My Favourite Management Reading From November

A collection of the articles I read in November that were most impactful on me – that I am still thinking about!

Defeat micromanagement by trusting more and controlling less

By @skamille

Whenever you level up as a manager, it’s easy to go back to what you are good at – but you have to spend more time on what you aren’t good at yet. Focus on outcomes not on the process.

A Manager’s FAQ

So much good stuff in this list of lessons about management, but is my favourite “If your employees do not ask you for advice, ask yourself why.” This is such a simple thing to measure, but it indicates so much. Do people trust you? Are they willing to be vulnerable with you?

Leading By Editing, Isn’t (and Why)

By @stevesi

I am going to be thinking about this for a while. It’s easier to critique (edit) things that to set up clear expectations, but it doesn’t make people more capable – and they have more information about the details than you do.

Generosity as Doing, Not Thinking

By @johnmaeda

Profound about how being generous creates generosity, and the idea that generosity is something you *do*, not think about – because otherwise it’s not generosity at all. I think this has a lot to teach us about the idea of servant leadership. Servant leadership is actually about generosity – about giving people space to focus, because you are taking care of distractions. One way that servant leadership becomes toxic, is because it’s become a demand for appreciation, like, “notice how much I’m doing for you” – which isn’t generous at all.

How I share information with my team

By @SonOfGarr

I really like this idea of doing a weekly review to share what has been going on with the team and I’ve been trying it out (my team also seem to like the idea). It’s easy as a manager to spend your time on activities and people are only vaguely aware – or unaware – of what you are doing as much of it doesn’t directly impact them.

Publish vs. Pull Managers

By @wiredferret

How do you communicate? How does this affect people you communicate with? I admit, I fall on the publish side of things – perhaps that’s why the weekly review appeals to me. I also think that in times of stress it’s really easy for people to stop talking to one another, and building habits around that when things are not (as) stressful helps.

My Writing on Management

The Secret to Good One-On-One Meetings: Show Up and Listen

I firmly believe that 1:1s are the most important activity as a manager, but they are definitely scary! I wrote up a bit about how I approach them, and my magical management trick of asking questions and listening to the answers.

Cate’s Career Coaching Process (aka a process for finding your next job)

I wrote up my Career Coaching exercise that I go through with people looking for their next thing.

The Daily 123

Replacing standup with text for remote teams.