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Resilient Management

(A Book Apart #30)

Lara Hogan (Goodreads Author)

4.41 · Rating details · 392 ratings · 57 reviews

Finding your bearings as a manager can feel overwhelming—but you don’t have to fake it to make it, and you don’t have to go it alone. Lara Hogan shares her recipe for supporting and leading a tech team—from developing your mentoring and coaching skills, to getting comfortable with having difficult conversations, to boosting trust among teammates—while staying grounded alon ...more

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Paperback, 105 pages

Published June 11th 2019 by A Book Apart

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Spotify #bookclub_swe Round 3

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Feb 02, 2020 Sebastian Gebski rated it it was amazing

A very nice book on modern engineering leadership - that's what I like :)

Lara doesn't pretend she has written a full almanac on all aspects of engineering - "RM" is focused on a few chosen (yet very important aspects): personal mgmt style, modes of team members' support, clarity when it comes to expectations, careful communication planning, etc. I love the way she presents the topics - as she's very good at framing concepts in simple conceptual models. I'm not saying she has invented them all (s ...more

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Sep 20, 2019 Jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: business, ux-design, leadership-and-management

Overall, this book is a great read, especially if you’re new to management. I’ve consulted many management resources already. This book reinforced a lot of what I’m already doing while teaching me a few new things along the way.

Things I’m already doing that Lara reinforced in her book:

• Provide regular feedback to your direct reports. Don’t wait for performance reviews. This is critical for giving your direct reports the opportunity to learn what they’re doing well and where they need to impro Overall, this book is a great read, especially if you’re new to management. I’ve consulted many management resources already. This book reinforced a lot of what I’m already doing while teaching me a few new things along the way.

Things I’m already doing that Lara reinforced in her book:

• Provide regular feedback to your direct reports. Don’t wait for performance reviews. This is critical for giving your direct reports the opportunity to learn what they’re doing well and where they need to improve on a consistent basis.
• Repeat what you say to your direct reports. People rarely remember something the first time they hear it. Lara’s guidance reminds me of the LinkedIn CEO’s quote, “When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it.”
• Adapt your communication when necessary for your team members. As Lara says in the book, it may feel inauthentic to communicate in a way that’s not your default style. But some people need to hear things a certain way for it to resonate. Not every direct report you have is like you. They may communicate and process information differently.

A few new things I learned from this book:

• Lara suggests using a mad lib to establish your management values. By filling in the blanks and reviewing the value statement, you can visualize how you want to manage your team. It’s a great framework for stopping to analyze and reflect upon how you work with your direct reports.
• Lara’s perspective as a female manager. Throughout the book, she addresses the nuances of management if you’re a member of a marginalized group. She also talks about managing team members who are part of marginalized groups. I appreciate this because most management resources are written by white guys. While these men have valuable management guidance to provide, their guidance comes from the perspective of a white guy. If you’re a member of a marginalized group, you’re often perceived differently if you apply the management style as white men. I’m so glad she addressed this in the book. Many resources on management don’t address this at all.
• Build a network of other managers you can rely on for input. This is something I haven’t done but plan to do after reading the book. I rely on my cofounders for a lot of management input. I also see value in getting perspectives from people outside of my organization in similar roles.

Again, this book is a great read, especially if you’re new to management. I don’t agree with everything in this book, but that goes for any management book I’ve read. What works for one manager won’t necessarily work all the time for me.

I pulled what I can use from this book and look forward to applying it as I manage teams in the future. ...more

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May 28, 2019 Katie Kovalcin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-52-books

Lara's book is full of clear, actionable advice for new managers. I'm wading through many of the problems she's outlined and through her guidance, I am able to find the answers (or ask the questions!) I need to move forward. Highly recommend! ...more

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Jun 21, 2019 Mindaugas Mozūras rated it really liked it

Growth is beautiful; growth is magnificent; growth is what we should be aiming for. But in actuality, growth is painful.

Lara Hogan is one of my favourite engineering managers to follow on Twitter and read on RSS. I was also lucky to hear her do a conference talk more than once. I knew this book would be useful when I read that she'll have a treatise on management coming out.

I was not disappointed. I liked Resilient Management, which focuses mainly on management fundamentals. It's a good overview ...more

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Mar 21, 2020 Bjoern Rochel rated it really liked it

Shelves: eng-mgmt, 2020, books-in-to-read-that-i-already-own

Good starter kit for new engineering managers. More seasoned ones might also learn some new, useful tools ranging from BICEPS (a SCARF alternative), Management Voltrons to RACI and Eisenhower matrixes as well as a good package of coaching and organizational tips&tricks.

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Jun 10, 2019 Anna rated it it was amazing

In Chapter 4 of Resilient Management, Lara states “The absence of trust is the foundation of most teams disfunction”. This book feels very much like the antidote to that. It guides the reader, whether they’re a first-time manager or an experienced one, through the different lifecycle stages of a team – from Forming to Storming, then Norming, and finally, to Performing.

I can’t think of anyone better to write this book – Lara has worked in so many different environments, from Engineering Director In Chapter 4 of Resilient Management, Lara states “The absence of trust is the foundation of most teams disfunction”. This book feels very much like the antidote to that. It guides the reader, whether they’re a first-time manager or an experienced one, through the different lifecycle stages of a team – from Forming to Storming, then Norming, and finally, to Performing.

I can’t think of anyone better to write this book – Lara has worked in so many different environments, from Engineering Director at Etsy, to VP Engineering at Kickstarter. She’s also written and given talks about management for years, and I’ve no idea how many individuals she’s coached over the years but it’s probably in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

Throughout Resilient Management, Lara focuses on the importance of empathy when giving advice and feedback, particularly considering how it might affect the team around them. “It’s your responsibility to give advice that’s current and sensitive to the changing dialogue of what’s happening in our industry”.

Things this book helped me with:

* Why being curious in your interactions with your team is so important.
* What tasks are best to delegate (giving away your lego), and how you can use that delegated work as an opportunity to help your direct report move towards their career goals.
* Why we or others get anxious for reasons that seem illogical, and how that can be explained using BICEPS.
* The importance of tone when communicating with your team. “Questions that start with ‘why’ make the person feel judged, whereas ‘how’ goes into problem-solving mode”.
* How (and when) to “disagree and commit”.
* How to give negative feedback effectively by explaining the impact of the problematic behaviour (and some phrases to try when doing this).
* Using frameworks like the RACI matrix to agree on the responsibilities of the individuals in a team.
* How to help teams scale by documenting what happens in each team meeting, so new members can read it and decide whether they should join.

There are also a lot of useful resources at the back which I’ll be adding to my “to read” list.

Reading this book is like having a 3-hour coaching session with Lara – she’s woven in so much of her advice into the pages. One of the most valuable parts of my first session with her was when she covered the difference between mentoring and coaching, and she’s devoted a whole section to this in the book. At the end of our session, she set me some homework based on what she’d taught me – you don’t miss out on this by reading the book as she’s added coaching questions at the end of every chapter. ...more

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Jun 11, 2019 John rated it it was amazing

This book should be considered "required reading" by new managers.

Here is what makes this book excellent:

1. For new managers, it provides the necessary “scaffolding” that they need to navigate this strange new role they’ve taken on. It gives them a new language and framing for how to anticipate and handle sticky challenges and pragmatic approaches they can lean on when things get tricky.

2. For veteran managers, it’s an excellent exposition of what should be considered fundamental concepts. Fund ...more

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Jul 09, 2019 Bartosz Pranczke rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019

It is a good book, especially for new managers. I think the biggest take away is to remember about every human' core needs.

There are six core needs researchers find are most important for humans at work. Not all are equally important to everyone. You might find that equity and belonging are most important to you, but choice and status are most important to your employee. Getting to know them and coaching to them is a shortcut to making others feel understood and valued (aka inclusivity).

You mi ...more

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Jul 25, 2019 Haley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-by-women, non-fiction, 2019, eng-management

Full disclosure, I have known Lara for several years and have also been lucky enough to take her Demystifying Management course recently. That being said, I feel strongly that this is book, while short, is packed with deeply useful information and helpful insights. Lately I have been feeling strongly that books focused on management contain lessons that are in fact valuable to folks at all points in their career, as well as lessons that can just as easily be applied outside of the workplace, and ...more

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Jun 09, 2019 David Yee rated it it was amazing

Management school isn’t typically something software engineers enroll in; historically, we became managers because we were good at our craft for long enough that somebody felt we ought to tell other people how to do likewise. To advance in the discipline meant, ultimately, that you’d have to set that discipline aside and take up the discipline of management—often with no meaningful training and while being managed by somebody else who was flying just as much by the seat of their pants. This natu Management school isn’t typically something software engineers enroll in; historically, we became managers because we were good at our craft for long enough that somebody felt we ought to tell other people how to do likewise. To advance in the discipline meant, ultimately, that you’d have to set that discipline aside and take up the discipline of management—often with no meaningful training and while being managed by somebody else who was flying just as much by the seat of their pants. This naturally resulted in the technology industry slowly filling up with managers who leaned heavily into their skills at working with predictable things like code, which often didn’t translate particularly well to working with unpredictable things like people.

This isn’t to say that understanding the discipline of engineering isn’t an asset to being an engineering manager—the best engineering managers can put themselves in the shoes of an individual contributor who is struggling with premature optimization or a complex algorithmic challenge on a tight deadline and help that contributor see their own path through. But while we might once have taken that guidance at face value, though—a transfer of skills between contributors—we now work in an industry with emerging voices who recognize the connection of experience to empathy. One of the strongest of those voices belongs to Lara Hogan, whose new book Resilient Management comes out today.

Resilient Management provides a crisp and comprehensive set of frameworks for understanding the effect of human psychology on team dynamics and the practice of management. Its five sections, in turn, address the challenges of: understanding your teammates, coaching them in their personal growth, gathering them as a team, leading them in the work, and maintaining and supporting yourself throughout. Lara provides questions that help you kick off a working relationship with new reports, strategies for dealing with ineffective meetings, frameworks for understanding your own management style and its gaps, and an entire chapter devoted to coaching techniques that should be required reading for every engineering manager. But its last chapter, called “Build Resiliency”, encapsulates the entire intent of the book—giving yourself, as a manager, space and support to do this work well, repeatedly, and with flexibility as your team and its challenges evolve. Lara emphasizes the importance of systematically growing as a manager, writing each chapter to build on the last, moving from understanding to execution to stamina, and transitioning between those chapters with coaching questions that help you articulate your own unique perspective on the work of management—regardless of the discipline you lead.

In that vein, it’s important to note that Resilient Management isn’t about the specifics of engineering management; it doesn’t try to teach you how to be a senior software engineer, build an architectural roadmap, or design a career ladder—there are other books that do that really well (most notably Camille Fournier’s The Manager’s Path). Rather, what Lara does here is offer that there is nothing particularly unique to the challenge of engineering management: understanding people and how they react to the world around them. She speaks from her considerable experience as an engineering manager and lead, but the book itself speaks to management broadly; it’s equally useful to designers, editors, product managers, and small business owners specifically because it proposes that this is work that all leaders should be doing. Because of that, Resilient Management can really dive into the details about the parts of a humane and supportive management practice that intersect with all those disciplines—it covers a substantial range of tactics in just over a hundred pages. You can read this book in a weekend and show up on Monday with a reinvigorated perspective on your team and your practice.

And listen: we could all stand to show up with some renewed perspectives; being a manager is hard, draining work. Beyond the challenges of planning, execution, and delivery, we bear real responsibility for the careers and lives of the people who work with us—all of this is connected. Our teams know that they owe us and our organizations good work, but we owe them a workplace that is well-considered and supportive of them in that work. Historically, we had only our individual gifts for empathy and support to lean on in making the transition from individual contributor to manager, but in Resilient Management, Lara Hogan has produced a fantastic and concise foundational text for the practice of humane management. Whether you’re a new manager or an experienced leader hoping to recenter your work on the people who work for you, Resilient Management continually reminds you that you are capable of this, and that you will be better for it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. ...more

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Jun 27, 2020 Ivan Zarea rated it really liked it

Great, short and practical overview of things that worked and things that didn't. Even in its brevity, it covers things that I wanted to know but couldn't find any clear advice on, like how to ask for a mentor (comes with an example email!), how to deal with company roles that intersect, and how to disagree and commit.

Will happily reread in a couple of months! ...more

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May 14, 2019 Candi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites-2019

I watched Lara's An Event Apart talk about Navigating Friction. I was worried it was solely this talk, but I was mistaken. She had some great parts from her talk and added some bonus sections to it. I think the section on communication is the most important. This book feels different from most manager books. I think this could take any manager's skills to the next level.

The best part about this book though is that it could really be a book for anyone. You don't need a manager title to benefit fr ...more

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Aug 30, 2019 Bill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: software-delivery, career, tech-lead

Highly recommended for new (and old) technical managers. I've found tremendous value in Hogan's blogs and her newsletter. This packages many of these ideas into a cohesive and lean package. Extremely tactical and concrete. You'll no doubt find new techniques for your toolkit. ...more

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Jun 10, 2019 David Brunelle rated it it was amazing

So you're an engineering manager now. Chances are you have a track record of delivering incredible work and you know how to get things done. But now you're responsible for a team of other humans and helping them deliver their best work. If you're anything like me, you will quickly recognize that what made you an excellent individual contributor is insufficient for managing teams and leading people.

But you have something that I didn't: Lara Hogan delivers a concise, well-written intro on how to d ...more

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Jun 30, 2019 Bendystraw rated it it was amazing

You don’t have to be a manager to benefit from this extremely well-organized and practical book. So many offerings in this genre are a series of scattered anecdotes around one central idea, leaving the exercise of extracting the valuable and actionable nuggets as an exercise for the reader.

Resilient Management is well-written, without fluff. The first part introduces the basic needs of a team (BICEPS), and the following chapters build on that framework. There’s a practical example for each strat ...more

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Aug 21, 2019 Mathias Meyer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mngmnt, read-in-2019

This is a great reference to have on your desk especially as a new manager. But even a seasoned manager may find some good nuggets in here and things to go back to every now and then to reset and reflect. It’s full of practical advice. One could almost say the book is 96 written pages that only contain practical advice, in the very best way.

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Jul 01, 2019 Hugo Lopes Tavares rated it it was amazing

I'm a first time manager and this book has lots of actionable items on every chapter. I'm already applying what I read in the book! I also recommend you check out Lara Hogan's blog, it has shorter supplemental teachings. ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Jo rated it really liked it

Shelves: learning

Lovely book for leaders & aspiring managers, does not waste any time & gets straight to the point.

My personal main take-aways:

* Stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing
* Core needs on the workplace: BICEPS (belonging, improvement, choice, equality, predictability, significance) (Paloma Medina)
* Manager hats: mentor, coach, sponsor, feedback
* "first team" mindset & building your Manager Voltron ...more

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Sep 14, 2020 Kevin Gutowski rated it it was amazing

Shelves: management

Really enjoyed this book! Lara does a great job at breaking down core needs and helping you frame conversations with your teammates in a healthy and productive way.

You can find an overview of the book here: https://twitter.com/kevgski/status/13... ...more

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Jul 26, 2020 Alex Ca rated it it was amazing

Great book! Helped out a lot in some areas that I'm still trying to understand / drive. ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 Andrew rated it liked it

Lara provides some great leadership tips and strategies. I may be burned out on this topic. I have read quite a few management books and they all seem to have similar ideas. It seems best to pick one of them that fits with your natural style and stick to it. If I could randomize my rating and have it occasionally go from a 3 to a 4 to a 5 and back again I would. This book could be wonderful for some folks. No real complaint on it.

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Jan 30, 2021 Francesca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: must-read, read-to-lead-book-club

Excellent book. Must-read for first time, and for managers looking for ideas to shake things up a bit in their teams.

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Mar 03, 2020 Bugzmanov rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020

A very solid book about "soft" aspects of management - human relationships and leadership.
What to like about it: it's very short and concise, while most of the books in this category are watered down with opinions, anecdotes, and made-up stories, this one is different.
I'd also like to contrast it with "Elegant Puzzle": these two books complement each other like Yin and Yang.
Elegant Puzzle - presents management as a system, that can be observed, measured and optimized.
Resilient Management - pr ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Marcin rated it it was ok

There are some nice gems in the book and I really appreciate Lara putting this together in a well structured and concise way. I particularly enjoyed the focus on folk's needs, the framing on a manager's job in the four dimensions (mentoring, coaching, sponsoring and feedback) and reminders about underrepresented groups. I have found other tools (like the RACI matix, or the Tuckman model) outdated, irrelevant and sometimes dangerous. I would have loved more nuanced approach which reflected the na ...more

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Jan 29, 2020 John rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended-for-nerds, reviewed-by-me

I've read a lot of books about managing people; this is one of the best. It's quite tactical and practical and is loaded with ground-level guidance about how to intervene with the people who report to you. But what is quite striking about the book is how it thinks about the different modes of one-on-one people management: The book draws shrewd distinctions between the quite different roles of mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring (chapter 2).

For Hogan, mentoring is when you advise. Coaching provid I've read a lot of books about managing people; this is one of the best. It's quite tactical and practical and is loaded with ground-level guidance about how to intervene with the people who report to you. But what is quite striking about the book is how it thinks about the different modes of one-on-one people management: The book draws shrewd distinctions between the quite different roles of mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring (chapter 2).

For Hogan, mentoring is when you advise. Coaching provides more freedom for the person being coached, because in the coaching role you want to ask open-ended questions and provide reflective comments that narrate where the coached person is. Why? Because you, as a coach, are trying to situate the coached person to grow without telling them what to do. This reminds me quite a bit of the "language protocol" which undergirds the Entrepreneur's Organization's "Forum" structure (the Forum structure asks you to share experience [not advise] and let people draw their own conclusions). This distinction between mentoring and coaching is really important, because for people to step up, you have to refrain from advising; you must create the context so that the coached person can choose her own path. Finally: Sponsoring is about situating/promoting people so that they eventually manage and lead. This is about providing grounds for recognition so that someone can be given or grasp new responsibilities. My only regret about the section on sponsoring is that it's so short (pp. 29-30). I think Hogan could write a book on this single topic (and she notes in passing that it is her favored mode of managing). I infer that she would teach us that if you have managers who are stuck in the same 1:1 mode (e.g., mentoring when it's time to move on to coaching or sponsoring), they may be stifling or blocking their reports.

As a manager, you really have to get your choice of approach (mentoring vs. coaching vs. sponsoring) right. I remember back when I started in academia as a junior professor, I suffered as the mentee of a self-nominated senior faculty mentor. It was terrible. I didn't need advice: I needed coaching. But the coaching strategy was completely beyond the capacity of the faculty member. It's been a sore point with me ever since.

Elsewhere, the book talks about getting your communications right. Hogan rightly says that if there is news that will likely be painful, you need to talk it through; email is not going to work. She recommends, then, a later recap email that sums up what went down (pp. 61, 70). Believe me, this is something that a lot of new managers get wrong: Hogan is helpful in suggesting techniques to get the messaging straight and coherent. The book is also quite good on providing reasons for "All Hands" meetings. Why do you do an "All Hands"? Well, it's because when you have big communications to share, you need to do it once so that everyone gets the same message. People wager that can drop the regular cadence of the "All Hands" meeting, but the risk there is that by loosing the repetition, you lose your ability for the "big news" meeting to be taken in course. I.e., w/o a sequence of repeated "All Hands" meetings, that one where you have to announce something tricky or potentially disruptive will itself seem like an emergency meeting: And people will over-react or be confused or just not get the message because it is presented in an exceptional venue (pp. 67-69).

I really can't praise this book enough: Besides the counsel on how to manage, the final chapter goes into the question . . . why are managers so tired all the time? And the book advises, surely based on the author's scar tissue, techniques for finding/developing a great peer network, learning how to prioritize but more importantly grade the everyday energy suck, and how to say "no" (83-95).

Note: One thing this book is not about is structuring teams, promotion ladders, and guidance for engineering team/process managers such as directors and VPs. For that, the author advises you check on The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change (my GoodReads review). The book also does not couple her ideas to engineering process, such as Scrum (by not doing that, I think the book may have a lot to offer non-engineering managers). ...more

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Jan 18, 2020 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook, professional, bookclub

## Why I picked it up ##

Because my bookclub wanted to read it.

## Who recommended it to me ##

Megan and Virtual Andy. They're both reading it right now and said it was good.

## Who I'd recommend it to ##

New managers, and seasoned ones looking for some reminders, refreshers, practical tips and tricks. Little of the content is specific to engineering, but some of it is specific to product development.

## What I liked ##

Short. Quick read. A lot of content packed in. Long list of Resources at the back. ...more

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Aug 11, 2019 Daniel rated it it was amazing

This book is a must have regardless whether you are a manager, want to become a manager, reporting to a manager, or just in general work with other humans. Lara Hogan puts down so much useful insights and wonderfully helpful guiding questions and suggestions that I don’t think there is anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading it. The common thread throughout the whole book is understanding humans and using that to be effective at work (and to be honest also outside). Be it mentoring, coaching, s ...more

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Sep 03, 2019 marilyn rated it it was amazing

This book is loaded with insights, valuable direction, and powerful food for thought and introspection. I’ve been reading through it slowly, taking time to ponder and process almost every page, and how it relates to my team and environment and challenges. I especially love the ideas she puts forth for finding what various audiences optimize for, so you can suit your message to that; the points of authenticity and how to grow and adapt your values and expectations for yourself as your needs chang ...more

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Feb 23, 2020 Angel Castro rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: junior and senior engineers

Shelves: management, leadership, communication, favorites

This book is amazing. It's not very extensive (just five chapters), but I have a wow feeling since the first page. I already read several management books, and the really positive thing about this one is that it's not using other author's path, but she creates a new one.

The topics covered here have a completely new approach, and it's worthy to discover. Even when she thinks that you could be interested in going deeper in some aspects, she has no problems recommending you to read other more book ...more

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Jul 21, 2019 Neil rated it really liked it

A useful book for someone who's been a manager for a little while, and is looking to up their game. It's only 100 pages, but it packs a lot of value in those pages.
It feels like a book that's part of a series, but it's not the first in the series, and doesn't cover everything.

Minor niggles: would benefit from a clearer "story arc", and it needed a bit more proof-reading. Possibly a US/UK thing: Hogan refers to a manager's direct reports as *teammates*, which kept tripping me up mentally, as for ...more

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