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I run a small online blog/magazine/thing. I have managed dozens of writers over the years, and we are just starting to hire some outsourced help for various non-writing tasks. I think I am a pretty terrible manager, although I am not sure why. Even if I am not terrible, I don't have much confidence in my managerial abilities. So tell me, how to I learn to be a good manager — particularly one with high expectations in a small online business where most communications happen over email or chat?
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Jun 26, 2014 17:22
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Communicate your expectations and needs clearly up front. Be civil. Do not expect people to be able to read your mind.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:01
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I know you said you don't know why, but you should figure out why you think you're terrible at it. The best you'll get otherwise is some general advice. One of the hardest parts of managing people is understanding not only the business and what you need to get accomplished, but the people you manage and yourself. If you can't do that, you're going to be flailing.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:27
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samglover posted:I run a small online blog/magazine/thing. I have managed dozens of writers over the years, and we are just starting to hire some outsourced help for various non-writing tasks. I think I am a pretty terrible manager, although I am not sure why. Even if I am not terrible, I don't have much confidence in my managerial abilities. - Set clear goals, ask for questions on the goals - Don't change your mind all the time - Keep your end of the deal - Praise work well done, steer work that needs improvement - Be friendly and respectful in all communications - Do not fall in the friends-trap, they are your employees and not your buddies - Understand that they have a personal life next to their career but keep the above point in mind Basically, if you are not a terrible human being you are already ahead of the curve. Oh, if you are not confident you can try every day to adhere to the above points you have no business in running a business. Hell, almost all business people I know fake it and try again everyday. While doubt keeps you sane, do not display it overly.
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Jul 2, 2014 13:52
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I'm actually kind of interested in this topic as well, just got an opportunity to take a management position at my current job which will be my first time with real reports or anything like that. Are there any decent 'how to not be awful' books for first time managers or is it all bullshit?
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Jul 4, 2014 00:08
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I'm in middle management and would also like to know if there's any books that would catch me up on what I missed out on by not getting a business degree. And yeah the "don't be friends" thing is crucial. If you're friends with a subordinate, but then they gently caress up and you have to reprimand them, all hell breaks loose. EugeneJ fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 00:20
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Management is generally practiced poorly, by folks with no training emulating other folks with no training or just what they see on TV, so don't feel too bad OP. If you're just getting started as a manager, the Manger Tools podcast is a great jumping off point. The two guys that run it break down a few decades worth of experience into meal-sized portions. Their model is essentially giving a poo poo about your people, and building strong professional relationships so they give a poo poo about their jobs and you. Check out their basics series here. You may have to register, but their content is all free.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:23
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Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was mandatory for managers and client-facing employees at my company, it's not strictly a "here's how to be a manager" book but has a lot of insight on the topic.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:42
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Knightmare posted:Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was mandatory for managers and client-facing employees at my company, it's not strictly a "here's how to be a manager" book but has a lot of insight on the topic.
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Jul 8, 2014 21:59
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1) Always treat your employees as if they are on your level, and you are not above them. Your job is to set expectations, monitor that they're met and remove obstacles. None of these things require being "above" someone. 2) Learn everyone's name, and learn the names of people associated with them. "hows your husband been lately" isn't as effective as "Hey how's Jerry been lately" 3) NEVER DISCIPLINE IN PUBLIC. Never criticize a person's work in front of others, never reprimand someone in front of others. That should always be behind closed doors. Always. NO matter what. I'd say those are the most important.
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Jul 8, 2014 22:14
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Communication, communication, communication. Disciplinary actions are to be taken against the act not the employee. Always take the time to make your team feel like they are needed. Also, don't be a manager, be a leader.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:06
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Do nothing but pretend to be incredibly busy. Hire a friend as an "assistant" and point the finger at him/her whenever your superiors question your lack of work. On second thoughts, hire two and alternate the fingerpointing. EDIT: Never, ever take any responsibility if something goes wrong. If you can't blameshift, you aren't trying hard enough. Mr. Welfare fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 07:56
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Get to know your employees well enough to trust them. Then trust them.
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Jul 12, 2014 22:40
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Veskit posted:1) Always treat your employees as if they are on your level, and you are not above them. Your job is to set expectations, monitor that they're met and remove obstacles. None of these things require being "above" someone. Number 1 is 100% true, if you can manage that you're doing better than most.
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Jul 13, 2014 03:28
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Veskit posted:3) NEVER DISCIPLINE IN PUBLIC. Never criticize a person's work in front of others, never reprimand someone in front of others. That should always be behind closed doors. Always. NO matter what. This is a big one where a lot of my bosses have gone wrong. All you're going to accomplish is embarrass one employee, make the rest feel awkward, feed the office rumour mill and galvanize everyone against you. While poo poo like that is pretty common in my industry (cooking), it doesn't make it right. I'm in a position now where I'm managing employees that I've worked beside, some of whom have seniority over me. While I got to where I am now by working my rear end off, it's still hard for me not to fall into the trap of being everyone's buddy all the time. I've caught myself asking for things to be done if it's not too much trouble where I should be telling people get poo poo done no matter what. I've been trying to lead by example, but I find myself taking on too much and working 70 hour weeks. It doesn't help that I've been critically understaffed for awhile. Anyway, I don't mean to hijack the thread so I'll just tell the OP that if you've got experience managing writers but don't understand what everyone else does then learn about everything else that it takes to run your business. If you can understand what your employees need to do and something about the challenges they're facing then you're better equipped to help them.
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Jul 13, 2014 03:58
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Veskit posted:3) NEVER DISCIPLINE IN PUBLIC. Never criticize a person's work in front of others, never reprimand someone in front of others. That should always be behind closed doors. Always. NO matter what. As someone whos current boss does this all the time, if you can do this your a half way there good manager. Although I'm not a manager the other two things i would want to see in a bossman/bosswoman would be: 1) You don't always have to be right! 2) Don't lie to your workers, they will find out and start assuming your always lying.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:53
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1) Don't discipline in public. I hope every single reply in this thread says this. 2) There is no"management style" that will work for every employee. Ken might need to be hand held the entire way, but Sally might just need good instructions up front, while Tina has been doing her job for 40 years and knows what needs to be done before you do. Your job as manager is to learn your employees, learn your company, and put both together in the best way possible. 3) Always give your team full credit for what they've done, in public and in private. Everyone has had a boss or coworker that claims credit for everything, and everyone hates that person. Going out of your way to highlight the work of others is a great way to earn respect. 4) Admit when you were wrong and someone else was right. Don't dwell on it, but a simple "Yeah I was wrong, Ken's idea was better" will do wonders to winning the respect of your team and to showing that you're a reasonable person. 5) Make sure your team knows they can always come to you with questions or mistakes, and always be positive and understanding when they do. A mistake is so much easier to fix when it happens, and the last thing you need is people trying to hide mistakes they've made.
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Jul 14, 2014 17:14
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Here are a couple points that, like many of the above ones, should really be more obvious than they apparently are:
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Jul 16, 2014 00:37
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Another poster mentioned it earlier, but I'd like to detail it a little. Every employee is going to respond differently to your particular personality and you'll have to adjust how you deal with different employees on the fly. It is very important that you focus on being consistent and regular with those who work for you. People like to know what they can expect from you, they like you to be predictable. Not saying your decisions need to be predictable but how you respond to people and situations needs to be fairly predictable. Keep in mind however, the vast majority of my management experience was in the military so I might not actually know anything.
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Jul 16, 2014 00:43
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Suicide.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:54
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Read askamanager.org.
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Jul 16, 2014 04:20
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A bunch of replies in this thread are from people who have never managed anyone, but think that they know what makes a good manager. They are wrong, but your employees will have similar delusions. Everyone thinks they can do their boss's job, but most can't. 90% of being a good manager is picking the right employees. If you get handed a team without the ability to hire/fire, you're pretty much hosed because they all know that you can't touch them. Firing one gently caress-up motivates the gently caress out of everyone else. But the key moment is hiring. Learn how to hire good people and remove all obstacles that impede their ability to do their job. That's pretty much management in a nutshell.
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Jul 16, 2014 04:28
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Dik Hz posted:Learn how to hire good people and remove all obstacles that impede their ability to do their job. That's pretty much management in a nutshell. Tell us how to hire good people. What do we need to look out for?
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Jul 16, 2014 07:04
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Keetron posted:Tell us how to hire good people. What do we need to look out for? I wish I knew. I've lucked into a few good hires, but also shot myself in the foot a couple times.
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Jul 17, 2014 03:30
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If there was a secret algorithm to hiring the best candidates it'd be guarded like the coke recipe.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:10
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By way of background:samglover posted:I run a small online blog/magazine/thing. I have managed dozens of writers over the years, and we are just starting to hire some outsourced help for various non-writing tasks. One problem I think I'm having is that when we bring on an assistant, he or she will be the first person to do the job, and I need their help to figure out just what the job will be. That means their job description is going to be a moving target while we figure out what works. (I am trying to build an actual job description/procedures manual as we go, so that at some point there will actually be a job description.) I think it's probably pretty frustrating, but I don't know if there's a way to make it less frustrating. It's pretty impossible to know what works until you try it, and I need someone to help me try it.
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Jul 17, 2014 14:51
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Dik Hz posted:A bunch of replies in this thread are from people who have never managed anyone, but think that they know what makes a good manager. They are wrong, but your employees will have similar delusions. Everyone thinks they can do their boss's job, but most can't. Have you ever worked at a large company? Frequently when you do you have very little power over hiring and firing your team. In larger companies there's usually a step between direct reports and the person making staffing decisions. You have influence through reviews or major issues raised, yes, but not decision making. Reality is that you have to work with the team you get. A good manager can get decent results out of poor performers, any idiot can get good results out of super stars. I see you talking about firing someone to inspire fear in the rest of the team. Either you're a lovely manager, or have never actually managed someone. Because if you paid attention, you'd notice that that's really demotivational. To actually help the OP, I've always thought it was helpful to mentally separate people into categories based on how much guidance they generally need and what kind. ie Joe is a super star, don't get in his way or waste your valuable time micromanaging him, But Dave is a slacker who not only needs to be checked up on, but also needs help completing tasks. Use the time you save by leaving Joe alone to ride Dave's rear end. Of course most people are in between and have different areas of abilities, but that gets clear when you watch them. Also a small change in verbiage can have a big mental impact on both you and your team. I believe this was already mentioned, but Joe is working WITH me for this project is a lot different than saying Dave is working FOR me on this project. All the best managers I've worked with (see that?) have always talked this way and I try to emulate that.
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Jul 18, 2014 05:23
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You're only as good as your people. Talk to them, work with them and give them the opportunity to excel. As the manager, you're only hurting yourself when you create a hostile, cliquey or hypercompetitive work environment.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:59
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Bloody Queef posted:I see you talking about firing someone to inspire fear in the rest of the team. Either you're a lovely manager, or have never actually managed someone. Because if you paid attention, you'd notice that that's really demotivational. From an employee's perspective: the biggest problem my department has is a few good-old-boy slackers and fuckups who have been working there for at least five years and see themselves (justifiably, unfortunately) as untouchable. Firing one or two of them would go a long way toward stemming the tide of people jumping ship to companies whose culture isn't defined by ennui and blame-dodging. Nothing you say will convince me that shitcanning a bad employee is "demotivational."
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Jul 19, 2014 02:56
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Bloody Queef posted:Have you ever worked at a large company? Bloody Queef posted:Frequently when you do you have very little power over hiring and firing your team. In larger companies there's usually a step between direct reports and the person making staffing decisions. You have influence through reviews or major issues raised, yes, but not decision making. Bloody Queef posted:Reality is that you have to work with the team you get. A good manager can get decent results out of poor performers, any idiot can get good results out of super stars. Bloody Queef posted:I see you talking about firing someone to inspire fear in the rest of the team. Either you're a lovely manager, or have never actually managed someone. Because if you paid attention, you'd notice that that's really demotivational. Hopefully that clears things up for you.
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Jul 19, 2014 22:03
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at the date posted:Nothing you say will convince me that shitcanning a bad employee is "demotivational." 
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Jul 22, 2014 03:41
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Lots of good advice in this thread. I've been in a first in command or second in command position in 3 different small businesses over the last 7 years. The only thing I'd add is: Know when to shut the gently caress up. I am a talker by nature, and I have to constantly remind myself that adding  to a situation rarely makes it better. If something needs to be said then say it and move on.My management has been loads more effective since I figured this out.
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Jul 22, 2014 20:04
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:1) Don't discipline in public. I hope every single reply in this thread says this. What defines a good manager is going to vary some by industry/job type/company as well as the relationship between the manager and employee. All of the advice so far works well with direct reports but really doesn't apply to contractors as well. I never discipline any of the direct reports under me in public but I have no qualms about chewing a contractor's head off in the middle of a well pad for being a dumbass. When it comes to knowing direct reports; I am not entirely buddy-buddy but they know I'll stick my neck out for them when they need it. I keep distance from contractors so that if I need to run them off I don't let interpersonal relationships interfere with that decision process. Find a good manager where you work. Copy them. If you can't find anyone; find a new place to work. JohnGalt fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 05:01
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Dik Hz posted:I didn't say fear dude. I said firing one guy who deserves it motivates everyone else. Nothing saps a team faster than one jackass who fucks around all day. This is absolutely true. Sometimes you end up with somebody who everybody hates and does gently caress all despite interviewing well. Eventually, your team's going to figure out that this person is useless (possibly sooner than you will) and the inevitable firing is a huge morale boost for everybody else because it means that their work actually means something. It's a balancing act, though. Give people chances because everybody fucks up once in a while, but if it becomes a pattern and you've tried working with them to correct it, then it's time to cut your losses.
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Jul 23, 2014 05:17
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Leroy Diplowski posted:Lots of good advice in this thread. I've been in a first in command or second in command position in 3 different small businesses over the last 7 years. Also, despite how hokey is sounds, active listening really does work.
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Jul 23, 2014 12:53
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Dik Hz posted:This reminds me of something I learned. As manager, always voice your opinion last. Many people feel uncomfortable sharing their opinions or ideas after the manager has already weighed in. And there's another group that will act as yesmen/women. If you get everyone's input first, you get more ideas on the table and that's always a good thing. That's a pretty nice suggestion, one I'll have to actually remember. My boss definitely does this all the time.
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Jul 23, 2014 20:11
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Just going to throw this out there because I think it applies to any sort of superior/subordinate relationship: Rules are rules and need to be established and applied fairly and consistently. Also going to say that rules and procedures can create unfair situations or can be perceived to be unfair. Avoid the poo poo out of being perceived as being arbitrary at all costs. Arbitrary decisions create resentment. With that said, there are going to be times where the rules and procedures, if followed to the letter of the law, can create situations that are either unfair or easily perceived as unfair and I think exceptions within reason should be made under these circumstances. Never forget that most people are only there because they're being paid.
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Jul 24, 2014 03:41
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In your first day as manager, find the meanest looking guy in the place and fire them.
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Jul 29, 2014 06:09
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Dik Hz posted:This reminds me of something I learned. As manager, always voice your opinion last. Many people feel uncomfortable sharing their opinions or ideas after the manager has already weighed in. And there's another group that will act as yesmen/women. If you get everyone's input first, you get more ideas on the table and that's always a good thing. Don't forget to take the lead in your conversations either. At the end of the day, you are the manager, and they are the employee. You still have to manage them. Be consistent and timely in feedback, the more immediate the better (obviously in private and where appropriate). Your job is to remove obstacles, whether external or internal. People want to be managed, it provides clear structure and guidelines to what consumes almost half of their waking lives.
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Aug 8, 2014 03:07
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This is a good thread and has some really good advice so far. Once you are a good manager start worrying about being a Great manager. Once I got my feet under me as a manager I started finding books and resources and getting advice and mentoring to not just be a good or competent manager, but a great one. Set the bar high for yourself and your team. Advanced reading might include First, Break All the Rules, Good to Great, or even some articles on the Vroom-Yetton model for decision and consensus building and Situational Leadership. I am personally a fan of the idea of Servant Leadership, and view taking care of my employees as job number one. It is amazing what happens when your team comes to open up and trust you on a level where you know what is happening in all aspects of their lives and their development happens not just at work, but in a well rounded way in their personal and professional lives. Imagine if instead of being afraid of someone on your team quitting unexpectedly, you actually helped them find a new role when it was time for them to leave. To be able to anticipate and have a replacement hired and cross trained before someone's departure. To be so open and honest as to as knowledge that most people will not be in the same position for ten or twenty or thirty years (and for those who are that they stay motivated and challenged and growing). When you get an entire team moving "up and right" and you find the former top performer hasn't actually advanced as much as the rest of the team and ends up on the bottom of the stack rank. What then? There are so many great, meaty topics to sink our collective teeth into here. I can't wait to see where this thread goes. Hopefully Leadership comes into play soon, too...
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Aug 9, 2014 05:46
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