Thriving in Management
Let’s break down the mental challenges that are unique to management.
I was miserable. And proud of it.
My days were full of back-to-back meetings. I had a saying: “I am a slave to my calendar.” I proudly said this to whoever wanted to talk to me—just throw something on my calendar and I’ll be there.
Unless I was double or tripled booked, in which case I “rescheduled” our session at the last minute.
It wasn’t always like that. As an individual contributor, my schedule was mostly my own.
It doesn’t have to be like that. One piece of advice from my manager opened my eyes and changed how I managed my time.
Welcome to the first post in a series about thriving as a manager. In these posts I will tackle the challenges that are unique to management. Follow along as I tour through these challenges and suggest remedies. At the end of the series, you will get a cohesive framework for having a fulfilling career in management.
What challenges are unique to management?
Here is a non-comprehensive list of challenges that typically come up in my leadership workshops:
Managers have responsibility for the outcomes, but only indirect influence on the work to achieve these outcomes.
Managers need to make hard decisions about other humans. They need to give humans a “score.”
Managers need to have hard conversations. This includes giving people life altering news.
A manager’s behavior influences others, even when the manager doesn’t intend anything. People are always looking at what managers do, don’t do, say, don’t say, and how they behave.
Managers need to stay on top of more concurrent threads. An order of magnitude more. It is hard to stay on top of everything.
Managers need to readjust their definition of success. From creating direct value, it shifts to helping others grow and supporting their successes.
The “wins” are fewer and further between. No more marking tasks as done every few days or weeks.
Managers are lonely. Those management wins? It’s coaching a struggling employee over a period of months until they meet expectations. You just can’t talk about this with others.
Managers are reactive. They go from meeting to meeting and from one crisis to the next.
Again, this is a non-comprehensive list. But it provides a good starting point to start our bottoms-up work to build a comprehensive model for thriving as a manager.
Let’s explore the “Problem Space” for two of these issue in more depth.
Long Dopamine Cycles
Getting things done. It’s a great feeling! There is a reason that putting that “v” or “x” inside a square on your checklist feels so satisfying. Or marking a task’s status to “done” in your task management software. It creates a sense of progress.
What does it take to put that “x” inside the box?
There is a reason that Scrum places such importance on having a “Definition of Done” at the start of the process. Besides the communication and collaboration benefits, it also creates clarity for the individual doing the work.
What management work has a clear “Definition of Done?”
The answer is that there really are such tasks. There is work that managers do, have a clear starting point, a clear ending point, and have well defined success criteria.
Hiring for an open position.
A promotion process for a human on your team.
Approving a roadmap.
As managers, we still get the joy of getting this done.
However, the frequency is an order of magnitude lower.
However, the value creation is indirect. Instead of building something, we create better conditions for others to build. The “Definition of Done” is not tied to tangible outcome.
Managers are Reactive.
Here is an exercise for you. Open your work calendar and go back to the last full work week. Count how many separate meetings you had.
If you have a daily standup, that is a separate meeting for each day.
If you have 1:1s with your directs, each one is a separate meeting.
If you have double or triple booking, just count the meeting that you attended.
For most participants, this number is typically both alarming and completely expected.
How many of these meetings have a clear outcome?
Even if you care deeply about having clear agendas, I bet that many of your meetings still don’t have clear outcomes.
How about your 1:1s? Those sync meetings with your peers and cross functional partners? What about your staff meetings? Or that monthly business review?
And it’s not just meetings.
People come to you with questions. There’s a crisis that needs your attention. Or its the endless mundane stuff. Finance wants you to approve that travel budget for Jane. Legal wants you to sign-off on a document for David’s Green Card application. HR needs you to fill some forms so that Amanda can go on her leave of absence.
How much time do you actually have to, you know, actually do stuff?
My Manager’s Advice
So what is it about the Problem Space that makes so many managers hate (parts of) their job?
As human beings we need those dopamine hits. We pretend to be rational animals, but we are still sacks of hormones. How we feel matters.
As human beings, we crave a sense of progress. We need to look back and see that we are not in the same place. We need to have something to look forward to.
As human beings, we like to have agency, or a sense of control, over our lives.
My manager gave me a piece of advice that opened my eyes and changed how I managed my time. It changed how I managed myself.
My manager said:
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