Management Dials
/Management has many metaphors.
Political metaphors model the team’s power dynamics: authoritarian, democratic, and servant leadership. Other management metaphors seek to rouse a feeling of unity: sports team or family metaphors.
None if these address the nuance of actual manager-managee relationships. They do not speak to the preferences of collaborators across their many types of interactions, or the evolving nature of the workplace as work tasks change and relationships grow over time.
The old metaphors say “this is how we operate.” They don’t stop to ask “who are we and how would we best work together now?”
I prefer the metaphor of a DJ stand. A DJ has to constantly attune to the mood of the audience. They adjust dozens of dials, sensing what levels will get the ambiance right.
A DJ sees music as dual-directional - it’s as much about observing the audience as leading the jams.
A DJ knows that what separates a good set from a great set is not just good songs - it’s getting all the nuanced details aligned.
Management is more about toggling a set of dials than a modeled relationship. Setting your dials right can help you and your teammates relieve stress, build empathy, be more efficient, and better define how you will work well together.
Toggle these Dials
🎛 Relationship dial
New management relationships are ripe for insecurities. The relationship is undefined and both people are uncertain how things will proceed.
Even worse, most managers start their first one-on-one with an impersonal coverage of projects and organizational focus. There’s no human foundation set.
Instead, I start each relationship with an hour long interview of my managee:
What are your likes and /avoids from managers?
What does this job mean to you?
What are your hopes for the team?
What are your hopes for yourself in this role?
Requests of me in this role?
Then the magic happens: they tell you EXACTLY what they need to thrive.
The poor way to ask these questions to going through the motions.
The right way is to actively relate to and reassure them when they share their preferences, and share stories of your own challenges in the workplace. Your vulnerable stories help them feel comfortable opening up about sensitive topics. You can also foreshadow some actions you may take to help their preferences become a reality.
This interview is the ultimate trust builder. Your managee feels seen, understood, and appreciated. And now you can dive into the work.
🎛 Delegation dial
The delegation dial helps managers and managees define their preference for how defined and structured their work would ideally be.
I did this poorly at first. I mistakenly assumed that the people I managed wanted full autonomy over their responsibilities. Two months in, my frustrated managee blurted out, “Just tell me exactly what you want me to do, and I’ll do it!” She loved executing on plans, not making them.
Everybody has different preferences for the structure of their work tasks. Some like full autonomy to prioritize and execute however they want; they may get agitated when others try to micromanage. Some like direction or fleshed out steps, processes and actions.
Some managers like being in the weeds, other like the mental space of delegation.
Gauge the dial with these questions:
On a scale of 1-100, how would you rate your delegation preference? 1 being very structured step by step instructions, 100 being free reign autonomy to prioritize and execute as you see fit.
The preference for both the manager and managee might change over time as trust and expertise evolves.
🎛 Meeting Dial
Most people prefer one of two meeting styles.
Personable Meetings involve briefly beginning with discussion on how the other person is doing. For some, this dynamic helps them feel fully seen.
Others prefer an Efficient Meeting style. Efficient Meetings blaze through agenda items directly and succinctly. They optimize exchange of information while minimizing the amount of time spent.
Most people have a preference along a spectrum of these meeting types.
Questions to gauge meeting preference:
What are your likes and avoids of management? (Many people may reference “I liked when I had casual coffees with my manager” “I like when we could talk about things outside of work” or “I like when we get straight to work.” These are hints at their meeting preference.)
You can often gauge your collaborators’ preference by how they show up to your first meeting. Do they respond enthusiastically to the question “How are you doing?” or do they brush it off?
In my experience, most people over-estimate their desire to be efficient over personable. For this reason, as a manager, I am typically a little more personable and sensitive than their stated preference.
These sensitivities are also present in our next dial.
🎛 Feedback Dial
Which do you prefer more: direct or supportive communication?
Answer: it’s a false dichotomy! Constructive Feedback affirms our work’s intent and builds towards shared desires: to be more effective and efficient. These statements look like, “We could make that even better by …” “An idea for the next iteration…” or “You could save time by also doing …” This feedback adds improvements on their foundation of work.
The feedback preference is not what type of feedback. It’s how do you want it to be delivered?
Questions to ascertain feedback preference:
Do you like feedback to be frequent or in a chunk all at once?
Do you like feedback verbally or written?
The answers to these questions are largely defined by the type of work being done. But most people typically have a preference.
It also depends on your collaboration preferences.
🎛 Collaboration Dial
Collaboration cuts across a few dimensions.
Dimension 1 is collaborating async vs. together at the same time.
Duos best collaborate together if one is far more experienced than the other; in this case the more experienced can model the practices and use of tools and resources in ways that are not easily communicated over text. In-person collaboration is also useful if you and your partner derive creative energy by bouncing ideas off each other, or if the project will require nuanced follow-up questions.
Async communication preserves beginners mind and is time efficient.
Dimension 2 is the phases of the project:
Research
Brainstorm
Planning
Execution
Retrospective
Each phase has a benefit and drawback doing async vs together collaboration.
(1) Research: starting async allows you both to anchor on your own ways of thinking about the problem rather than anchoring on the thoughts of another. This may lead you to different research methods or sources of information.
(2) Brainstorming: is best first done alone - without the bias and anchoring of another’s thinking - in order to get the most original thoughts. You preserve beginners mind and get a wider variety of ideas. Then, brainstorming can be done together as collaborators push each other’s thinking, converge on principles, and build off of each other’s creative energy.
(3) Planning: is best done with the project owner creating a draft plan and then the duo building off that plan. This is a way more effective use of time that drawing something together from scratch. A foundation is already set when you meet.
(4) Execution: is best done async, with opportunity to chat briefly on novel challenges that emerge as the project proceeds.
(5) Retrospectives: on projects are best done in person, with some independent thinking time at the start of the session.
You and your teammates will likely feel out which methods of collaboration work best for you.
🎛 Communication Dial
Almost all new employees face the awkwardness of when and how to communicate with their boss. Is this a good question to ask? Should I just find the answer myself? Can I just walk up and ask her, or am I interrupting?
It’s critical for all teammates to create an open flow for communication AND preserve uninterrupted work time. For this reason, managers and managees should explicitly define the following:
When and how they prefer to work deeply
When they are available for a quick sync
When they should be left alone
When they can be interrupted.
Without these, new employees will waste mental energy navigating these waters of communication.
Here’s how I defined communication expectations with my new managee, “I try to get a few hours of uninterrupted work time each day (I usually work away from my desk for this). That said, I want to be accessible to you, so when I am at my desk feel free to interrupt me, or slack me. Since you are new to the company, perhaps we can schedule a 10 min sync at the end of each day for the first two weeks to clarify any questions you have.”
This explicit expectation creates a sense of security for the new hire on when and how to engage. They are invited to proactively ask questions rather than wallowing in the uncertainty of what is desired and undesirable.
💃🏽Conclusion
Setting these dials takes about an hour and can save hundreds of hours of wasted stress and energy.
In the end, your team’s music will sound more like Beethoven than like my 3rd grade cousin practicing trombone in his basement.