I think the lack of specificity is a fair criticism of what I wrote in the piece, but this is also something I was very aware of when I wrote it, which is why this caveat is included:
> The management principles below reflect lessons I have learned the hard way. These are things I wish I would have known and internalized when I first became a manager. By keeping this brief, I hope that it will be easily consumed, perhaps at the cost of people being able to fully understand each point.
Maybe at some point, this expands into multiple pieces or a short book, but for now, this is what I've produced. It won't be specific enough to be useful to everyone, but hopefully some folks find it helpful.
There is no manual to being a good manager. Only ideas you can project into your own approach.
I'm sad to see parent post at the top of the page. It nitpicks the one most abstract bullet and calls the whole thing unactionable. I think that's silly. I enjoyed your article and agree with many points.
I rate your article (ie up to a dozen headings with a paragraph of text each) higher than having to wade through a book of padding to get not much more actual information.
Thanks Owein! I've been around HN long enough to know that nothing pleases everyone, but getting enough upvotes to hit the top of the front page feels great. On a day without Elon buying Twitter, I might have hit #1 :)
I could have phrased it better, but my point is that no single book on management can reliably make people into good managers, any more than a single book on engineering can make people into good engineers.
Some people may say some points are common sense, but when you condense your personal perspective it adds the depth of your experience without having to write a book.
When managers of unrelated industries come up with some similar preferred practices, that can show fair agreement that it's more likely to be worthwhile.
People need to realize there are lots of companies that fail on almost all of the eleven points you have here, and if the right key person were to just take your page to heart and follow it with action it would be like a breath of fresh air across the entire project environment.
I think the lack of specificity is a fair criticism of what I wrote in the piece, but this is also something I was very aware of when I wrote it, which is why this caveat is included:
> The management principles below reflect lessons I have learned the hard way. These are things I wish I would have known and internalized when I first became a manager. By keeping this brief, I hope that it will be easily consumed, perhaps at the cost of people being able to fully understand each point.
Maybe at some point, this expands into multiple pieces or a short book, but for now, this is what I've produced. It won't be specific enough to be useful to everyone, but hopefully some folks find it helpful.
There is no manual to being a good manager. Only ideas you can project into your own approach.