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So you're a manager now

scottkosman.com

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Re: So you're a manager now

#121

Post by rrr_oh_man »

Aurornis wrote: post #96
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone struggling with this: https://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/hall-fame-highly-... This podcast has made me a 10x better manager. Good starters: - https://www.manager-tools.com/2007/04/effective-hiring-set-t... - https://www.manager-tools.com/2008/03/the-management-trinity... - https://www.manager-tools.com/2010/01/how-manage-arrogant-pr... - https://www.manager-tools.com/2008/02/the-management-trinity.…

I found the older manager tools podcasts to be more consistently helpful than the newer ones. I see 3/4 of your links are to old episodes, which tracks with my experience. I sampled some newer episodes in the past few years and was not impressed. One episode was just the host and guest ranting about how remote work isn’t real work and how everyone needs to get back to the office, which was wholly unhelpful for me as…

Agree. Pre-2016 was mostly great. Post-2020 it went downhill.

Edit: I also linked the wrong feedback episode. The correct one was from 2008...

Re: So you're a manager now

#122

Post by paulcole »

Aurornis wrote: post #3

Some good advice. It’s missing one of the most difficult topics: Performance Management. Most first-time managers have already read a lot of advice about being humble, delegating, celebrating your team’s wins, and the other feel good topics. If you want to write internet advice that gets upvoted and shared you almost have to avoid the difficult conversation topics and assume that the team is full of perfect people th…

Agree 100%.

This is the difficult conversation template I put together and use:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gHyfR0XAc5ehRoqRImV1yAFh...

Re: So you're a manager now

#123

Post by maleldil »

This is a great article. It echoes a lot of what I went through when transitioning to management. I can also recommend the book "The Making of a Manager", which covers similar ground in more detail.

I have one criticism: no auto-play GIFs, please. They're so distracting. They could be better as short, pausable videos.

Re: So you're a manager now

#124

Post by janosch_123 »

Aurornis wrote: post #3

Some good advice. It’s missing one of the most difficult topics: Performance Management. Most first-time managers have already read a lot of advice about being humble, delegating, celebrating your team’s wins, and the other feel good topics. If you want to write internet advice that gets upvoted and shared you almost have to avoid the difficult conversation topics and assume that the team is full of perfect people th…

just ordered "The Managers Path" because of your post here, looking forward to read it.

Re: So you're a manager now

#125

Post by azangru »

kortilla wrote: post #67
MrGilbert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to know why my comment received a downvote / downvotes.

Being an agile coach isn’t management

The author of the article writes:

> You’re not the player, you’re the coach. Sometimes that means strategy and big-picture thinking. Sometimes it means shielding your team from dumb shit. Sometimes it means buying someone coffee and saying, “You’re not crazy. This is hard.”

Guess what good agile coaches or scrum masters are expected to do :-)

Re: So you're a manager now

#126

Post by azangru »

whstl wrote: post #100
kortilla wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an agile coach isn’t management

Off topic, but: It's interesting how everyone thinks they're "managers" in "agile" teams. Scrum Masters, Product Owners. I've even had Designers and QAs trying to make decisions on behalf of the team.

> It's interesting how everyone thinks they're "managers" in "agile" teams.

In scrum in particular, teams are supposed to be "self-organizing and self-managing". Perhaps that's why :-)

Re: So you're a manager now

#127

Post by stronglikedan »

flashgordon wrote: post #19
Aurornis wrote: post #3

Some good advice. It’s missing one of the most difficult topics: Performance Management. Most first-time managers have already read a lot of advice about being humble, delegating, celebrating your team’s wins, and the other feel good topics. If you want to write internet advice that gets upvoted and shared you almost have to avoid the difficult conversation topics and assume that the team is full of perfect people th…

This is really nice. I've been doing this for quite a while (and also ping pong ic-em and back). Oh and I've also been "the" poor performer. A couple of observations: 1. Performance management is never easy and I don't think it should be. I don't mean the technique or process of it bit the mental weighing of it. You are affecting a person's livelihood so you don't want to approach it robotically always (despite what…

1. That's because people are unique and there are infinite people problems to solve, so it will never be easy.

2. I don't believe those are the types that OP was talking about. There are people that will just never work out to begin with, and there are people who have bad days/weeks. The latter are already trusted and deemed worthy, so it's not the same class of problem.

And remember, being a director is just being an inverted $shit umbrella for veeps, so the grass isn't always greener!

Re: So you're a manager now

#128

Post by stronglikedan »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #65

Bottom tier manager is the worst role in tech. * You are responsible for sticking to commitments that depend almost completely on other people sticking to theirs. * You're still on the hook for delivery, so if someone you assigned a subtask can't get that job done, you either have to pass it on to someone else (which often ends up harming the social dynamic of the team) or just do it yourself. Throwing an employee un…

Nitpick, but directors are typically considered executive-tier, not n-tier-management.

Re: So you're a manager now

#129

Post by icedchai »

xnx wrote: post #30
alphazard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's corporate world, it can be difficult or impossible to fire people. It's important to understand that actually removing someone from the organization is a totally separate problem from managing the performance of the team. People who don't contribute or cause problems need to be sequestered as much as possible. Don't let them bring down the rest of the team. I think "managed out" is the term that's being us…

> In today's corporate world, it can be difficult or impossible to fire people Really? In the US you can fire an employee for any reason at any time (aside from a few illegal reasons: union activity, racism, etc.).

Firing someone "for cause" is an incredibly long and difficult process at many organizations. They eventually get put on a PIP for 3 to 6 months, meanwhile they are looking for another job and continuing to drag down performance of the rest of the team. It would be cheaper to pay them to leave sooner.

Re: So you're a manager now

#130

Post by olddustytrail »

whstl wrote: post #95
olddustytrail wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if that's your process then that's what you're being paid to do. OTOH, why shouldn't your team be able to say you're a bad manager and just get you fired? There is rarely a simple process to do that. They're the productive ones so this seems a little backwards. At any rate I definitely don't see why a managers job should be made easier to avoid the realistic implications of firing someone. If they can't cope wit…

I agree with you and upvoted you but: IMO the problem from a management perspective isn't really the bad performer staying too long. Also, dealing with HR as a manager is mostly fine. They actually respect you. And just having someone that sucks on your team for one extra year is not really much of a burden. Sure you have to do extra paperwork, adjust morale, but that's just the job. The problem IME is when this is u…

You're absolutely right that this is a problem when you're trying to break into the C suite.

This is a deliberate tactic. Don't accept their framing. You are following the correct procedure and...

This is the tough bit, you need to call out whoever is trying to keep you down.

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