The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

by Camille Fournier

fun stuff is the work that uses most of your brain, and it’s not usually something you can do for hours and hours, day after day. So be impatient to figure out the nut of what’s important. As a leader, any time you see something being done that feels inefficient, question it: Why does this feel inefficient to me? What is the value in the thing we are doing? Can we deliver that value faster? Can we strip down this project into something simpler and get it done more quickly? The problem with this line of questioning is that often when managers ask whether something can be done faster, what they explicitly or implicitly want to know is whether the team can work harder or longer hours to deliver it in fewer days. This is why I encourage you to develop and show the value of laziness. Because “faster” is not about “the same number of hours but fewer total days.” “Faster” is about “the same value to the company in less total time.” If the team works 60 hours in a week to deliver something that otherwise would’ve taken a week and a half, they haven’t worked faster, they’ve just given the company more of their free time. This is where going home comes in. Go home! And stop emailing people at all hours of the night and all hours of the weekend! Forcing yourself to disengage is essential for your mental health, believe me. Burnout is a real problem in the American workforce these days, and almost everyone I know who has worked sustained excess hours has experienced it to some degree....