The following hypothetical human resource problem has, like so many of its ilk, no correct answer. In order to help your colleagues deal with such a situation, please write and tell us how you would handle it. We'll print as many as space permits.--The Editor Thomas, new manager of computer operations for XYZ Corporation's Research and Development Laboratories, was struggling to clear his desk at end of a very busy day. This was Keith's first management assignment, and he had received no formal training for it. An electrical engineering and computer science major, there had been no room in his college curriculum for any non-technical courses except bare humanities requirements of State University. In his five years at XYZ, he had worried only about keeping up-to-date technically and maintaining a superb level of performance. Keith had been surprised six months ago to be named manager upon retirement of his predecessor, because although he was one of top technical people in department, he was not a senior person. Keith knew several of senior men in department had aspired to manager's job. However, XYZ Research and Development had begun following a practice of moving topnotch technical people into R&D management positions. (This policy had been instituted after Bill Carson became head of R&D and encountered difficulties described in RTM, July-August 1991, p. 50.) Keith was not adapting well to management--he had difficulty with time management and too often spent time on low-priority work. He found it difficult to keep from getting deeply immersed in technical details of department projects. He had an explosive temper and had frequent clashes with people he supervised. Clearing his desk of over a week's accumulated mail, he came to a week-old letter telling him he was scheduled to attend one of Industrial Research Institute's Management Study Groups. He had no prior knowledge of this assignment and no recollection of asking to attend such a development course. I need this like a hole in my head, he grumbled. It's scheduled for same time we'll be installing new computers for product test laboratories. I'll tell boss I'm too busy to go. MANAGEMENT DROPS A HINT Upon reflection, Keith reasoned that course notice was probably a strong hint of dissatisfaction with his initial attempts at management and that upper management was losing confidence in his ability. He decided that he had better attend. Noting that he needed to be prepared to present a problem that he had encountered a a new manager, Keith thought about crisis situations he had faced. Several crises came quickly to mind: There had been bitter argument with a senior engineer (one of contenders to manager's position over salary administration, with engineer claiming Keith's predecessor had made a promise of an abnormal salary increase that Keith knew nothing about. Keith had allowed increase he felt man deserved, but still left him bitter. Keith had also had difficulty in handling departmental staff meetings--insignificant items seemed to consume an undue amount of time. And he had budget allocation problems as well, changing allocations so often that some of his department joked to one another that his policy was the squeaking wheel gets grease. …