Delegation creates career progression

October 19, 2020

#7 – October 19, 2020

this week's favorite

As a manager of managers, there will always be more to do than you have the time to do yourself. Your direct reports, if they are talented, will always be looking for career progression.

Simply put, your Abstract Management Interface is a set of outcomes that you expect from the manager you’ll be managing. You walk through this interface together and they should explicitly agree to meet (implement) all of those expectations. As in programming, this interface lets you stop worrying about exactly how they will implement the interface, as long as they satisfy the agreed-upon outcomes.

To be really great at feedback you have to get it, give it, and encourage it. All of those things feel weird to do at first, but there are some easy things you can do to make them feel much more natural.

Your company is growing and you’ve hired a great team. They’ve helped take your fledgling idea and make it more than just a reality, but a bonafide business with revenue that requires commas, an office, and passionate, happy customers.

Of course, “manager” and “director” titles mean different things at different companies. In this newsletter, I compare what you learn in a small-to-medium-sized team to what happens when you’re a more senior manager (managing managers and multiple teams, or being responsible for a large swath of an organization)—and what you miss out on if you skip right to that senior level.

books

A practical guide written by the people who do the resume screening: engineering managers and technical recruiters working at tech companies. Also, Gergely gives the book for free to developers who have lost their jobs due to current world situation.

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