Management in ten tweets

[Note: I tweeted all of this yesterday, and got some requests to have it all in blog post form. I’ve linked each point to the original tweet so you can see some of the follow-up discussions.]

I get a lot of requests for management advice and I enjoy talking about good management. Management is hard. Doing it well matters.

I looked back over the management questions I get the most often; here are the most common pieces of advice I give out, in ten tweets.

1. Just tell them already. One of the best things you can do as a manager is be completely blunt about what you see. Tell them now. [#]
2. Trust is the currency of good management. You cannot be a great manager if the people with whom you work do not trust you. [#]
3. Regular one-on-ones are like oil changes; if you skip them, plan to get stranded on the side of the highway at the worst possible time. [#]
4. You have to be your team’s best ally and biggest challenger. You can’t be a great leader by care-taking alone. Push for their best work. [#]
5. Repetition feels silly but works wonders. Start each conversation repeating the overall goal and connecting it to the discussion. [#]
6. “My team wants to work on ___ because it is more fun for them, is that okay?” No. Never. Quoting @jasonk: “Winning is fun.” Go win. [#]
7. Clarify the problems your team needs to tackle. Stay all the way away from specifying the solutions. That’s their job, not yours. [#]
8. You can’t know how the company looks from any other seat than your own. Practice with people in other seats to communicate and manage well. [#]
9. We talk a lot about diversity and inclusion. Here’s my unpopular opinion: you, as a manager, have to force it to happen, or it won’t ever. [#]
10. Usually when people ask, “Should I fire this person?” the answer is yes. But usually they do it dramatically more brutally than needed. [#]

I didn’t say this on Twitter, but in case it isn’t obvious: if I am any good at any of the above, it is only from having done each of these badly in the past. Learn from your mistakes and make it easy to carry the lessons forward for yourself.