is a worker who is proficient in the relevant skills and techniques, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Experienced technicians have intermediate understanding of theory and expert proficiency in technique. Technicians are generally better versed in technique compared to others. They may be classified as highly skilled or semi-skilled.Clearly, from the above, technicians are people to reckon with. Indeed, from the football example, good managers need to be technicians. It seems, however, that most people see a strict separation between technical and managerial skills. Most of our university graduates detest being called technicians in their fields. Perhaps it makes them feel ‘less educated’. This reasoning unfortunately permeates to other levels. The people who handle practical aspects of work (who like to call technicians) are also keen to leave and join the ‘management’.This trend has led to a phony unproductive battle between theory and practice. There need not be such atomisation. Theory is there to guide practice. Practice, reciprocally, validates theory. These are pieces of the same puzzle that we must place together. The bottom line is the end result.Theory and practice are two sides of the same coin. We cannot glorify one over the other. We need a situation where the best theorists in the field are also the best practitioners i.e. there is no difference whatsoever. We must stop demeaning the practitioners, the technicians. Indeed, we must all be technicians in our various fields. You can talk the talk, but can you walk that talk?Sam Kebongo is an entrepreneurship development consultant based in Kigali.

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Who do we need more; the Manager or the Technician?