!!How to be a good manager: up and dowm

2020-03-15

manage up

notes on lessons

  • 摸索他们的喜欢与性情，档面对客户，对手，主管

    • 揣摩上司心理并实时满足并不是拍马屁，而是顺畅你的工作

  • 自信与主动

    • “别人比我们所以为的 更喜欢我们”
    • 你问不问是你的事，别人答不答应是别人的事

  • 创造价值，付出价值

    • 用同理心去揣摩对方的需求和担心，以及你能为对方提供什么价值
    • 不一定是物质价值，也可以是情感价值

  • 注意边界感

    • 一些无足轻重的小事自己解决就好，关键的人脉要用来解决最关键的问题

The Making of a Manager

  • ch8 - Making things happen

    • Start with a concrete vision
      • TODO

  • ch1

    • A manager is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together

      • Management is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going it alone

      • help your team achieve great outcomes

        • half is your team's results
        • the other half is based on the strength - hiring and developing - and satisfaction - happy and working well together - of my team

    • Every-day duties - how much of a multiplier effect he has on her team

      • Your role as a manager 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

      • purpose - why do you choose to do this thing

        • Getting everyone to understand and believe in your team's purpose
          • whether it's as specific as 'make every customer who calls feel cared for' or as broad as 'bring the world closer together'
        • ensure that your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it.

      • people

        • Do they have the right skills? Are they motivated to do great work?

        • develop trusting relationships with them, understand their strengths and weakness (as well as your own), make good decisions about who should do what (hiring and firing), and coach individuals to do their best

      • process - how your team works together

        • establish common values within our team for how we make decisions and respond to problems

    • What motive you to be a manager

      • management is all about people

      • as a manager, you are judged on your team's outcomes, so your job is to do whatever most helps them succeed

        • priority is making their team successful, and willing to adapt to become the leaders that their organizations need
      • like talking with people
        • your responsibility is ensuring that the individuals you support are able to thrive
        • listening to and talking with them are a core part of the job
      • remain steady and provide care and support through dips of life

  • ch2

    • The apprentice
      • playing the role of coach
        • understanding your peers' career goals, what kind of projects are well suited to their strengths and interests, what they need help with, and how they are doing relative to expectations
        • support and help your people reach their goals - what they're doing well and where they might stretch
      • having hard conversations

  • ch3

    • Everything always goes back to people

    • Build trust - you truly care about them

      • whether bring their biggest challenges - mistakes, challenges, and fears - to your attention
      • whether give each other critical feedback and it isn't taken personally
      • whether gladly work for you again

    • managing is caring

      • do your best to help your report be successful and fulfilled in her work
        • take the time to learn what she cares about
        • understand that we are not separate people at work and at home
      • it must be unconditional because it's about the person as a whole rather than what she does for u

    • Apprentice

      • Invest time to help your report

        • focus on your report and what would help him be more successful, not on you and what you need
          • what motivates him, what his long-term career aspirations are, how he's generally feeling about his work
        • your job is to be a multiplier for your people
          • if you can remove a barrier, provide a valuable new perspective, or increase their confidence,then you're enabling them to be more successful

      • your job as a manager to empower your report to find the answer herself

        • She has more context than you on the problems she's dealing with; Let her lead the 1:1 while you listen and probe
        • Identify - focus on what really matters for your report and what topics
          • what's top of mind for you right now?
          • what priorities are U thinking about this week?
          • what's the best use of our time today?
        • Understand - get at the root of the problem and what can be done about it
          • what does your ideal outcome look like?
          • what's hard for U in getting to that outcome?
          • what do U really care about?
          • what's the worst-case scenario you're worried about?
        • support -
          • how can I help U?
          • what was the most useful part of our conversation today?

      • Help people play to their strengths

        • Don't let the worst performers dominate your time

      • shouldn't tolerate on your team

        • regularly put others down
          • make other people feel worse about themselves or who specifically targets people less powerful than him or her
        • find someone who are just as talented and humble and kind

    • The new boss

      • You're coming in fresh, and you have a chance to form new ties and reset your identity

        • understand what your reports "dream manager" looks like
          • "what are the ways in which you'd like to be supported?"
          • "which kind of feedback is most useful for you?"
          • "What did you and your past discuss that was most helpful to you?"
          • "what would that look like if you and I had an amazing relationship?"

        • calibrate your expectations around 'what's normal'

          • listen, ask questions, and learn based on specific scenarios
          • "how do U determine which things to prioritize?"
          • "What does it mean to do a great job versus an average or poor job? can U give me some examples?"
          • "I noticed that Z happened the other day ... Is that normal or should I be concerned?"

        • build trust - address the elephant in the room

          • "Since I'm new, you might not feel comfortable sharing everything with me right away. I hope to earn your trust over time. I'll start by sharing more about myself, including my biggest failure ever ..."

        • understand your own manager expectations

          • be honest with your own manager about what's working for U and what isn't

  • ch4 - the art of feedback

    • set clear expectations at the beginning
    • give task-specific feedback as frequently as you can
    • share behavioral feedback thoughtfully and regularly
      • be considered and supported with specific examples to explain why you feel that way

  • ch5

    • TODO

Embrace managing up

  • if you don't manage up, you'll waste time on

    • needless back-and-forth
    • avoidable misunderstandings

    • confusion on how you're adding value

    • your boss will believe you're

      • add a ton of value
      • worth investing in
      • worth advocating for
      • it's a win-win

    • If I manage up, I'll take control & futher my career

  • how to manage up

    • show your thought process

      • "I recommend this because X. My criteria/assumptions were A and B. The potential trade-off is Y, but seems manageable because Z. I vetted a range of options [options] and found [my recommendation] best fits our needs. "

    • offer solutions and flag issues

      • "this is a problem. I suggest doing X."
      • "This is a problem. I'm not sure how to solve, but wanted to flag it. my hunch is to monitor for now because X, but let me know if we should brainstorm what to do"

    • Turn complaints into opportunities

      • "This process isn't ideal because X. I'd like to update to Y process instead, which should be cheaper/faster/easier. Do you agree if I make the change this week?"

    • use information hieratchy

      • ""

    • keep your boss in the loop

    • control your own actions

      • "I wonder what's making them feel the need to micromanage? I'll review how I'm keeping them informed & what success looks like so I can show i'm handling it"

    • proactively assert what to do

      • "I recommend X. Here's rationale, data, or examples of why this will work. The risk is Y but we can address by Z. If you agree, I'll start by doing ... "

    • Don't only ask questions. share your point of view too

      • "why? My pov is [insight]. I'm not 100% sure yet. Curious how ya'll are thinking about it."

  • reference

treat your manager as a coach, not as a judge

  • 主动向老板寻求反馈

    • 主动问问上司，你的哪些工作令他们印象深刻，还有哪些方面需要改进

  • 定期要求与之会面，定期了解他对你的看法

  • 把重点放在应该完成哪些目标上， 更好地了解管理层对自己的期望，不仅涉及日常工作，还包括长期思维

  • 自己的事情主动跟进，有什么问题就跟老板说，讨论， 如果不是自己管辖范围内的事情，别人开心就好 这里最重要的是你对你提出的问题已经找到合适的解决方案。

  • It is our job to do the hard and discern the impossible. it then becomes your job to help the entreprenuer find a reasonable solution which is merely hard and gets most of what they wanted. A solution is merely hard when it can be confidently scheduled and the risks are understood.

how to mange down

  • 管理 - 激励员工

    • 理解员工

      • 以员工的诉求为核心
      • 在员工内心深处，不仅关心赚钱谋生，还更希望被人尊重，能体现自己的价值，能实在地体验完成工作后的卓越感
      • 每一位员工都有理想追求，都想实现自我价值，并在一些领域有所建树

    • 激励的终点，是让员工自我驱动

      • 用激励取代控制，让员工实现自我驱动

        • 很强的控制欲
        • 授权，支持，帮助

      • 激励 是发自内心的鼓舞，认可员工价值

    • 情境管理 而非控制

      • 在员工日常决策中，領導不會替你做决定，他们会利用自身信息与经验，帮你设定场景
      • 只要按场景假设，感觉自己的决定符合公司利益，就可以放手去干，不用非要按领导意思来

  • 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 outcomes as you can.

Giving Feedback - in a way that was helpful and direct, but also kind and thoughtful

  • Ask first

    • so that the person can be mentally prepared for it ahead of time
    • "Would you like to hear a suggestion?"

    • "Do u mind if I give you feedback?"

    • or start off by asking them "How do u think it went? what do u think was good, what could we improve"

  • compliment + criticism + compliment

    • "The work you ... good; " + "However, ..., it might be better"

  • be timely

    • feedback is more effective when it is at the time of the event
    • If too much time has elasped, use judgement

  • Make it about the task, not the person

    • like "Adding headers to the email would make it easier to read"

  • Give suggestions on how to improve

    • tell them how - give them examples and ideas on how to make something better
    • more actionable

  • Provide a personal example

    • easier to receive is to make the recipient feel like they are not the only one making the mistake
    • "I learned this the hard way" or "I used to do the same thing"

  • provide people the "why" behind your suggestions

  • Allow the person to defend/vent/explain

    • the receiving party may react by defending or justifying their approach
    • if that, just listen and allow them to say their piece
    • more ofthen than not they will still make the changes, but knowing that you heard their side of things will make them feel better

  • 把事情的前因后果说清楚， 同时明确告知需要执行的事项

  • reference

Learning to coach and delegate

  • you are not just be the person who is the expert, you will be someone who makes everyone better

The art of delegating

  • change your mindset

    • have to focus on growth and education, not necessarily efficiency.

  • Adopt a leader:leader model instead of a leader:follower

    • Being a good leaders means allowing the people around you to be the experts in their domains
    • transform my team to stop asking me questions, and instead make recommendations and ask for permission
    • encourage your teammates to take more ownership and lead their own areas
    • like "What do you think I would say"

  • Don't look for perfection

    • open to the differences and you accept that other people may not do things the same way you would
    • If worried about quality, define your quality up front when you assign the task

  • Setup some guard rails

    • try to identify what information you need to feel good about the progress, and then the best way to get the information without being overbearing or micromanaging the details
      • like setup daily status meetings to go over progress, bi-weekly code reviews to go over implementation, or weekly one-on-ones with other people on the project

  • Help them come up with a plan

    • have them draft up a plan and bring it back to you
    • Go over their approach together, give them feedback (like asking good questions)
    • When you can draft the idea together, you will feel more confident in their approach and they will be able to leverage your expertise and direction

  • Lead them to figure it out

    • lead them down your steps or your thought process on how you would solve the problem, not just give them the solution
    • "what have you tried so far?"
    • "What have you considered trying"
    • "What did you research? Did you find anything?"
    • "And then finally, have you tried looking up ..."" (you would look for to find the answer)

  • start small

    • start with something that is easy to do
    • find things that maybe aren't urgent but are small, iterative improvements that would be easy introduction into your realm of responsibility

  • The Art of Delegating

tips

  • 如果对方善良

    • 可以讲自己有不对的地方
    • 指出对方的问题

  • 如果对方无赖

    • 千万不要说自己有做的不对的地方

you own your career

your career is defined by your skills and how your've used them

Peers

reference

  • [The Making of a Manager]