There is a clear difference drawn here between a team manager and a team leader, the latter being able to actually handle persons tone, manner of speaking, their emotions, without fear of ruining their whole own day.
I manage teams without a single call
11–20 of 102 posts
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#12[deleted]
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#13Building a team to operate based on your own personal preferences is selfish leadership... or even dictatorship.
There's a very strong "focus culture" which relies on the idea that work is not done in meetings. This is wrong. Progress comes in many forms.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#14>In the end, a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus. And I might spend the entire day thinking about it.
does anyone else have their entire day sidelined by a 10-minute call? is that common?
to me, it hints at something else, but i am not sure if i am the odd one out or not.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#15Using your analogy, imagine it's the year 2026. Two armies are fighting. One uses letter to communicate. One uses phones. Which army do you want to fight in? This is an obviously poor policy.
This is why I dislike most wartime analogies. Most day jobs just aren't that urgent or important.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#16English is vague, even when accounting for that fact. It's much more difficult to detect or correct misunderstandings over text.
My biggest issue with this concept is time. You write your wall of text, I see that you've failed to account for some factor, so I write my wall of text. You don't completely understand my wall of text and ask for clarification. Back and forth, asynchronously. In a call this can be resolved in minutes. Over text this could take days
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#17This ignores the human side of things - people want relationships, empathy and sometimes just to be listened to.
A call with your manager where they say "yes, I agree with everything you said - go ahead and do it, I trust you" can mean much more than the same thing said in a text message.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#18- Some people cannot communicate via written text. At all.
- Other people always prefer voice over text. Why should our preferences trump theirs?
- Text is low bandwidth, audio/video is high bandwidth (in that it can convey emotions & tonality much more easily)
- People are much more open with issues they're encountering when face-to-face. Text is too impersonal for that.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#19> But for me, it becomes the event my whole day starts to revolve around. I have to break out of my flow, put my tasks on hold, take the call, and then get back into context. In the end, a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus.
Occasionally I get this feeling for a large customer meeting or a public talk, because there are consequences and serious prep. But this is just trying to normalize extreme social anxiety and call it a management style.
One reason you get together to talk is so you can hash out details on potentially ambiguous topics, so you don't head in the wrong direction causing net negative contribution.
Another is that people are not automata. Humans require inspiration and motivation and you need to reinforce the vision of what you are building and why. Its also even sometimes a reasonable idea to ask about how their life is going and check up on their family and pets and career aspirations.
In general, some people should not be managers, and there is plenty of room in the world for super ICs.
Re: I manage teams without a single call
#20Seems like the author has anxiety issues. Not much else of substance in the post.