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

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

#221

Post by croo »

raphaelb wrote: post #203
croo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (limited) experience email should be used for either: * non-urgent * not-that-important * things you want (others) to remember * communications you may want to point your finger later on (proof/contract details etc) For everything else phone and in person communication are vastly superior and should be preferred.

I always wonder if this is a personality thing... I vastly prefer email (or slack/chat rooms) over phone / in person verbal, with some exceptions for certain types of brainstorming / planning. I like to provide my thoughts on a topic in written form up front so people have a chance to think about it, and like the same in response. Plus having a written record of decisions and even the thinking process is so helpful.

I also prefer emails... but this is not a personality thing. The email simply does not have enough dimension to replace normal talking.

You cannot express yourself because there is no body language and cannot talk things through because of the feedback loop. You cannot reflect to jokes or ask about the wellbeing on seeing someone coughing. You can ignore a pressed question by simply not answering - this is very hard to do in person. You cannot see from the eyes of the other person if he's really listening or just seems to be really tired.

It's great to have an email describing what I have to do and it is great for talking to someone you are familiar with. But it is a bad idea to use it for client communication or for doing business in general.

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

#222

Post by xstartup »

bb88 wrote: post #81

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.

Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product.

No! you are doing it wrong. Research shows that it's hard to change others behavior.

The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors.

While this is in your hand but you are subject to the same limitation as your team members.

Furthermore, managing people is not about making them agree with you but to use a framework of short-term incentives to align long-term goals.

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

#224

Post by marcus_holmes »

spyckie2 wrote: post #220
marcus_holmes wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, exactly. It was a huge surprise to find that asian people do not think of themselves as equals. Incidentally this is also one of the reasons democracy is struggling here, in my opinion.

Don't think it is an equality thing. If I were to distill it into one central theme, it would be centered on how each culture views and values conflict. The principles of the US has themes of "cooperation by conflict". Voting is the entire population fighting each other in a controlled setting. The 3 body system of checks and balances uses conflict as the central mean to prevent power accumulation. Rationalism is the…

As a narrative about how the US works, that's a great story.

As an east vs west philosophy debate, it completely fails to recognise that European cultures have also "baked conflict into the system".

It also fails to recognise that SE Asian cultures were also colonised by European powers.

A better explanation is that the American values were straight-up inherited from European ones because America (and Australia similarly) was wiped clean of indigenous culture during colonisation, while SE Asian countries were not. Better because it explains why all "western" cultures share these values, and why SE Asian cultures do not.

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

#225

Post by marcus_holmes »

rikkus wrote: post #202
marcus_holmes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. M…

Instead of calling this a 'respect' for authority, I'd call it a combination of submissiveness and deferring of all decision making, partly through a desire to avoid accountability. If you look at your situation where something 'else' happens due to a 'misunderstanding', I see this often with hierarchies: There is a rush to go off and do something, and no desire to ensure it's the _right_ thing.

Yeah that's a great way of putting it :)

It's expressed as "respect" if you talk to them about it, though, so I tend to use that term as it's non-prejudicial. Submissiveness is more accurate, but could be a problem in conversation hehe

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

#226

Post by KennyCason »

codeonfire wrote: post #121
w_t_payne wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following the links, I stumbled upon this amazing seeming resource: http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm The military are really very very good at man-management ...

Management is easy when your employees have to go to prison for not obeying you and you can exact non-judicial punishment any time ou want.

Not true. First, disobedience rarely results in jail. There are many intermediate forms of punishment. For example, losing rank, salary privileges, formal write ups, extra work responsibilities, etc.

Also leaders tend to keep each other in check and are constantly being reviewed. If you're a bad leader in the military it is typically immediately apparent and gets changed at some point. Additionally, leaders are also in turn managed by other leaders.

You're also not guaranteed promoted just because of your time-in-grade, especially not for higher ranks (e.g. E-5 and above). You also can't just transfer into the military with a high rank, meaning you have to work earn it and work your way up. It's not a full-proof system of course, but it does a great job. If you forced me to call out one exception, I would consider the officer path to be a shortcut to leadership, though they are typically required to go to college and extra training. But clearly, they don't have the military time-in-grade. But you're day-to-day is not really ran by officers, so it's not quite as relevant. (I'm speaking for the Marine Corps leadership as that's all I know first-hand.)

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

#228

Post by spyckie2 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #224
spyckie2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think it is an equality thing. If I were to distill it into one central theme, it would be centered on how each culture views and values conflict. The principles of the US has themes of "cooperation by conflict". Voting is the entire population fighting each other in a controlled setting. The 3 body system of checks and balances uses conflict as the central mean to prevent power accumulation. Rationalism is the…

As a narrative about how the US works, that's a great story. As an east vs west philosophy debate, it completely fails to recognise that European cultures have also "baked conflict into the system". It also fails to recognise that SE Asian cultures were also colonised by European powers. A better explanation is that the American values were straight-up inherited from European ones because America (and Australia simil…

not sure how Europe got in this, was comparing American values versus Asian values. Conflict is the center of attention in American values (you could say western values, I don't know enough about modern European sentiment to say that). Conflict is indirect in Asian values.

Do you mean that American values aren't so anti-European that I depicted, or rather are derived from European values? I think I allude to it with rationalism, which originates from Europe. The history of European civilization is the foundation and backdrop for American ideals.

As much as America has tried to lay a foundation for a better western civilization, I think a mature modern America still has the problems that they were running away from in 18th century Europe - power eventually gets consolidated and individualism is compromised despite the checks and balances against it.

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

#229

Post by bb88 »

xstartup wrote: post #222
bb88 wrote: post #81

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.

Half of being a manager is managing other's behaviors to produce a great product. No! you are doing it wrong. Research shows that it's hard to change others behavior. The other half is managing your own behaviors -- i.e. being consistent with your communications and consistent in your behaviors. While this is in your hand but you are subject to the same limitation as your team members. Furthermore, managing people is…

> Research shows that it's hard to change others behavior.

I said, "managing behaviors", not "changing behaviors".

> Furthermore, managing people is not about making them agree with you but to use a framework of short-term incentives to align long-term goals.

Isn't that a part of managing behaviors? E.g. I pay my employees money, I tell them what to do, and then they do it. That seems to me I'm managing their behaviors.

I guess I don't understand why you're arguing with me on this, since you seem to agree with that point.

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

#230

Post by bb88 »

shadowmint wrote: post #197
bb88 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 to…

This is really great advice, thank you. I think it really crystalized the issues I had reading the article; you can do (or try to do...) all the ‘right things’ and still have a terrible result. If it was easy to get right, things would be great... but its not. Its hard. ...and a slide deck of protips doesn’t cut it as a solution.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great resource, but it's not "How to be a manager."

Just an example of this, culture is hard to get right. You can't hire yourself to culture. It's something that has to be practiced by all your employees every day.

If you have 1000 managers in your corporation, you have 1000 micro-cultures. If a chunk of those managers figure out they can berate their directs on a daily basis without punishment, then those employees experience of your company will be terrible.

That's why Amazon employee reports vary wildly from great to horrible. That's because while some managers are truly great, some are truly horrid. The culture isn't enforced equally across the company.

Jeff Bezos might treat his corporate execs great on a day to day basis say, but the average employee is usually levels of management removed from this to be inspired. Instead they see coworkers sobbing at their desk because they were fired, or forced to resign. Other's might actually deeply enjoy their time at Amazon, but it's because they got lucky in the micro-culture lottery.

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