Hiring, firing, and making sure that people who are good are happy to stay around are three of the most important things that happen at a company. Teams that ar

Hiring, firing, and making sure that people who are good are happy to stay around are three of the most important things that happen at a company. Teams that are bad at any one of them will fail miserably in the long run. The toughest is probably the third, making good people want to stay around, especially when you're a middle manager who has limited power to do anything meaningful like give raises or promotions or pick projects to work on. The most powerful tool is to form good personal relationships with reports without blurring the line between manager and peer (common rookie manager mistake). Beyond that it's mostly about delivering near constant small feedback (positive and negative, mostly positive unless someone needs to be fired), shit-shielding from stuff that drains productivity, and giving opportunities to grow and learn whenever possible.