I read a lot of stuff on the internet, and a lot of that is about being a better manager. It’s rare to find something that is: Extremely concrete and actionable. At the exact time you need it. But in November, I did. I found this post from @SonOfGarr about sharing information with his team. […]
This is the fifth and final part of the new manager series. Yes, there’s plenty more to figure out, but the idea is that with some sense of these things you will have the basics under control, and then you can figure out what your team needs from you and go from there. The fifth […]
There are two things we should talk about before talking about feedback. First is the idea that feedback is just when you tell someone they screwed up in some way or need to do better. This makes us dread giving feedback (well, for those of us who aren’t sociopaths who enjoy tearing people down), and it […]
Now you’re a manager, communication (always important) has become even more import, and your words carry more weight. How do you communicate… one on one? … to the team? … about the team? One on One In a relationship with a power dynamic, the burden of a good relationship is on the person with the […]
Welcome to being a manager! Did you think it was a promotion? It’s going to be hard, lonely, and emotionally exhausting for a while. Why? Because you have to figure out your social support. As an IC (Individual Contributor), you had teammates, and these were your peers. As a manager, you now have a new […]
We normally talk about the challenge of moving to a manager’s schedule in terms of our desire to write code. But writing code is just part of it. As an IC, you probably had some kind of schedule that worked well for you. When we move to being managers, it’s tempting to try and slot “management […]
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 […]
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that 1:1s are one of the most important activities of being a manager. And yet we all know of managers who don’t do them, or do them so badly that they can hardly be called 1:1s at all. I’ve heard about managers who show up to the 1:1 and talk […]
For 8 months, from the start of December to the start of August, I was a manager. This was in many ways incredibly rewarding – now that I’m no longer a manager my favourite thing is being friends with the people who used to report to me. But it was also at times crushingly lonely. […]
One of the things that I write about in my lessons learned from 6 months of managing blogpost was about my realisation that intentions do actually matter. “I’ve long found discussion of “intentions” completely worthless. I just don’t want to hear about it. Especially in the context that it invariably is – men who tell […]