Posts Tagged with "management"

#3b: A manager is not a full member of her team.

Managers are not part of their team the same way the people they manage are.Read more →

#6a: The strategic importance of key players.

Part of strategy is assessing and understanding key players, both available and missing. For each of the components of strategy — diagnosis, policy, and action — people are crucial.Read more →

#8b: Good (and bad) decision-making processes.

As the manager of a team, you have great influence over the decision-making process for any particular decision. This assumes both a clear chain of command and unity of command: your team unambiguously reports to you, and you alone have ultimate decision approval power.Read more →

#8b1: Benevolent dictatorship as a decision-making process.

Alongside consensus building, the other main decision-making process you should use as the leader of a team is the "consult and decide" approach; I prefer to call it "benevolent dictatorship".Read more →

#9c: Management vs. leadership.

Making it possible for people to work, getting a team to perform, and improving systems (through advancing organisational learning): these are key roles of a manager.Read more →

#9c1: Management is not a promotion.

Despite being fundamentally different fields, a career change from making (such as engineering, design, or product management) to managing is considered by many in the software industry to be a promotion.Read more →

#9c1a: The (software) industry shift in the "management as a promotion" mindset.

The "management as a promotion" mindset has, fortunately, been shifting in the past decade. More companies are creating and fairly compensating both a management track and technical track for their skilled knowledge workers.Read more →

#9c2: The conflicting priorities of a manager and her team.

A manager's work fundamentally differs from the work of her team in many respects, including the reduced reliance on her own creative output for her success. These differing needs may cause a manager to create an environment where her team is more likely to fail.Read more →

#9c2a: How managers set up their teams for failure.

The conflicting priorities of manager and her team present themselves in several ways. A manager may optimise her time by assembling her team to present status updates — at the cost of the team's time.Read more →

#9c3: Management should be well-defined.

The role of leadership is to inspire. The role of management is to execute. Leaders may exist at all levels, and their role as a leader may not necessarily be formalised. But management should be well-defined.Read more →

#9d: Leader as organisational architect.

The higher you climb in your organisation, the more you must take on the role of organisational architect. You are responsible for creating and aligning the key elements of the organisational system.Read more →

#19a1: How managers suffer less from distracted environments (to the detriment of their teams).

Managers, unlike their team, face little of the deleterious effects of interruption. Their work is by nature fragmented; it relies less on creative output and hence deep work.Read more →

Reference #54: An Elegant Puzzle

There three broad types of engineering management roles:Read more →

Reference #55: An Elegant Puzzle

As a manager, you should make your peers your first team. This means being able to disappoint your team to help your peers succeed; this comes from having a broad perspective.Read more →

Reference #124: Peopleware

Many managers became so because they performed while as "doers" — engineers, designers, individual contributors. Often these roles worked on modular components with a standard interface, so the idiosyncrasies of each component could be ignored.Read more →

Reference #125: Peopleware

Around 15% of all software projects fail completely.Read more →

Reference #128: Peopleware

Long ago, there were two competing theories of value, which historians called the Spanish Theory of Value and the English Theory of Value.Read more →

Reference #136: Peopleware

The role of a manager is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.Read more →

Reference #144: Peopleware

Certain types of work — such as engineering, design, or writing — require a state of flow to be done productively. Re-entering flow after an interruption costs a re-immersion time of over 15 minutes.Read more →

Reference #147: Peopleware

Managers, unlike parents, are unlikely to change their people in any meaningful way.Read more →

Reference #148: Peopleware

Organisational standards such as professionalism are generally for the benefits of insiders, not outsiders.Read more →

Reference #156: Peopleware

Some companies use promotions as a way to retain key talent in a high-turnover environment.Read more →

Reference #161: Peopleware

Cliques are not inherently bad. A clique is a jelled team (though not all jelled teams are called cliques).Read more →

Reference #162: Peopleware

As a manager, you can't make the teams jell. You don't build teams; you grow them.Read more →

Reference #165: Peopleware

Managers are at best part-time members of a team. At higher levels in an organisation, jelled teams cease to exist; they are formed by people at the front lines, not by managers.Read more →

Reference #167: Peopleware

Peer coaching is ubiquitous in healthy teams. This is especially important in modern workplaces where the manager no longer has all the technical skills required by the team and hence cannot coach them in those skills.Read more →

Reference #168: Peopleware

Good managers provide frequent, easy opportunities for their team to succeed together.Read more →

Reference #169: Peopleware

A good manager exercises only natural authority.Read more →

Reference #176: Peopleware

The ultimate management sin is wasting peoples' time. Some behaviours that lead to wasting others time are the following:Read more →

Reference #183: Peopleware

Organisational learning happens in the middle of an organisation, at the level of middle management.Read more →

Reference #184: Peopleware

Since most organisational learning occurs at the level of middle management, downsizing efforts that target middle management do so at the expense of organisational learning.Read more →

Reference #185: Peopleware

Organisational learning is enabled by the peering of middle managers.Read more →

Reference #233: The First 90 Days

As a new boss, while undergoing your own transition you can also help transition your direct reports. One way to do this is by using the [five conversation framework](/posts/lit-note-224).Read more →

Reference #257: The First 90 Days

When you join an existing team as their new leader, you will likely inherit some outstanding performers (A-players), some average performers (B-players), and some who are not up to the job (C-players).Read more →

Reference #258: The First 90 Days

You may not always be able to let go a poor performer, at least not in a short timeframe.Read more →

Reference #267: The First 90 Days

Consider explaining to your team which decision-making process you're using and why.Read more →

Reference #268: The First 90 Days

Don't engage in a charade of consensus building.Read more →

Reference #269: The First 90 Days

You know you're successful in building your team when you reach the breakeven point. At this point, the team creates more energy than you need to put into it.Read more →

Reference #292: The First 90 Days

A quarter of all leaders in a typical Fortune 500 companies change jobs each year. This is even higher for executives, with one study finding a 35% rate of transition annually in the top three tiers of leadership.Read more →

Reference #300: Empowered

The responsibilities of leaders and managers are different, even though both roles may be covered by the same person.Read more →

Reference #303: Empowered

Weak first-level people management is the main cause of weak product companies.Read more →

Reference #305: Empowered

Despite managers and leaders being responsible for building effective teams, the technology industry focuses little on developing their skills and competencies.Read more →

Reference #306: Empowered

Developing people is the most important job of a manager. Even more than the success of your products, your own job performance should be measured on the success of your team members.Read more →

Reference #442: Organizational Culture and Leadership

England (1975) found, when comparing managerial values across different countries, that managers tended to be either pragmatic or moralistic. Americans were often pragmatic managers who seek validation of an approach in their own experience.Read more →

What you need to know about culture

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. While the truth of that statement is contested, it's clear that culture matters. Your role as a leader is to manage culture. But what is it? It's more than the vibe. It's more than the values. Here's what you need to know.Read more →

Principles for effective coaching

Great managers are great coaches. Great coaches help others develop their potential. Yet most managers have little formal training in coaching. In my roles as manager, leader, and coach, I've come across a few principles that I've found useful.Read more →

The Three A's of Empowered Teams

According to a 2015 study, team empowerment accounts for almost 25% of team performance. Empowered teams are high-performing teams. Here’s what I’ve learnt about growing them.Read more →

Meet the team: a primer on product teams

Let's say you're running a software organisation for the first time. You've got plenty of questions: who does the work? How does work get done? Where does the work come from? And how do you keep your teams aligned? Let's answer these questions.Read more →