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Good design at its core is about understanding people and their needs in order to create the best possible tools for them. I’m drawn to design for a lot of the same reasons that I’m drawn to management—it feels like a deeply human endeavor to empower others.
But most managers are not CEOs or senior executives. Most lead smaller teams, and sometimes not even directly. Most are not featured in the pages of Forbes or Fortune. But they are managers all the same, and they share a common purpose: helping a group of people achieve a common goal.
Great managers are made, not born. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.
much of the daily work of managers—giving feedback, creating a healthy culture, planning for the future—is universal.
A MANAGER’S JOB IS TO … build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.
The management aspect has nothing to do with employment status and everything to do with the fact that you are no longer trying to get something done by yourself.
This is the crux of management: It is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going it alone. It is the realization that you don’t have to do everything yourself, be the best at everything yourself, or even know how to do everything yourself. Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.
“My framework is quite simple.” Half of what he looked at was my team’s results—did we achieve our aspirations in creating valuable, easy-to-use, and well-crafted design work? The other half was based on the strength and satisfaction of my team—did I do a good job hiring and developing individuals, and was my team happy and working well together? The first criterion looks at our team’s present outcomes; the second criterion asks whether we’re set up for great outcomes in the future.
Through thick or thin, in spite of the hundreds of things calling for your attention every day, never forget what you’re ultimately here to do: help your team achieve great outcomes.
Hackman’s research describes five conditions that increase a team’s odds of success: having a real team (one with clear boundaries and stable membership),3 a compelling direction, an enabling structure, a supportive organizational context, and expert coaching.
As talented as we are, mind reading is not a core human competency.
Purpose, people, process. The why, the who, and the how. A great manager constantly asks herself how she can influence these levers to improve her team’s outcomes.
If I spend all my time personally selling lemonade, then I’m contributing an additive amount to my business, not a multiplicative one. My performance as a manager would be considered poor because I’m actually operating as an individual contributor.
Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can.
I learned then one of my first lessons of management—the best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do.
It’s tricky to balance your individual contributor commitments with management.
Unfortunately, the mistake that I made—and that I see virtually every apprentice manager make—is continuing to do individual contributor work past the point at which it is sustainable.
But time isn’t a substitute for comfort. That new-kid-at-school feeling may linger for months or years longer. New managers often ask me, “How long will it take to feel like I know what I’m doing?” I reply quite honestly, “It took me about three years.”
What gets in the way of good work? There are only two possibilities.1 The first is that people don’t know how to do good work. The second is that they know how, but they aren’t motivated.
“You must trust people,2 or life becomes impossible,” the writer Anton Chekhov once said.
No matter how you slice it, you are your reports’ boss. You have more impact on their day-to-day than they have on yours. This means that the responsibility of building a trusting relationship lies more with you than with them.
strive for all your one-on-one meetings to feel a little awkward.3 Why? Because the most important and meaningful conversations have that characteristic. It isn’t easy to discuss mistakes, confront tensions, or talk about deep fears or secret hopes, but no strong relationship can be built on superficial pleasantries alone.
If your report feels that your support and respect are based on her performance, then it will be hard for her to be honest with you when things are rocky. If, on the other hand, she feels that you care about her no matter what, and nothing can change that—not even failure—then you will get honesty in return.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,
When we are going through tough times, the thing that’s often the most helpful isn’t advice or answers but empathy.
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.4 Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
“There is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: they discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it,”
After I had my first baby, I took three months off from work before returning. I knew the transition back would be hard, but I was not prepared for a “Winter Is Coming” kind of difficult. A few weeks in, I found myself overwhelmed by every little thing. My mind felt like the aftermath of a fourth-grade volcano project, all thick and sticky and slow. When I was at home, I thought about work, and when I was at work, I thought about home. My inability to focus became a source of debilitating stress.
As much as you try to tell yourself that your inner turmoil lives inside your own head, the truth is that most of us aren’t very good actors. People know. They see the faults that you don’t want to admit, like how my anxiety was leading to wishy-washy decisions. But they’re also kinder to you than you might imagine. I remember tearing up reading comments about how I was kicking ass in ways that I wasn’t giving myself credit for.
Being a great manager is a highly personal journey, and if you don’t have a good handle on yourself, you won’t have a good handle on how to best support your team.
When you fully understand yourself, you’ll know where your true north lies.
Every manager feels like an imposter sometimes.
When the sailing gets rocky, the manager is often the first person others turn to, so it’s common to feel an intense pressure to know what to do or say. When you don’t, you naturally think: Am I cut out for this job?
The world’s top leaders come from vastly different molds—some are extroverts (Winston Churchill) and some are introverts (Abraham Lincoln); some are demanding (Margaret Thatcher) and others remind you of a favorite relative (Mother Teresa); some leave a room breathless with their vision (Nelson Mandela) and others prefer to avoid the spotlight (Bill Gates).
The first part in understanding how you lead is to know your strengths—the things you’re talented at and love to do. This is crucial because great management typically comes from playing to your strengths rather than from fixing your weaknesses.
By feeling guilty about the way you feel, you’re creating even more stress for yourself. Recognize that everyone in the world goes through hard times, and give yourself permission to worry. Don’t pay the double tax on your mental load.
It’s tempting to judge success on whether or not the boss likes the work. This is a mistake. Feedback meetings don’t exist to pass or receive judgment but rather to get to the best outcome.
