Live data from Hacker News

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

getweeklyupdate.com

11–20 of 235 posts

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

#12
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

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_re...

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

#13
post #9

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.

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.

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

#15

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.

What were a few differences you ran into?

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

#17
post #12

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 I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Those ground rules are great. How do you "enforce" them, or at least keep them at front of mind on the team?

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

#18
post #12

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 I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Those ground rules are great. How do you "enforce" them, or at least keep them at front of mind on the team?

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.

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

#19
post #12

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 I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Those ground rules are great. How do you "enforce" them, or at least keep them at front of mind on the team?

Make it explicit for some period of time as you introduce them. If they need review they can be part of the weekly/biweekly retro. If it needs more personal reinforcement then 1-on-1's. It's the manager's job to communicate these and KEEP communicating them.

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

#20
post #12

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 I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Core-hours are 9am-5pm? Aren't those just the normal busines hours for white-collar work?
Post reply on HN