A manager who does not plant forests

Hossein Afshin, the scientific vice president, said a sentence in the gathering of elites and technology leaders in Mashhad, which may seem like a simple management advice at first glance, but it has a more important meaning for the field of science and technology: "If every manager only plants a tree under which he sits under its shade, no one will build a forest." This sentence [...] was written by a manager who does not plant forests for the first time in ICT News Iran information and communication technology news reference. appeared

This sentence can be seen as a sign of a manager's view of the concept of development; That the value of a decision should not be measured only by what can be seen in the period of his responsibility.

In many operational areas, a project can be defined, budgeted and completed within a certain period of time. But science and technology have different rules. Building a technological power does not happen just by assigning credit or launching a product. Expert manpower, technical knowledge, infrastructure, data, capital and the market must be placed together so that an idea can turn into technology and then into a product and business.

For this reason, the science and technology manager is missing an important part of the problem if he only thinks about demonstrable outputs. Sometimes the most important action of a manager is the work whose final product cannot be seen yet; Creating an infrastructure, solving an obstacle, connecting academia and industry, providing an investment path or creating an environment in which a technology company can grow.

Here the difference between managing a project and managing an ecosystem is clear. In the project, the output is specific and deliverable; But in the technology ecosystem, it is a matter of establishing a relationship between the university, the knowledge-based company, the investor, the market, the government, and the human force. If these components are not connected, even a successful project will not necessarily become a sustainable capacity.

From this angle, Afshin's sentence is more about capacity building than about the project. A professional manager is not necessarily the one who registers the most projects in his name; He is the one who can create conditions so that the work will continue even after the end of his responsibility.

Of course, this type of management requires accepting a fact: the result of one manager's correct decisions may be seen in another manager's record. He may provide an infrastructure that will be used later by a company, researcher or university, and not even the name of the initial manager remains. But the effect of that decision will remain in the ecosystem.

In the field of technology, such a view is more important. If Iran is to create an advantage in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced industries and new technologies, this goal cannot be achieved with a series of individual projects. A chain of education, research, infrastructure, capital, commercialization and market should be formed together.

So perhaps one of the important questions about the performance of a scientific and technological manager is not "what opened?" Rather, it should be "what capacity did it create?"

This change of question makes an important difference. A manager who only thinks about the opening is more looking for the exit; A manager who thinks about capacity seeks to build possibility. The former may deliver one product, but the latter can enable the production of dozens of other products.

Of course, this does not mean that the output and result are unimportant. A successful manager must be able to create results; But an outcome that leads to capacity building, not just an achievement for performance reporting.

From this point of view, the view proposed by the scientific vice president can be seen as a sign of a professional approach to science and technology management. A manager who is willing to spend a part of his career to create infrastructure and capacity that may not see its full fruit, is actually thinking about building a path instead of managing a course.

Perhaps for this reason, the metaphor of the tree and the forest is an accurate metaphor for the field of science and technology. A tree can be planted and its result can be displayed, but a forest is the result of the juxtaposition of trees planted by different people.

A professional manager knows that not everything he creates is going to be registered in his name. It is more important that when his responsibility is over, he has left something in the field of science and technology of the country that can grow.

Afshin has defended such a view of management with a simple sentence; A view that measures the success of the manager not only by the number of projects opened, but by the capacity he has created to continue the path.

A manager does not plant the forest alone; But a professional manager can make sure there are a few rooted trees in the ground when it's the next manager's turn.