A manager’s skills and knowledge are only valuable if she uses them to get more leverage from her people. So, Ms. Manager, you know more about our product’s viral loop than anyone in the company? That’s worth exactly nothing unless you can effectively transfer that knowledge to the rest of the organization. That’s what being a manager is about. It’s not about how smart you are or how well you know your business; it’s about how that translates to the team’s performance and output.
As a means to obtain this leverage, a manager must understand, as Andy writes: “When a person is not doing his job, there can only be two reasons for it. The person either can’t do it or won’t do it; he is either not capable or not motivated.” This insight enables a manager to dramatically focus her efforts. All you can do to improve the output of an employee is motivate and train. There is nothing else.
.. He teaches meetings from first principles, beginning with how to conduct a one-on-one.
.. In my experience, managers who don’t have one-on-ones understand very little about what’s happening in their organizations.
.. Finally, he reiterates his thesis that there are only two ways in which a manager can impact an employee’s output: motivation and training.
.. Upon seeing him, I was so excited that I immediately blurted out how much I loved the book.
.. I either had to throw away some books or buy a bigger house. Well, that was an easy decision, but which books to throw out? Then I thought, the management books! But I had a problem. Nearly every management book that I’d received was sent to me by the author and was autographed with a kind inscription. I felt badly about throwing away all those nice notes. So, I went through each book and tore out the inscription page then threw away the book
.. “CEOs always act on leading indicators of good news, but only act on lagging indicators of bad news.”
.. “In order to build anything great, you have to be an optimist, because by definition you are trying to do something that most people would consider impossible. Optimists most certainly do not listen to leading indicators of bad news.”
.. When I suggested he write something on the topic, his response was: “Why would I do that? It would be a waste of time to write about how to not follow human nature. It would be like trying to stop the Peter Principle*
The Long Odds of Reforming an Employee Who Is a ‘Destructive Hero’
The results are always blindingly good. That is why so many business owners are slow to recognize the dangers posed by employees sometimes known as destructive heroes.
.. he does not claim to have coined the term, but he said it occurred to him when envisioning a comic book superhero who vanquishes an archvillain, and leaves a city in ruins in the process.
.. Also known as brilliant jerks, destructive heroes are egotists, prima donnas, anything but team players. The drain on company morale can be stark. Why isn’t the boss dealing with such an obvious bad apple? people wonder. And because destructive heroes typically fashion their fiefs and achieve their results by intimidating co-workers, the abused colleagues may run for the exits.
.. And continued to behave badly. “She was a faster puller — the best person on customer service — and that was part of the problem,” said the founder. “When a new employee wasn’t as good as her, she’d get mad. If we hired someone she perceived as a threat, maybe someone smarter, maybe more attractive, friendlier, she was not nice to them and she’d complain about them to me.”
.. Eventually, she said, she took “the chicken’s way out.” She moved her problem employee into an administrative position with less responsibility and increased the routine tasks until she quit.
.. Eventually, however, he began to question whether the employee’s vaunted sales covered all of his hidden costs. “We got a team of people together and looked at how much time we were spending on this individual,” Mr. McGohan said.
.. Mr. McGohan said. “The other sad part is, about 15 years ago, I was the same guy.”
Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way
The best thing about Jeff Bezos, the founder, chairman, president and chief executive of Amazon, is that he doesn’t give a hoot what anybody else thinks. The worst thing about Jeff Bezos is that he doesn’t give a hoot what anybody else thinks.
.. The real issue Amazon’s work culture raises — for blue- and white-collar employees alike — is: How disposable are people?
A previous generation of Americans could count on a social compact; if you stuck loyally by a company, it would stick by you, providing you with a good job and a decent retirement. Long ago, loyalty fell by the wayside, and longtime employees learned that their loyalty meant nothing when companies “downsized.”
Joel S. Marcus on Taking the Ego Out of Leading
I’ve always felt it’s good to keep a flat, decentralized and cross-matrix reporting organization. We don’t have an organizational chart; I actually ban org charts from being done because I don’t believe in them.
I’m a big fan of Eric Schmidt and the book he co-wrote, “How Google Works,” where he says you should hire smart, creative people and then not put them in boxes. Give them a lot of authority to do some great things and you’re going to have great results. I don’t like hierarchical reporting structures.
.. I learned early on not to take hard and fast positions. If somebody says they want to do something, I don’t normally say no. Instead, I’ll say, “Well, tell me why.” I may decide I’m against it, but I’m open to hearing you debate it.
I never try to be dogmatic with a no answer. I always try to let the person win the day, and I’m egoless when making decisions. I never think, “Oh, I need to make that decision and I know I’m right.” That was hard to learn for a while, but I’ve learned that lesson.
I also always try to get people to have multiple solutions for a problem. I never want to be put into a corner or forced down one road. There ought to be alternative options that can be successful for us, and the key is to have strategic optionality.