Book Summary — For New Managers

Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads

You can find all my book summaries — here.

1 paragraph summary:

10 independent business essays of guidance how to be a manager. There are nuggets in each one, but too long for what it is. My key takeaways was a nice visual parallel of problems to “How has the Monkey?” and the analogy of the shift from Bricklayer to Architect. There are a couple more gems in there and it has a good cross-section at looking at managers from different angles.

Executives are shaped irrevocably by their first management positions.

Leading a Team you inherit

Here’s a three-step model that works.

First, assess the people you’ve got and the dynamics at play.
Second, reshape the team’s membership, sense of purpose and direction, operating model, and behaviours according to the business challenges you face.
Third, accelerate the team’s development by scoring some early wins.

Your assessment will be faster and more accurate if you explicitly state your criteria. What qualities should people have in order to tackle the particular challenges your team faces? How important are diverse or complementary skills in the group?

Some qualities worth considering — competence, trustworthiness, energy, people skills, focus and judgement.

Saving Your Rookie Managers from Themselves

1. Delegating

How to help:

• Emphasise open communication. Discourage covering up problems.
• Intro to other managers.
• Have them prepare agendas for meetings — helps organise thoughts.

2. Projecting Confidence

How to help:

• Encourage constant awareness of image of your rookie
• Let express feelings behind closed doors
• Ensure they can own your message not you

3. Focusing on the big picture

How to help:

• Make them focus on big picture and how it fits in
• Request written plans to document strategy + actions

4. Give constructive feedback

How to help:

• Explain feedback helps strengthen
• Roleplay giving feedback about behaviours not personality

Managing a High-Intensity Workplace

3 typical strategies

1. Accepting — giving in and conforming
2. Passing — devote time outside but in the company radar
3. Revealing — openly sharing and asking for restructure

Leaders can avoid the fragility that results from blind acceptance of ideal-worker normas by deliberately cultivating their own non-work identities: a civic self, an athletic self, a family-oriented self.

Providing complete freedom can heighten employees’ fears that their choices will signal a lack of commitment. Without clear direction, many employees simply default to the ideal-worker expectation, suppressing the need to live more-balanced lives. Making a firm commitment to avoid excessive workloads and extreme and unpredictable hours, rather than simply giving people the option to request downtime, will help them engage with other parts of their selves.

Harnessing the Science of Persuasion

1. Principle of liking — people like those who like them
2. Reciprocity — people repay in kind
3. Social proof — people follow the lead of similar others
4. Consistency — people fulfil written, public and voluntary commitments
5. Authority — people defer to experts
6. Scarcity — people value what’s scarce

What Makes a Leader?

1. Self-awareness — knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drivers, values and impact on others
2. Self-regulation — controlling and redirecting disruptive impulses and mooods
3. Motivation — relishing achievement for its own sake
4. Empathy — understanding other people’s emotional makeup
5. Social skills — building rapport with others to move them in the desired direction

The Authenticity Paradox

Chameleon — trying on different styles like new clothes is good to keep trying but can be perceived as a lack of a moral center

True-to-selfer — may stick too long with comfortable behaviour that prevents them from meeting requirements

Most learning necessarily involves some form of imitation — and the understanding that nothing is “original”. An important part of growing as a leader is viewing authenticity not as an intrinsic state but as the ability to take elements you have learned from others’ styles and behaviours and make them your own.

Setting goals for learning (not just performance) helps us experiment with our identities without feeling like impostors, because we don’t expect to get everything right from the start.

Performance goals motivate us to show others that we possess valued attributes, such as intelligence and social skills, and to prove to ourselves that we have them. By contrast, learning goals motivate us to develop valued attributes.

Managing Your Boss

Recognising their mutual dependence, effective managers seek out information about the boss’ concerns and are sensitive to his work style.

• compatible work styles — listeners vs readers
• mutual expectation — don’t assume you know what your boss wants
• information flow — we typically underestimate what the boss needs to know and what they do know
• dependability and honesty — promises, truth and transparency
• good use of time and resources — don’t waste your boss’ time with trivial isssues

How Leaders Create and Use Networks

What separates successful leaders from the rest of the pack?

Networking: creating a tissue of personal contacts to provide the support, feedback, and resources needed to get things done.

• Operational Network — getting work done efficiently, identify individuals who can block or support a project
• Personal Network — exchange outside info and coaching and mentoring, participate in professional associations, alumni groups, clubs, personal-interest communities
• Strategic Network — figure out future priorities and challenges, get stakeholder support, can help you figure out how you fit into the larger picture

Management Time: Who’s got the Monkey?

Three types of time:

1. Boss imposed time — accomplish what boss requires
2. System imposed time — request from peers for active support
3. Self imposed time — you decide yourself

Monkey = The Problem

Who has the Monkey?

When you encourage employees to handle their own monkeys, they acquire new skills — and you liberate time to do your own job.

How Managers become Leaders

7 shifts you need to do to become a leader:

1. Specialist to Generalist — understand mental models, tools, key business functions
2. Analyst to Integrator — integrate collective knowledge of cruss-functional teams
3. Tactician to Strategist — shift between detail to larger picture, anticipate reactions of key stakeholders
4. Bricklayer to Architect — how to analyst and design org systems so that strategy, structure, operating models, and skill bases fit together effectively and efficiently
5. Problem Solver to Agenda Setter — define the problems
6. Warrior to Diplomat — proactively shape the environment
7. Supporting Cast Member to Lead Role — right behaviour as a role model and learn to communicate with and inspire large groups

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Batko OS