Questions from People I’ve Mentored

Over the last year, I’ve mentored a few managers, and I’ve had to answer some interesting questions around management. Here they are:

Q: There is a person on my team who is far better than me on every dimension. What value can I possibly add for that person?

Your job is to make that person even better than they would be without you in the picture. This is something they cannot do on their own.

The job of a manager is that of a coach. On sports teams, the player’s job function is to play, while the coach’s job function is to make the players and the team better. No matter how good the player, they cannot perform the coach’s function – it’s a different role. Even the best player needs a mirror, a coach to make them better. That is the manager’s role.

Note that there are plenty of successful sports coaches who coach players that are better than they ever were (as a player).

 

Q: A person on my team asked me to tell them whether they are on track for a promotion at the end of the half. I don’t want to give any commitments, what should I say?

Separate the promotion into two parts. The first is that the promotion candidate must exhibit all the necessary behaviors at the next level. Once they are exhibiting all the behaviors, those behaviors must also be channeled into appropriate projects that demonstrate those behaviors. Once those behaviors have been demonstrated in a way that is provable (in projects), we can defend the promotion to the promotion committee (typically a set of managers).

I ask managers to first focus on ensuring the right behaviors for the next level. This is a conversation that should happen regularly (i.e., it is the manager’s duty to be able to assess and give feedback on whether the right behaviors are there – at any given point). In parallel, there should be a transparent partnership in proving and exhibiting those behaviors through projects.

In my experience, providing this framework to people on the team puts them in control and gives them transparency into the process.

As to what to say when someone asks whether they are on track for a promotion or not, I reply with: “The actual promotion depends on how well the next-level behaviors are demonstrated in your projects. I am willing to clearly articulate the bar for success and promotion. And I am always willing to have a chat on where you stand on the behaviors for the next level.”

 

Q: I’ve been a manager for six months and am not enjoying it. I feel terribly alone and isolated. Should I leave management?

Management can be an isolating job. You are pulled in multiple different directions, you are fighting multiple fires during the day, and trying to align misaligned stakeholders. You can be left wondering who is on your side?

One recommendation I always give is to find community in peer managers. Your peer group is very, very important. If you don’t get energy from the other peer managers in your organization, it is perhaps time to find another (management) role.

But don’t give up on management just yet.

 

Q: I don’t connect with my manager. My manager’s OK but I am neutral about them. What should I do?

One observation I’ve had from being in different roles is that each manager’s world is very different and until you experience it, you won’t really understand it. You should try to understand your manager’s world. To do that, I recommend you find a common initiative or effort to collaborate on. At minimum this effort should be something that is important to your manager, but ideally it’s something that’s important to your work too. It will give you a window into your manager’s world, your manager’s working style, and also let your manager understand your working style more.

The goal should be to find something common that binds you. I have almost always been able to find some connection with my manager.

 

Q: I am a manager of managers. My direct reports have their team meetings. My manager also have a meeting of all the managers in his org. Do I really need to have a meeting of all my reports? Feels redundant.

IMO, middle managers have a lot of conflicting forces they are subject to. Aligning managers to move in the same direction can be particularly powerful and most organizations I know spend too little time on it. So, think hard if there is context or information your direct reports are not receiving, or if there is a gap that you can fill by having a team meeting at your level. I would be surprised if there is no need.

Even if there is no tactical need for a meeting, a periodic meeting can serve as place for bonding and for feeling like they are part of a unit. I like to run through these group exercises in my leads meeting to understand people better, and to bring clarity to their own thinking.

 

Q: My manager has offered me more headcount, but I am not sure how to utilize it. Should I refuse the headcount?

Before you refuse headcount, go through the exercise of how you could utilize that headcount. There is always work to do – maybe you can pull more future-looking work in. Maybe you can expand your team’s charter to adjacent areas that are not being worked on.

Consider that a manager’s job is to leverage people capacity to generate value for the business – and if you’re refusing headcount, you’re indicating your inability to do so.

On the other hand, there is the risk that head-count gets used for something that was not optimal in a global sense.

Therefore, the best way is for you to list out how you could use additional head-count to add business value, and then offer those proposals to your manager – who should make the determination whether that is the best use of additional head-count.

 

Q: I’m up to 14 direct reports, and it’s getting hard to scale. What should I do?

The straightforward answer is that it is time to get another manager. But hiring or growing managers takes time, so I would recommend a short-term and long-term strategy:

Long-term Strategy: Find a manager or grow one from within. It can be tempting to grow one from within (because you know the people better) but make sure the motivations match the needs of the role.

Short-term strategy  would be to find people on your existing team that can fill some of the functions you perform, take on 1:1s with engineers on the team and perhaps reduce the frequency of your own 1:1s with those engineers.

Key here is to find people for whom this would be a growth opportunity. For engineering, I maintain this framework on which I expect line-managers to add value to engineers – I ask senior members of my team if they would be willing to pick up some of the dimensions on this list. This can also be a good stepping stone to test if someone is a good candidate for management. Beginning mentors begin with the first three dimensions, eventually progressing to all six over time.

 

Q: I am looking to hire another manager. How should I go about it?

If you’re looking to hire another manager, first map out how your org structure will look like when that manager arrives. Write out a rough mission and vision for that team, who will report up to that manager, and also plan out a few scenarios around growth of that manager (how will that manager’s scope and charter look as they grow in their role, how will you challenge them?).

This should give you a good idea of the skill set you need for that manager (do you need a strong collaborator? Are there existing TLs on the team or does the manager need to be technical?). Then you’re ready to hire for that role.

In parallel, there may be a conversation to be had with people on this team that a new manager is coming. In my experience, folks often start these conversations too late. It takes time for ICs to acclimatize to the idea of a new manager, especially if they have been reporting to you for a while. If possible, involve ICs in hiring the new manager.