how to not suck as a manager (cause most people do)

in my 20's, all i wanted to do was be a people manager. i must confess, it wasn't because i wanted to help people in their careers, or have more impact, or "be a leader". i wanted to get promoted and paid more, and that was the quickest path. at that age, if you told me the fastest path to a bigger paycheck was being bald, i would looked like lex luthor by my next one-on-one.

and i was bad at being a manager (ask any of my team at the time - i have. they laughed so hard one of them had beer come out their nose). which is normal. in my 20+ years of working in corporations, i have only ever met two naturally good people managers - and both were in their mid to late thirties when they started, so they had some reps underneath them. contrast that with the hundreds if not thousand of bad first time managers i've met - just know if you're struggling, you're not alone.

but i'll share a little secret - being a good manager is easy. the secret? you have to be competent and caring. that's it.

let's talk competent. have you ever been gifted a new boss who switched from their domain expertise into yours - Product into HR, Strategy into Finance, Pasty into Savory cook, Nurse into Nurse Practitioner, Shelf Stocking Lead to Cashier Lead, Chemistry Teacher into Meth Cook. you didn't like them, right? and you didn't think they were very good at their job, correct?

it's also why when a new boss is "hired from the outside," you often don't like them at first, especially if you've been around the company a while. YOU know how it works, YOU can get things done and don't need this person overseeing you. they're good on paper, but you're better at the job, right? why didn't YOU get this role again?

i remember when i switched from Apple to Google back in the mid-2010's. at Apple, i was one of the fastest promoted finance employees - i had zero of the caring down, but i was competent level 10. and then i went to Google and the success criteria were different - tops down to bottoms up culture; specialists to generalists; low margin, hard driving to high margin, people oriented. needless to say, my new team at Google did NOT like me. and because it was Google, you didn't bottle up your feelings and push them deep down like you did at Apple. you expressed them - in surveys, in 1-1's, in skip levels, in long emails detailing out "the many mistakes you've made as a manager Jarad." (no? just me?)

so i learned to care. or more accurately, i learned to show my caring at work. Google taught me to express care by allowing that side of me to come to work. i was always a sensitive kid, and my childhood experiences led to me being a closed off adult who was still senstiive. but on the inside. where my feelings are. i learned to ask "what do you think we should do?" rather than having to burden myself to come up with all the ideas. i learned to be flexible on a deadline when someone's kid was sick. i learned to not yell at and blame people when one of my ideas didn't go well with the business partner. i learned to be more my natural self, not the finance robot i learned to be in my first 10 years of working.

did you know, Google did a white paper on what matters most to be a successful manager (also check out Laszlo Bock's Work Rules - i was Laszlo's finance business partner when he wrote this book, and i learned a ton just from being around him). Google People Ops (POps) had 82 people in people analytics who studied questions like how to be a good manager and how to build a great team. and you know the top things you need to do?

• Show care - remember, we're all humans first, not employees

• Have weekly 1-1's - important things first

• Build psychological safety [1 and 2] (a phrase that was popularized after the white paper and pioneered by Amy Edmonson and her 1999 Harvard study)

so what do you do if you're a new manager? or a manager joining a new company? be competent and caring. and if you can't be competent, lead with caring. and HUSTLE, HUSTLE, HUSTLE to be competent as quickly as possible. being a great manager is hard, but being a good manager is easy - and it's never too late to reset if you started on the wrong foot. go back to basics - competent and caring, and make sure you lead with caring.

this post litigated by: mcdonalds mccafe premium roast coffee (black)