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How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

1631 points by voska 8y ago

gregskloot 8y ago
Thanks for sharing! I wrote this and would definitely appreciate everyone's feedback.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  Medially great. Good information. Nice to read. Except for the in-page popup (reported to Mozilla).
  - gregskloot 8y ago
    Got it, glad you overall liked the information and thanks for the UI feedback!
- opmac 8y ago
  This was a fun and informative read. Thanks :)
  - gregskloot 8y ago
    Glad to hear it!
marcus_holmes 8y ago
Great for building a brand new team. Not so great for assuming leadership of an existing team/business. Also, very American. I just stopped being CEO of a SE Asian business, and this just doesn't apply globally. There are culture differences that make enormous differences in leadership styles and outcomes.
- gregskloot 8y ago
  That's a very fair point. My leadership experience is in the U.S. so totally makes sense that it came out from that angle. For assuming leadership of an existing team, I think it depends on the state of the team. Often the teams I have inherited needed a lot of work. There wasn't a defined culture or great communication processes, so I found a lot of it still applied. In my last business, I needed to help re-build / re-calibrate several functional teams (including our leadership team), and a lot of this stuff definitely applied.
  - marcus_holmes 8y ago
    So, for instance, your section on hiring people. It talks about hiring for the culture you want. But if you have an existing team culture, do you hire for the "new" culture that you want, knowing that the new person is going to struggle to fit in, or do you hire for the existing culture, and hope to change it over time?
- piyh 8y ago
  What were a few differences you ran into?
  - foobaw 8y ago
    Much more politics.
    - john_moscow 8y ago
      Oh, there's plenty of politics in American companies as well. It's just culturally you have to pretend that you haven't even heard this word and are honestly acting in the best interests of the company/team/customers, while using the dirtiest tricks in the book when nobody's watching before your competitors do the same to you.
  - marcus_holmes 8y ago
    Asians have massive respect for authority. This, in effect, mean that they won't ever say no to, or disagree with, their boss. I had to learn to ask open questions, because if they could say yes they would. They would still guess at what I wanted to hear and tell me that. I got told different things than other members of the management team, not because anyone was trying to deceive, but purely as a show of respect. My favoured leadership style is servant leadership, that my job is to enable everyone else to do their jobs properly. That didn't work. I had to teach myself how to do authoritarian leadership, which I hate with a passion, but it's the only style that works. The language barrier is a huge thing. I would give an instruction, something else would happen, and the reason would be "I didn't understand you". They wouldn't ask for clarification, because of the respect thing. After training myself for years to not send emails, I had to get used to sending lots of emails again, because if it was written in plain English it had more chance of being understood and followed. There's a ton of other, more subtle, stuff. I've been comparing notes with other western leaders here and it's a shared experience. Except for the douche bosses who are naturally authoritarian - they love it here.
    - hanniabu 8y ago
      Curious why the servant leadership style didn't work for you and why you think that is because this is the approach I prefer as well but I'm young in my career.
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  I was only kinda interested in this article, because I have worked enough years at enough different American places to know what good management looks like, and what bad American management looks like. But, I would really like to read an article on what good (and bad) SE Asian business management looks like.
CrypticOne274 8y ago
Great post. Upvoted.
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Thanks!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
crsv 8y ago
This isn't a guide on how to be a leader, this is a guide for building version 0 of a team and trivializes a great deal of the complexity that goes in to being an effective leader. It's a great content marketing piece though, and at first glance, far outstrips the value of the tool they're marketing to - but this is still meant to drive people to a SaaS product.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  Being a leader and being a (people) manager are very, very different things. So, of course this isn't a guide on how to be a leader.
  - mnctvanj 8y ago
    A good manager is absolutely a good leader, and v/v. In my experience, there is no role that, if done properly, isn't equal measure both. They are sub-set skills of any position to which people report. Be it middle manager (important to execute, important to give meaning and direction within that area) or C-level (CEO can't afford to be a non-manager).
    - laythea 8y ago
      I would disagree here. In my opinion, a good leader has to be a good people person (and ergo likely a good manager - not always though), by definition. A good manager, or people person does not always make a good leader though. In my limited experience, I would think that a leader would demonstrate an ability to expand boundaries more so. My use of good can be substituted with effective.
      - mnctvanj 8y ago
        I see what you are saying - and maybe someone can get by in either job without being strong in both skills, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all people-management roles ideally have both things happening. So to actually be good/great at roles that people assume are exclusive either to leadership (e.g., CEO) or to management (e.g., good ol' middle manager), both skills are necessary. And the big difference between the above examples is scope/scale, not how much leadership vs management is necessary.
jph 8y ago
Great article IMHO especially suitable for new teams, new managers, and top down understanding. Kudos! For people who are stepping into existing teams, I suggest writing ground rules. Ground rules are clear explanations of team expectations. Ground rules can be simple, bottom up, and help improve teamwork: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Objectives can be sophisticated, top down, and help improve planning. I suggest knowing "Objectives and Key Results" (OKRs) as at Google and Intel: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/objectives_and_key_results https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/objectives_and_key_re...
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  Those ground rules are great. How do you "enforce" them, or at least keep them at front of mind on the team?
  - jph 8y ago
    Thank you! If you have ideas, I'd like to hear. To keep ground rules at front of mind, each teammate is responsible and self-directed. * I have a teammate who likes to write the core rules on the whiteboard before each meeting, and point to them when he starts the meeting, and each time a participant needs reminding. This is amazingly effective with a good sense of humor. * I have a teammate who uses chat private messages to coach people. This is especially effective for things like video calls when we want to try the team sign language ground rules. * I have a teammate who does weekly one-on-one meetings with every direct report, and monthly one-on-one meetings with skip level reports, and discusses the ground rules along with OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators). I'm always open to learning new aspects, and also to trying new ways of working. Feedback is very welcome.
    - anothergoogler 8y ago
      I'd have some sign language for anybody who tried enforcing "sign language ground rules." > * I have a teammate who likes to write the core rules on the whiteboard before each meeting, and point to them when he starts the meeting, and each time a participant needs reminding. Are you working with school children or professionals?
smilebot 8y ago
Great post! - I noticed a typo in the "Customs" section. ...bakery comes in early, then (not than). Cheers!
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Thank you! Just fixed it.
joeleesays 8y ago
Awesome! Simple and practical.
thebooglebooski 8y ago
Fan of the Marine Corps model: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm Some of them are painfully obvious, but these are sometimes absent when they shouldn't be. (I also suspect this is what Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr either draw from, or coincide with.)
- cirgue 8y ago
  'Painfully obvious' can sometimes completely non-obvious when you're in an environment where bad habits, political bs, and other human weirdness dominate the patterns of interaction. This is true for most organizations.
  - donw 8y ago
    Very true! It is difficult to understand what Good looks like until you experience it first-hand. Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. Unfortunately, Good requires infrastructure, both physical and cultural, that most organizations lack. It is also exceedingly difficult to parachute into an organization and introduce Good, as that change threatens the balance of political power. People will strongly oppose Good because it means that their jobs will change, and change is -- very honestly speaking! -- scary as hell.
    - _jal 8y ago
      Absolutely all true. > Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. I wish there were a magical way to give everyone a first job in a well-run org. I think the average corporate insanity quotient would noticeably drop if people knew what they were missing. I found my first job at a well-run firm in my late 20s, and consider myself lucky. But I also spent a bunch of really crappy time putting up with things I didn't know I didn't have to put up with before that.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- w_t_payne 8y ago
reureu 8y ago
Thanks for sharing! This seems like a good general guide on how to manage :) I would just provide a quick caution against over-indexing on culture. There are two issues that can come up: implicit bias, and conflicting values. Implicit bias exists when you're not explicitly biased against a (typically protected) population. You don't hate women or gays or people with disabilities, but your culture values things that make the environment uncomfortable for those populations. One common example that shows up in gender discrimination lawsuits is that women tend to get worse reviews for being too moody or angry or confrontational, whereas men presenting the same behavior get lauded for being decisive and direct. Even if you disagree with this, that won't stop it from becoming the subject of a lawsuit. The example given regarding Beth and Tom actually fits nicely with this issue, since discrimination claims are often that women are unfriendly. (you might consider switching the personas to avoid this perception) Another common example that shows up is "would you have a beer with the candidate" type tests. I didn't see this in your guide, but I've heard this a lot over the years. People notoriously prefer having beers with people that are very similar to themselves. That's often not germane to the job requirements, and is an easy way for bias to sneak into your hiring process. In the same vein, I once heard the founder of a well-known startup in the Bay Area give a talk about forming teams. He said, explicitly, that he looks for signs of anxiety among potential hires (like biting their nails, or too weak of a handshake, or how they talk) and won't hire someone who is overly anxious. If someone with diagnosed anxiety were to apply for that job, get rejected, and hear that talk, they'd have the good start of a lawsuit for disability discrimination. That founder was just talking about what he values in the company, but he's actually admitting to discrimination. The second issue is conflicting values. The companies I've seen who preach their values the loudest have tended to be the ones which are least likely to exemplify their values in their behaviors. Imagine a company which has values of "integrity" and "we're a team." If an employee were to point out behavior that they don't think exemplifies integrity, will they instantly be met with accusations that they're not playing for the same team? I know of at least one company who painted "Be a team player" on their walls, but when they were acquired, their executive team took multi-million dollar parachutes while everyone in the company got paid around a penny per share. Is that consistent with being team players? Sorry to be negative here. Things like "culture fit" and "corporate values" can be important, but they can also be yielded as weapons if they're being relied on to fix a fundamentally broken workplace. They're also things that I increasingly hear my employment lawyer friends talk about - so watch out. It seems like the right approach is to demonstrate what your culture is through your actions and not through explicit definition. Your product and team will also likely be more productive and build a better product if it's not a bunch of clones :)
prabhatjha 8y ago
I would also recommend Camille Fournier's The Managers Path book for folks in tech. You will be able to relate to this book whether you are an individual contributor or seasoned manager.
im_down_w_otp 8y ago
Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be necessarily orthogonal. As their motivational biases are likely to be largely unrelated to each other.
- nomel 8y ago
  I’m a bit guilty of confusing the two, as well. Could you describe the differences in personality?
  - im_down_w_otp 8y ago
    This is a very abbreviated form as I'm heading out the door, but typically a "leader" is more likely to be lower on agreeableness than a "manager". It's a component of pushing boundaries or navigating challenges/obstacles. A "manager" biases higher on conscientiousness than a "leader" because their role as a facilitator is in no small part to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Likewise a good "manager" is probably motivated by community-building and completion. A good "leader" is probably motivated by the challenge and the path itself in addressing it. Now, to the airport!
  - ramses0 8y ago
    Leadership is outward facing, attracting followers by sharing a vision, inspiration, goal and working with the team to achieve that goal. Management is inward facing, paying attention to the people you are responsible for, and knowing the right thing that's needed at the right time. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Leadership is building the boat, management is making sure the boat gets built, on time, on budget, with the proper permits and inspections, training and safety gear, along with bi-weekly status reports to customers. Some people confuse one with the other, but to me they're distinct and this is a rough sketch of how I see them as different.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
The first part was good, then it kind of fell apart when it hit management by objectives, and the "fill in a email we send you with 'achievements this week', 'plans for next week'" That's kind of nice, but really this should be auto generated - we should be building systems that pop out "Bob closed two sales this week, and needs one more to hit quota" - this is just a sales funnel so it's not hard - it may get fuzzier with "alice wrote the monthly report or alice completed the redesign of the home page" are just formatted git comments ?
leeale10 8y ago
This is an pretty great article. Wish I would've read it years ago... thanks for the share
- gregskloot 8y ago
  I said the same thing to myself when I wrote it... I was thinking back a few companies ago and wishing I understood this stuff. Glad you liked it!
goofballlogic 8y ago
Being "a Manager" is the wrong first step to leading a team. Management is an activity we should all be undertaking, not a role.
- nukemandan 8y ago
  I agree that a more flat landscape in teams is best. I like "Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo Good management is really about good leadership - and that does have a point person to look to. they inspire and motivate everyone else on the team. This is a much more bottom up / equitable than most mainstream practices promote.
dotBen 8y ago
Going beyond an article, 'Peopleware' is a fantastic book for engineering folks transitioning to management - it's not new but the fundamentals stand the test of time. It's the book I started out with 15 years ago and I have suggested to many others. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (3rd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321934113/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_j-UfBbWAB5NZV https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321934113/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_j-...
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Agreed. I can’t recommend Peopleware enough. It is common sense, humane reasoning applied to software teams. Sadly, I read Peopleware long before I ever became a manager, and it made me very attuned to being treated badly and being given ineffective tools or support (e.g. crappy open plan seating arrangements instead of private offices). Peopleware will open your mind to the obviousness of productivity-first thinking and accomodating basic, inescapable human needs. Which can make you reflexively sad when you see how much of our industry steamrolls these ideas in favor of idiotic open plan disasters, hazing-focused interview barriers to entry, unrealistic mandates for Agile-style estimation and work tracking, etc.
blowski 8y ago
A useful set of tips, but when I first became a manager, my biggest problem was thinking there was some magic formula to get the best out of my team. I was looking for a YAML config script, but human beings don’t work that way. Now, with a bit more experience, I spend more time listening to people and working out how I can help them with their specific need. As a sidenote, I hate the euphemisms “release” and “let go”. You’re firing them. Pretending that you’re doing it for their sake doesn’t make it easier for them. So just cut the bullshit. You can be honest and compassionate.
- sanbor 8y ago
  I'm glad of hearing that. I was always surprised by the "let go" expression. It would be interesting what would happen in a conversation like "We have to let you go. – No need. I don't have to go anywhere". In Spanish the term is "despedido". "despedir" is the action of saying good bye. The literal translation could be something like "good-bye'd".
- jack9 8y ago
  > Release: Let go of people who don’t align with your values. I hate the "similar values" proposition, like that's something practical to align with the working members of teams. How about the same attitude and similar ability? Measuring that is not easy, but it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to measure "values".
rk1987 8y ago
Wish I could take print out of this. But the site is not printer friendly.
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Good catch! I'll work on fixing this, thanks for pointing it out.
unabst 8y ago
"People. The hardest part of building a business." If you're going to work and are having the hardest time with people, you should question the team. Anyone expressing an inkling of toxic, negative, or unprofessional attitude needs to be removed. Some people go bad, but it's just them telling you they want to go. Be graceful, but fire them. Whatever you do, don't try to fix attitude. Everyone is entitled to their attitude in America, and it's the wrong battle. Let them have it. They are not, however, entitled to contaminate your work culture, which must be upheld as sacrosanct. And, if it's you, then you've already burnt out. A lot of old school management involves whips and dangling carrots. Managers are supervisors, and workers are presumed to misbehave without supervision. They are motivated with rewards, and put in check with punishment. Workers hate managers, and managers hate their job which would not exist if the workers would just behave. Good workers question their environment, their pay, then leave. In reality, most ambitious professionals will behave when they take ownership of their responsibilities and opportunities, and will seek to build trust with others that do also. When handed, responsibilities and opportunities can quickly turn into dreadful obligations, so people must want them, and they will when they are aligned with their professional ambitions. Once you have a team of such individuals, a manager is relinquished from behavior management. This holds true even at the lowest paying jobs. Having this as the premise of your corporate culture will allow you to focus on managing work, not workers. And will allow your workers to focus on their work, and not each other. Trust will also naturally build among those showing responsible behavior. All this without "managing people". All this without "a leader". Everyone leads themselves towards a common goal, empowered by a common philosophy, from the comfort of a common, sacred, positive workplace. This formula took me five years, and it wasn't just the hardest part of building my business. It was five years of not being able to build my business. Today, I can say without reservation: People are the best part of building a business. And I am grateful to everyone, including those whom I fired, for teaching me this lesson.
riphay 8y ago
Great article, bookmarked for future reference! I work for a small consulting firm focused on improving productivity and building innovation systems within small-medium sized businesses. And having strategic plans, vision, values is hugely important in building a focused innovation program. It's become routine in my engagements to spend significant time defining goals and values where the companies had none previously! This sort of exercise is valuable for firms at any stage and size in my opinion.
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Totally agreed! If you put in the time to define it upfront, it makes so many other tactical things (like hiring, goal setting etc) much easier down the road.
simonjgreen 8y ago
This feels like someone has read one of the EOS books and rewritten it with different terminology to avoid copyright infringement. I guess it's also spun around a new startup rather than fixing an already operating business. If you like what you read here then look up Traction and Get A Grip.
bb88 8y ago
A better title would be "How Management Works in 2018." Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product. The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors. Both of those topics have been left out of this piece.
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  > Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product This part has not been left out. All of the content about establishing culture, vision, expectations, responsibilities, and so on, is a direct part of managing others' behaviors to produce a great product. What am I missing? > The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors. The article talks about this too, especially the importance of communication, consistency, discipline, and process: > [Communication] Communication may be the most important word in this guide. It is the key to making your team operate effectively. Failure to communicate is the #1 cause of people problems (...) > [Consistency] If you are using metrics properly, you’ll be analyzing performance on a daily or weekly basis by consistently reviewing your metrics and measuring if objectives are being achieved. This typically happens in your weekly meetings and written updates. To help facilitate your planning, there are a couple of formal analysis activities to do: > Quarterly Summary. Reflection is a healthy and beneficial process. At the end of every quarter, each functional leader should compile a summary of the objectives achieved. The summary should include metrics and descriptive analysis on where the team succeeded vs. struggled.
  - bb88 8y ago
    If it was really as simple as the author has posited, then anyone can be a manager, but this just isn't the case. Many companies have this framework in place, yet the management and the culture is terrible. (Amazon, HP, Microsoft to name a few) In a number of companies I worked at the number one reason people left was a conflict with their supervisor. I think a much better introduction to management is the manager tools podcast. And after listening to about 10 or 20 episodes, you'll see how hard management really is, especially if you want to do it right. https://www.manager-tools.com/all-podcasts https://www.manager-tools.com/all-podcasts
funwie 8y ago
Good leadership ideas. I think defining relationships and respecting the boundaries is also important. Make sure all employees understand relationship types and know which there have with one another. Are we colleagues, friends, etc? This will lead to smooth interactions.
- adamdrake 8y ago
  Absolutely. People often don't appreciate or feel comfortable with the fact that when in a leadership role, the relationship changes. New leaders often focus too much on being liked, or having their decisions liked, over doing what is best for the team and its members. Being a popular and well-respected leader is the outcome of good decisions, support, and relationships, not a consequence of trying to do the popular thing. It's especially tough for people who are transitioning from being part of a team to leading that same team. I elaborate a bit here: https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html
ryanmarsh 8y ago
The only thing I would add is, culture can be taught. You can take someone who isn’t a culture fit and make them a culture fit in 8 weeks or less.
outcoldman 8y ago
It changed my opinion about what is the quality of good manager when I have heard a dialog: - Are you a boss of team X? - No, I support team X.
- gowld 8y ago
  "servant-leadership" for the win.
klenwell 8y ago
I also recommend this Ask HN thread: Ask HN: I just got my first team lead. What should I do? 89 points by endymi0n on Dec 30, 2011 | 50 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407643 Hmmm. Older than I remembered. But a few of the recommendations in it have stuck with me and it's been as helpful as anything I've read on the topic.
- adamdrake 8y ago
  Teammate to Team Lead is a topic that I run into a lot with the companies I advise. I have a small post on the topic, which I'm planning to expand: https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html There are quite a few things, some of them subtle, that really change once you're in a leadership role. The frequent example I see is that people don't realize that if they are in a leadership role, then there will be decisions they make which people on their team do not like. That's ok. It's not the job of the leader to win a popularity contest, but rather to try to do the best thing for the individual team members, the team, and the company itself. A lot of people have a tough time with the fact that others won't like their decisions, but that's a critical thing to digest for those who are going to be effective leaders.
geekrax 8y ago
I really wish they went easy on the animations.
alexbecker 8y ago
I find the animations and numerous different interspersed formats (text, square card thingies, profiles, three boxes side by side, one box in the middle, etc.) very distracting from the content.
smnscu 8y ago
Also see Lauri Apple's "Awesome Leading and Managing" https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing
SonicSoul 8y ago
How many popups do I need to swat away in first minute of reading this post. Second one doesn’t even have a close button it just hovers over text on the bottom. How about letting users read the article before forcing them take make a decision to subscribe
gerdesj 8y ago
Nice presentation - very pretty. This is the takeaway: We’ve reached the end of the Formula, covering everything from culture to process. You now understand the basics of leading a new team. Management and leadership are acquired skills, and they take practice. This guide is a framework for you to build upon, make your own and be the best manager. ... and this is how I think of my staff: Some people might be incredible salesmen, while others can bake cookies or build a computer with their eyes closed (that would be super impressive!) Fuck off.
Bizarro 8y ago
I just don't see the point of those bullet point transitions in the article. It just doesn't bring any value and is distracting.
monkeytree 8y ago
Great write up! I like that it starts with Culture and People to create a strong foundation. As you say, People are the hardest part. Having a good structure, routine and communication help make it manageable. I think this provides a nice framework to build around. I'm a co-founder of a company makes tools to help manage a lot of those processes you discuss so this resonated with me. We built our platform based on many lessons learned managing previous start-ups, and converged on a very similar approach. If you're into this sort of management style, here's our platform which aligns well with what's described in the article. It supports flexible one page plans for a concise way to document your strategy, functional accountability charts, priority and metrics tracking as well as a meeting space to set a consistent rhythm - also performance reviews to tie it all together. https://metronomegrowthsystems.com https://metronomegrowthsystems.com
paulmooreparks 8y ago
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Rather, it's a call to action to stop something I really, really hate about the web these days: popups over content, begging me to sign up for an email subscription. Whenever I'm reading a web page and one of these rude popups appears, I immediately close the browser tab and move on. If the authors are rude enough to interrupt me with an invitation to clutter my inbox, then they must not want me to read their content. Please, let's end this scourge by closing more tabs and not driving more traffic to these sites.
- BigJono 8y ago
  I'm on board with this. There's nothing wrong with a good old fashioned call to action at the end of the article. Encourage subscription by producing good content, not by abusing your reader's time and attention.
- briandear 8y ago
  However, those tactics really work. I don’t like them either, but I have done A/B tests and the intrusive model always results in people who are more “gullible” and thus more likely to buy whatever it is you are selling. The dismissive types — they wouldn’t have been a customer anyway. (Generally speaking..)
  - paulmooreparks 8y ago
    Hmm... yeah, you're right. They're filtering out customers like me. That means the intent of the site is not the site content, but the mailing list they can generate by dangling that content via a link, eh?
    - theshadowknows 8y ago
      If they’re any good then it’s both. You should have a content team that works toward the goal of making great content for your audience, an analytics team that helps you figure out exactly who your audience is and what they like, and a CRM team that works to execute on that vision to maximize value for both the customer and the org.
megaman22 8y ago
Judging by my experience over a number of years in industry, the most important aspect is to understand the cultural expectations of the people you are working with. Working with a north-east US team can be wildly different than a Southeast US team, or a west coast US team. Let alone a Toronto CA team, vs Quebec, CA, or UK or Australia, or Germans, or Dutch or Poles, or Indians from New Delhi vs folks from Bangalore. People work differently, and culture and communication is wildly different.
- theossuary 8y ago
  This is really interesting to me, do you have any examples you can think of to illustrate this? Definitely something where I don't even know what I don't know, but it seems so important especially in recent times.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    I mean, it's stereotypical, but if an Indian colleague drops a "kindly do the needful" on most Americans, that will be met with consternation and confusion. The other big issue I've seen is around scheduling meetings with inappropriate lead times. I've come in too many times on monday mornings at 9 AM to see angry emails about not attending a meeting at 8 AM, when the meeting invitation was sent 2AM.
sidcool 8y ago
This is a nice article. I am surprised to see a 'management' article to receive so many votes on HN.
skoocda 8y ago
Taking up way too much space on mobile with the distracting CTA. Stopped reading when I couldn't close the popup on my phone. Might try again later on my desktop, if you promise to remove that at some point :)
deleted 8y ago
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wiz21c 8y ago
First : >>> People are not stagnant; instead, they are constantly learning and evolving. There's adifference between evolving naturally and evolving because you're pushed to do so by the company. I work with people who don't want to evolve. They seek a peaceful, comfortable environment. They do their job quite well, nothing more. I understand that. Second, values... Should people be hired because of their skill or because of their values ? What if their political views conflic with your values ? Isn't it the moment when discrimination comes in ? Say you work for Google because you love the AI stuff, then Google starts selling weapons. Should they fire people who don't share those values anymore ?
- drodgers 8y ago
  > Say you work for Google because you love the AI stuff, then Google starts selling weapons. Should they fire people who don't share those values anymore ? Values apply pressure in both directions. If you have a culture like Google, and you need to pivot a significant fraction of your business to building weapons, then you will — sooner or later — need to replace a lot of employees (and manage that process, deal with the resulting morale problems etc). That's really expensive, but it might be worth it (depending on the business). If you're actually like Google though — in that your real business isn't building weapons — then you just drop the weapons project. Dropping it will make the rest of your business more effective, which is way more important than some experimental side-hustle with the military. Ideally, you'd see in-advance that those kinds of projects would clash with your values and cause problems, but we all make mistakes.
binarnosp 8y ago
I always found the "company culture" as a limiting factor: at the end, it tends to build a sect of developers close to any suggestion that doesn't self-enforce the culture that produces them. "Culture" kind of wants to produce a "family", but a family is not what I'm looking for when I look for a job.
auslander 8y ago
Why so many points? Hackers now love Vision and Strategic Focus stuff ?
ingmarheinrich 8y ago
If you change from being e. g. a developer to being a manager, then this shouldn't be regarded as a promotion. It's a different career path.
lostphilosopher 8y ago
(New-ish manager here.) _Peopleware_ by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is the best management resource I've encountered. https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarco/dp/0932633439 https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-De... It also helped to keep careful track of things I really valued (and hated) about people I've worked for. Just one example: Depending on team size and culture it can concerning if your manager schedules a 1:1 meeting with you out of the blue and outside of your normal cadence. I had a manager that did this, on a Friday, with the meeting scheduled for Monday. Worrying about it would have bugged me over the weekend. Not a ton, but some. He followed the invite up with a Slack (team chat app) message explaining what the meeting was and what he wanted to talk about, turns out it was nothing to worry about. Him taking the time to clarify made a difference in my morale and it stuck with me. Super small thing, but it matters.
- lostphilosopher 8y ago
  While I'm at it, 2nd best: _Managing Humans_ by Michael Lopp (aka Rands). https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1484221575/ https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Eng...
- KarenSatantsby 8y ago
  my last weekend was ruined by a bad experience with Spectrum Cable and my supervisor on a Friday.
mi100hael 8y ago
One thing this is missing that I think too many managers forget about is CELEBRATION. When your team wins, you need to make a big deal of it. Bring in lunch or something and take a moment to say thanks on a regular basis. I think one of the biggest contributing factors to burn-out is feeling like your achievements have gone unrecognized and unappreciated.
asdforr_as 8y ago
I'd like to see a step by step guide to being part of a team.
ljw1001 8y ago
unless this post is a thousand pages long, the title is a bit over-the-top. I look forward to the "How to be a particle physicist" installment.
internetman55 8y ago
Indeed, the way mgmt seems willing to capriciously fire people for "values" conflict or getting caught in the middle of some mess management created is one of the reasons I don't really see the point of investing much in a single job. I can still get fired or laid off at random if I worked two hours extra a day or something (has happened to me). If I spend those two hours making myself marketable and networking it won't matter if you fire me because I'll just bounce to something else. I wish some managers would just learn to interact like humans instead of being insecure tough guys and "playing hardball" with everyone. I've seen that tank projects and set back careers (IC and mgmt).
lucisferre 8y ago
For those interested in learning management skills I've found https://www.manager-tools.com/ https://www.manager-tools.com/ and their podcasts and resources invaluable. Also the best book I've read so far on management is the excellent High Output Management by Andy Grove. Still incredibly relevant.

1631 points by voska 8y ago

gregskloot 8y ago

Thanks for sharing! I wrote this and would definitely appreciate everyone's feedback.

solarkraft 8y ago
Medially great. Good information. Nice to read. Except for the in-page popup (reported to Mozilla).
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Got it, glad you overall liked the information and thanks for the UI feedback!
opmac 8y ago
This was a fun and informative read. Thanks :)
- gregskloot 8y ago
  Glad to hear it!

marcus_holmes 8y ago

Great for building a brand new team. Not so great for assuming leadership of an existing team/business. Also, very American. I just stopped being CEO of a SE Asian business, and this just doesn't apply globally. There are culture differences that make enormous differences in leadership styles and outcomes.

gregskloot 8y ago
That's a very fair point. My leadership experience is in the U.S. so totally makes sense that it came out from that angle. For assuming leadership of an existing team, I think it depends on the state of the team. Often the teams I have inherited needed a lot of work. There wasn't a defined culture or great communication processes, so I found a lot of it still applied. In my last business, I needed to help re-build / re-calibrate several functional teams (including our leadership team), and a lot of this stuff definitely applied.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  So, for instance, your section on hiring people. It talks about hiring for the culture you want. But if you have an existing team culture, do you hire for the "new" culture that you want, knowing that the new person is going to struggle to fit in, or do you hire for the existing culture, and hope to change it over time?
piyh 8y ago
What were a few differences you ran into?
- foobaw 8y ago
  Much more politics.
  - john_moscow 8y ago
    Oh, there's plenty of politics in American companies as well. It's just culturally you have to pretend that you haven't even heard this word and are honestly acting in the best interests of the company/team/customers, while using the dirtiest tricks in the book when nobody's watching before your competitors do the same to you.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  Asians have massive respect for authority. This, in effect, mean that they won't ever say no to, or disagree with, their boss. I had to learn to ask open questions, because if they could say yes they would. They would still guess at what I wanted to hear and tell me that. I got told different things than other members of the management team, not because anyone was trying to deceive, but purely as a show of respect. My favoured leadership style is servant leadership, that my job is to enable everyone else to do their jobs properly. That didn't work. I had to teach myself how to do authoritarian leadership, which I hate with a passion, but it's the only style that works. The language barrier is a huge thing. I would give an instruction, something else would happen, and the reason would be "I didn't understand you". They wouldn't ask for clarification, because of the respect thing. After training myself for years to not send emails, I had to get used to sending lots of emails again, because if it was written in plain English it had more chance of being understood and followed. There's a ton of other, more subtle, stuff. I've been comparing notes with other western leaders here and it's a shared experience. Except for the douche bosses who are naturally authoritarian - they love it here.
  - hanniabu 8y ago
    Curious why the servant leadership style didn't work for you and why you think that is because this is the approach I prefer as well but I'm young in my career.
rossdavidh 8y ago
I was only kinda interested in this article, because I have worked enough years at enough different American places to know what good management looks like, and what bad American management looks like. But, I would really like to read an article on what good (and bad) SE Asian business management looks like.

CrypticOne274 8y ago

Great post. Upvoted.

gregskloot 8y ago
Thanks!
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crsv 8y ago

This isn't a guide on how to be a leader, this is a guide for building version 0 of a team and trivializes a great deal of the complexity that goes in to being an effective leader. It's a great content marketing piece though, and at first glance, far outstrips the value of the tool they're marketing to - but this is still meant to drive people to a SaaS product.

ucaetano 8y ago
Being a leader and being a (people) manager are very, very different things. So, of course this isn't a guide on how to be a leader.
- mnctvanj 8y ago
  A good manager is absolutely a good leader, and v/v. In my experience, there is no role that, if done properly, isn't equal measure both. They are sub-set skills of any position to which people report. Be it middle manager (important to execute, important to give meaning and direction within that area) or C-level (CEO can't afford to be a non-manager).
  - laythea 8y ago
    I would disagree here. In my opinion, a good leader has to be a good people person (and ergo likely a good manager - not always though), by definition. A good manager, or people person does not always make a good leader though. In my limited experience, I would think that a leader would demonstrate an ability to expand boundaries more so. My use of good can be substituted with effective.
    - mnctvanj 8y ago
      I see what you are saying - and maybe someone can get by in either job without being strong in both skills, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all people-management roles ideally have both things happening. So to actually be good/great at roles that people assume are exclusive either to leadership (e.g., CEO) or to management (e.g., good ol' middle manager), both skills are necessary. And the big difference between the above examples is scope/scale, not how much leadership vs management is necessary.

jph 8y ago

Great article IMHO especially suitable for new teams, new managers, and top down understanding. Kudos! For people who are stepping into existing teams, I suggest writing ground rules. Ground rules are clear explanations of team expectations. Ground rules can be simple, bottom up, and help improve teamwork: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Objectives can be sophisticated, top down, and help improve planning. I suggest knowing "Objectives and Key Results" (OKRs) as at Google and Intel: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/objectives_and_key_results https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/objectives_and_key_re...

jonny_eh 8y ago
Those ground rules are great. How do you "enforce" them, or at least keep them at front of mind on the team?
- jph 8y ago
  Thank you! If you have ideas, I'd like to hear. To keep ground rules at front of mind, each teammate is responsible and self-directed. * I have a teammate who likes to write the core rules on the whiteboard before each meeting, and point to them when he starts the meeting, and each time a participant needs reminding. This is amazingly effective with a good sense of humor. * I have a teammate who uses chat private messages to coach people. This is especially effective for things like video calls when we want to try the team sign language ground rules. * I have a teammate who does weekly one-on-one meetings with every direct report, and monthly one-on-one meetings with skip level reports, and discusses the ground rules along with OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators). I'm always open to learning new aspects, and also to trying new ways of working. Feedback is very welcome.
  - anothergoogler 8y ago
    I'd have some sign language for anybody who tried enforcing "sign language ground rules." > * I have a teammate who likes to write the core rules on the whiteboard before each meeting, and point to them when he starts the meeting, and each time a participant needs reminding. Are you working with school children or professionals?

smilebot 8y ago

Great post! - I noticed a typo in the "Customs" section. ...bakery comes in early, then (not than). Cheers!

gregskloot 8y ago
Thank you! Just fixed it.

joeleesays 8y ago

Awesome! Simple and practical.

thebooglebooski 8y ago

Fan of the Marine Corps model: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm Some of them are painfully obvious, but these are sometimes absent when they shouldn't be. (I also suspect this is what Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr either draw from, or coincide with.)

cirgue 8y ago
'Painfully obvious' can sometimes completely non-obvious when you're in an environment where bad habits, political bs, and other human weirdness dominate the patterns of interaction. This is true for most organizations.
- donw 8y ago
  Very true! It is difficult to understand what Good looks like until you experience it first-hand. Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. Unfortunately, Good requires infrastructure, both physical and cultural, that most organizations lack. It is also exceedingly difficult to parachute into an organization and introduce Good, as that change threatens the balance of political power. People will strongly oppose Good because it means that their jobs will change, and change is -- very honestly speaking! -- scary as hell.
  - _jal 8y ago
    Absolutely all true. > Afterwards, Good is as obvious as water. I wish there were a magical way to give everyone a first job in a well-run org. I think the average corporate insanity quotient would noticeably drop if people knew what they were missing. I found my first job at a well-run firm in my late 20s, and consider myself lucky. But I also spent a bunch of really crappy time putting up with things I didn't know I didn't have to put up with before that.
deleted 8y ago
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w_t_payne 8y ago

reureu 8y ago

Thanks for sharing! This seems like a good general guide on how to manage :) I would just provide a quick caution against over-indexing on culture. There are two issues that can come up: implicit bias, and conflicting values. Implicit bias exists when you're not explicitly biased against a (typically protected) population. You don't hate women or gays or people with disabilities, but your culture values things that make the environment uncomfortable for those populations. One common example that shows up in gender discrimination lawsuits is that women tend to get worse reviews for being too moody or angry or confrontational, whereas men presenting the same behavior get lauded for being decisive and direct. Even if you disagree with this, that won't stop it from becoming the subject of a lawsuit. The example given regarding Beth and Tom actually fits nicely with this issue, since discrimination claims are often that women are unfriendly. (you might consider switching the personas to avoid this perception) Another common example that shows up is "would you have a beer with the candidate" type tests. I didn't see this in your guide, but I've heard this a lot over the years. People notoriously prefer having beers with people that are very similar to themselves. That's often not germane to the job requirements, and is an easy way for bias to sneak into your hiring process. In the same vein, I once heard the founder of a well-known startup in the Bay Area give a talk about forming teams. He said, explicitly, that he looks for signs of anxiety among potential hires (like biting their nails, or too weak of a handshake, or how they talk) and won't hire someone who is overly anxious. If someone with diagnosed anxiety were to apply for that job, get rejected, and hear that talk, they'd have the good start of a lawsuit for disability discrimination. That founder was just talking about what he values in the company, but he's actually admitting to discrimination. The second issue is conflicting values. The companies I've seen who preach their values the loudest have tended to be the ones which are least likely to exemplify their values in their behaviors. Imagine a company which has values of "integrity" and "we're a team." If an employee were to point out behavior that they don't think exemplifies integrity, will they instantly be met with accusations that they're not playing for the same team? I know of at least one company who painted "Be a team player" on their walls, but when they were acquired, their executive team took multi-million dollar parachutes while everyone in the company got paid around a penny per share. Is that consistent with being team players? Sorry to be negative here. Things like "culture fit" and "corporate values" can be important, but they can also be yielded as weapons if they're being relied on to fix a fundamentally broken workplace. They're also things that I increasingly hear my employment lawyer friends talk about - so watch out. It seems like the right approach is to demonstrate what your culture is through your actions and not through explicit definition. Your product and team will also likely be more productive and build a better product if it's not a bunch of clones :)

prabhatjha 8y ago

I would also recommend Camille Fournier's The Managers Path book for folks in tech. You will be able to relate to this book whether you are an individual contributor or seasoned manager.

im_down_w_otp 8y ago

Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be necessarily orthogonal. As their motivational biases are likely to be largely unrelated to each other.

nomel 8y ago
I’m a bit guilty of confusing the two, as well. Could you describe the differences in personality?
- im_down_w_otp 8y ago
  This is a very abbreviated form as I'm heading out the door, but typically a "leader" is more likely to be lower on agreeableness than a "manager". It's a component of pushing boundaries or navigating challenges/obstacles. A "manager" biases higher on conscientiousness than a "leader" because their role as a facilitator is in no small part to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Likewise a good "manager" is probably motivated by community-building and completion. A good "leader" is probably motivated by the challenge and the path itself in addressing it. Now, to the airport!
- ramses0 8y ago
  Leadership is outward facing, attracting followers by sharing a vision, inspiration, goal and working with the team to achieve that goal. Management is inward facing, paying attention to the people you are responsible for, and knowing the right thing that's needed at the right time. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Leadership is building the boat, management is making sure the boat gets built, on time, on budget, with the proper permits and inspections, training and safety gear, along with bi-weekly status reports to customers. Some people confuse one with the other, but to me they're distinct and this is a rough sketch of how I see them as different.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

The first part was good, then it kind of fell apart when it hit management by objectives, and the "fill in a email we send you with 'achievements this week', 'plans for next week'" That's kind of nice, but really this should be auto generated - we should be building systems that pop out "Bob closed two sales this week, and needs one more to hit quota" - this is just a sales funnel so it's not hard - it may get fuzzier with "alice wrote the monthly report or alice completed the redesign of the home page" are just formatted git comments ?

leeale10 8y ago

This is an pretty great article. Wish I would've read it years ago... thanks for the share

gregskloot 8y ago
I said the same thing to myself when I wrote it... I was thinking back a few companies ago and wishing I understood this stuff. Glad you liked it!

goofballlogic 8y ago

Being "a Manager" is the wrong first step to leading a team. Management is an activity we should all be undertaking, not a role.

nukemandan 8y ago
I agree that a more flat landscape in teams is best. I like "Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo Good management is really about good leadership - and that does have a point person to look to. they inspire and motivate everyone else on the team. This is a much more bottom up / equitable than most mainstream practices promote.

dotBen 8y ago

Going beyond an article, 'Peopleware' is a fantastic book for engineering folks transitioning to management - it's not new but the fundamentals stand the test of time. It's the book I started out with 15 years ago and I have suggested to many others. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (3rd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321934113/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_j-UfBbWAB5NZV https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321934113/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_j-...

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Agreed. I can’t recommend Peopleware enough. It is common sense, humane reasoning applied to software teams. Sadly, I read Peopleware long before I ever became a manager, and it made me very attuned to being treated badly and being given ineffective tools or support (e.g. crappy open plan seating arrangements instead of private offices). Peopleware will open your mind to the obviousness of productivity-first thinking and accomodating basic, inescapable human needs. Which can make you reflexively sad when you see how much of our industry steamrolls these ideas in favor of idiotic open plan disasters, hazing-focused interview barriers to entry, unrealistic mandates for Agile-style estimation and work tracking, etc.

blowski 8y ago

A useful set of tips, but when I first became a manager, my biggest problem was thinking there was some magic formula to get the best out of my team. I was looking for a YAML config script, but human beings don’t work that way. Now, with a bit more experience, I spend more time listening to people and working out how I can help them with their specific need. As a sidenote, I hate the euphemisms “release” and “let go”. You’re firing them. Pretending that you’re doing it for their sake doesn’t make it easier for them. So just cut the bullshit. You can be honest and compassionate.

sanbor 8y ago
I'm glad of hearing that. I was always surprised by the "let go" expression. It would be interesting what would happen in a conversation like "We have to let you go. – No need. I don't have to go anywhere". In Spanish the term is "despedido". "despedir" is the action of saying good bye. The literal translation could be something like "good-bye'd".
jack9 8y ago
> Release: Let go of people who don’t align with your values. I hate the "similar values" proposition, like that's something practical to align with the working members of teams. How about the same attitude and similar ability? Measuring that is not easy, but it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to measure "values".

rk1987 8y ago

Wish I could take print out of this. But the site is not printer friendly.

gregskloot 8y ago
Good catch! I'll work on fixing this, thanks for pointing it out.

unabst 8y ago

"People. The hardest part of building a business." If you're going to work and are having the hardest time with people, you should question the team. Anyone expressing an inkling of toxic, negative, or unprofessional attitude needs to be removed. Some people go bad, but it's just them telling you they want to go. Be graceful, but fire them. Whatever you do, don't try to fix attitude. Everyone is entitled to their attitude in America, and it's the wrong battle. Let them have it. They are not, however, entitled to contaminate your work culture, which must be upheld as sacrosanct. And, if it's you, then you've already burnt out. A lot of old school management involves whips and dangling carrots. Managers are supervisors, and workers are presumed to misbehave without supervision. They are motivated with rewards, and put in check with punishment. Workers hate managers, and managers hate their job which would not exist if the workers would just behave. Good workers question their environment, their pay, then leave. In reality, most ambitious professionals will behave when they take ownership of their responsibilities and opportunities, and will seek to build trust with others that do also. When handed, responsibilities and opportunities can quickly turn into dreadful obligations, so people must want them, and they will when they are aligned with their professional ambitions. Once you have a team of such individuals, a manager is relinquished from behavior management. This holds true even at the lowest paying jobs. Having this as the premise of your corporate culture will allow you to focus on managing work, not workers. And will allow your workers to focus on their work, and not each other. Trust will also naturally build among those showing responsible behavior. All this without "managing people". All this without "a leader". Everyone leads themselves towards a common goal, empowered by a common philosophy, from the comfort of a common, sacred, positive workplace. This formula took me five years, and it wasn't just the hardest part of building my business. It was five years of not being able to build my business. Today, I can say without reservation: People are the best part of building a business. And I am grateful to everyone, including those whom I fired, for teaching me this lesson.

riphay 8y ago

Great article, bookmarked for future reference! I work for a small consulting firm focused on improving productivity and building innovation systems within small-medium sized businesses. And having strategic plans, vision, values is hugely important in building a focused innovation program. It's become routine in my engagements to spend significant time defining goals and values where the companies had none previously! This sort of exercise is valuable for firms at any stage and size in my opinion.

gregskloot 8y ago
Totally agreed! If you put in the time to define it upfront, it makes so many other tactical things (like hiring, goal setting etc) much easier down the road.

simonjgreen 8y ago

This feels like someone has read one of the EOS books and rewritten it with different terminology to avoid copyright infringement. I guess it's also spun around a new startup rather than fixing an already operating business. If you like what you read here then look up Traction and Get A Grip.

bb88 8y ago

A better title would be "How Management Works in 2018." Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product. The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors. Both of those topics have been left out of this piece.

Pyxl101 8y ago
> Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product This part has not been left out. All of the content about establishing culture, vision, expectations, responsibilities, and so on, is a direct part of managing others' behaviors to produce a great product. What am I missing? > The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors. The article talks about this too, especially the importance of communication, consistency, discipline, and process: > [Communication] Communication may be the most important word in this guide. It is the key to making your team operate effectively. Failure to communicate is the #1 cause of people problems (...) > [Consistency] If you are using metrics properly, you’ll be analyzing performance on a daily or weekly basis by consistently reviewing your metrics and measuring if objectives are being achieved. This typically happens in your weekly meetings and written updates. To help facilitate your planning, there are a couple of formal analysis activities to do: > Quarterly Summary. Reflection is a healthy and beneficial process. At the end of every quarter, each functional leader should compile a summary of the objectives achieved. The summary should include metrics and descriptive analysis on where the team succeeded vs. struggled.
- bb88 8y ago
  If it was really as simple as the author has posited, then anyone can be a manager, but this just isn't the case. Many companies have this framework in place, yet the management and the culture is terrible. (Amazon, HP, Microsoft to name a few) In a number of companies I worked at the number one reason people left was a conflict with their supervisor. I think a much better introduction to management is the manager tools podcast. And after listening to about 10 or 20 episodes, you'll see how hard management really is, especially if you want to do it right. https://www.manager-tools.com/all-podcasts https://www.manager-tools.com/all-podcasts

funwie 8y ago

Good leadership ideas. I think defining relationships and respecting the boundaries is also important. Make sure all employees understand relationship types and know which there have with one another. Are we colleagues, friends, etc? This will lead to smooth interactions.

adamdrake 8y ago
Absolutely. People often don't appreciate or feel comfortable with the fact that when in a leadership role, the relationship changes. New leaders often focus too much on being liked, or having their decisions liked, over doing what is best for the team and its members. Being a popular and well-respected leader is the outcome of good decisions, support, and relationships, not a consequence of trying to do the popular thing. It's especially tough for people who are transitioning from being part of a team to leading that same team. I elaborate a bit here: https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html

ryanmarsh 8y ago

The only thing I would add is, culture can be taught. You can take someone who isn’t a culture fit and make them a culture fit in 8 weeks or less.

outcoldman 8y ago

It changed my opinion about what is the quality of good manager when I have heard a dialog: - Are you a boss of team X? - No, I support team X.

gowld 8y ago
"servant-leadership" for the win.

klenwell 8y ago

I also recommend this Ask HN thread: Ask HN: I just got my first team lead. What should I do? 89 points by endymi0n on Dec 30, 2011 | 50 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407643 Hmmm. Older than I remembered. But a few of the recommendations in it have stuck with me and it's been as helpful as anything I've read on the topic.

adamdrake 8y ago
Teammate to Team Lead is a topic that I run into a lot with the companies I advise. I have a small post on the topic, which I'm planning to expand: https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html https://adamdrake.com/teammate-to-team-lead.html There are quite a few things, some of them subtle, that really change once you're in a leadership role. The frequent example I see is that people don't realize that if they are in a leadership role, then there will be decisions they make which people on their team do not like. That's ok. It's not the job of the leader to win a popularity contest, but rather to try to do the best thing for the individual team members, the team, and the company itself. A lot of people have a tough time with the fact that others won't like their decisions, but that's a critical thing to digest for those who are going to be effective leaders.

geekrax 8y ago

I really wish they went easy on the animations.

alexbecker 8y ago

I find the animations and numerous different interspersed formats (text, square card thingies, profiles, three boxes side by side, one box in the middle, etc.) very distracting from the content.

smnscu 8y ago

Also see Lauri Apple's "Awesome Leading and Managing" https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing

SonicSoul 8y ago

How many popups do I need to swat away in first minute of reading this post. Second one doesn’t even have a close button it just hovers over text on the bottom. How about letting users read the article before forcing them take make a decision to subscribe

gerdesj 8y ago

Nice presentation - very pretty. This is the takeaway: We’ve reached the end of the Formula, covering everything from culture to process. You now understand the basics of leading a new team. Management and leadership are acquired skills, and they take practice. This guide is a framework for you to build upon, make your own and be the best manager. ... and this is how I think of my staff: Some people might be incredible salesmen, while others can bake cookies or build a computer with their eyes closed (that would be super impressive!) Fuck off.

Bizarro 8y ago

I just don't see the point of those bullet point transitions in the article. It just doesn't bring any value and is distracting.

monkeytree 8y ago

Great write up! I like that it starts with Culture and People to create a strong foundation. As you say, People are the hardest part. Having a good structure, routine and communication help make it manageable. I think this provides a nice framework to build around. I'm a co-founder of a company makes tools to help manage a lot of those processes you discuss so this resonated with me. We built our platform based on many lessons learned managing previous start-ups, and converged on a very similar approach. If you're into this sort of management style, here's our platform which aligns well with what's described in the article. It supports flexible one page plans for a concise way to document your strategy, functional accountability charts, priority and metrics tracking as well as a meeting space to set a consistent rhythm - also performance reviews to tie it all together. https://metronomegrowthsystems.com https://metronomegrowthsystems.com

paulmooreparks 8y ago

This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Rather, it's a call to action to stop something I really, really hate about the web these days: popups over content, begging me to sign up for an email subscription. Whenever I'm reading a web page and one of these rude popups appears, I immediately close the browser tab and move on. If the authors are rude enough to interrupt me with an invitation to clutter my inbox, then they must not want me to read their content. Please, let's end this scourge by closing more tabs and not driving more traffic to these sites.

BigJono 8y ago
I'm on board with this. There's nothing wrong with a good old fashioned call to action at the end of the article. Encourage subscription by producing good content, not by abusing your reader's time and attention.
briandear 8y ago
However, those tactics really work. I don’t like them either, but I have done A/B tests and the intrusive model always results in people who are more “gullible” and thus more likely to buy whatever it is you are selling. The dismissive types — they wouldn’t have been a customer anyway. (Generally speaking..)
- paulmooreparks 8y ago
  Hmm... yeah, you're right. They're filtering out customers like me. That means the intent of the site is not the site content, but the mailing list they can generate by dangling that content via a link, eh?
  - theshadowknows 8y ago
    If they’re any good then it’s both. You should have a content team that works toward the goal of making great content for your audience, an analytics team that helps you figure out exactly who your audience is and what they like, and a CRM team that works to execute on that vision to maximize value for both the customer and the org.

megaman22 8y ago

Judging by my experience over a number of years in industry, the most important aspect is to understand the cultural expectations of the people you are working with. Working with a north-east US team can be wildly different than a Southeast US team, or a west coast US team. Let alone a Toronto CA team, vs Quebec, CA, or UK or Australia, or Germans, or Dutch or Poles, or Indians from New Delhi vs folks from Bangalore. People work differently, and culture and communication is wildly different.

theossuary 8y ago
This is really interesting to me, do you have any examples you can think of to illustrate this? Definitely something where I don't even know what I don't know, but it seems so important especially in recent times.
- megaman22 8y ago
  I mean, it's stereotypical, but if an Indian colleague drops a "kindly do the needful" on most Americans, that will be met with consternation and confusion. The other big issue I've seen is around scheduling meetings with inappropriate lead times. I've come in too many times on monday mornings at 9 AM to see angry emails about not attending a meeting at 8 AM, when the meeting invitation was sent 2AM.

sidcool 8y ago

This is a nice article. I am surprised to see a 'management' article to receive so many votes on HN.

skoocda 8y ago

Taking up way too much space on mobile with the distracting CTA. Stopped reading when I couldn't close the popup on my phone. Might try again later on my desktop, if you promise to remove that at some point :)

deleted 8y ago

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wiz21c 8y ago

First : >>> People are not stagnant; instead, they are constantly learning and evolving. There's adifference between evolving naturally and evolving because you're pushed to do so by the company. I work with people who don't want to evolve. They seek a peaceful, comfortable environment. They do their job quite well, nothing more. I understand that. Second, values... Should people be hired because of their skill or because of their values ? What if their political views conflic with your values ? Isn't it the moment when discrimination comes in ? Say you work for Google because you love the AI stuff, then Google starts selling weapons. Should they fire people who don't share those values anymore ?

drodgers 8y ago
> Say you work for Google because you love the AI stuff, then Google starts selling weapons. Should they fire people who don't share those values anymore ? Values apply pressure in both directions. If you have a culture like Google, and you need to pivot a significant fraction of your business to building weapons, then you will — sooner or later — need to replace a lot of employees (and manage that process, deal with the resulting morale problems etc). That's really expensive, but it might be worth it (depending on the business). If you're actually like Google though — in that your real business isn't building weapons — then you just drop the weapons project. Dropping it will make the rest of your business more effective, which is way more important than some experimental side-hustle with the military. Ideally, you'd see in-advance that those kinds of projects would clash with your values and cause problems, but we all make mistakes.

binarnosp 8y ago

I always found the "company culture" as a limiting factor: at the end, it tends to build a sect of developers close to any suggestion that doesn't self-enforce the culture that produces them. "Culture" kind of wants to produce a "family", but a family is not what I'm looking for when I look for a job.

auslander 8y ago

Why so many points? Hackers now love Vision and Strategic Focus stuff ?

ingmarheinrich 8y ago

If you change from being e. g. a developer to being a manager, then this shouldn't be regarded as a promotion. It's a different career path.

lostphilosopher 8y ago

(New-ish manager here.) _Peopleware_ by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is the best management resource I've encountered. https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarco/dp/0932633439 https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-De... It also helped to keep careful track of things I really valued (and hated) about people I've worked for. Just one example: Depending on team size and culture it can concerning if your manager schedules a 1:1 meeting with you out of the blue and outside of your normal cadence. I had a manager that did this, on a Friday, with the meeting scheduled for Monday. Worrying about it would have bugged me over the weekend. Not a ton, but some. He followed the invite up with a Slack (team chat app) message explaining what the meeting was and what he wanted to talk about, turns out it was nothing to worry about. Him taking the time to clarify made a difference in my morale and it stuck with me. Super small thing, but it matters.

lostphilosopher 8y ago
While I'm at it, 2nd best: _Managing Humans_ by Michael Lopp (aka Rands). https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1484221575/ https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Eng...
KarenSatantsby 8y ago
my last weekend was ruined by a bad experience with Spectrum Cable and my supervisor on a Friday.

mi100hael 8y ago

One thing this is missing that I think too many managers forget about is CELEBRATION. When your team wins, you need to make a big deal of it. Bring in lunch or something and take a moment to say thanks on a regular basis. I think one of the biggest contributing factors to burn-out is feeling like your achievements have gone unrecognized and unappreciated.

asdforr_as 8y ago

I'd like to see a step by step guide to being part of a team.

ljw1001 8y ago

unless this post is a thousand pages long, the title is a bit over-the-top. I look forward to the "How to be a particle physicist" installment.

internetman55 8y ago

Indeed, the way mgmt seems willing to capriciously fire people for "values" conflict or getting caught in the middle of some mess management created is one of the reasons I don't really see the point of investing much in a single job. I can still get fired or laid off at random if I worked two hours extra a day or something (has happened to me). If I spend those two hours making myself marketable and networking it won't matter if you fire me because I'll just bounce to something else. I wish some managers would just learn to interact like humans instead of being insecure tough guys and "playing hardball" with everyone. I've seen that tank projects and set back careers (IC and mgmt).

lucisferre 8y ago

For those interested in learning management skills I've found https://www.manager-tools.com/ https://www.manager-tools.com/ and their podcasts and resources invaluable. Also the best book I've read so far on management is the excellent High Output Management by Andy Grove. Still incredibly relevant.