The Righteous Path

The problem with management, especially in the technology industry, is that many of us that become managers haven’t been planning to do so for our whole lives. The same can’t be said about creating software. Many of us tinkered with building websites, did online programming tutorials, or sketched out pictures of what we thought great software would look like way before we did formal education or started getting paid for it.

Often, we don’t learn about management until we enter industry and see other people doing it. We might not learn about it until we see that there’s an opening to run one of the teams at our company. Regrettably, sometimes that choice is forced upon us as the only way to progress our careers.

This means that we haven’t had enough preparation, we haven’t done any formal education, and we haven’t much of an idea about what we should be doing as managers. We can only learn on the job and from those around us, and we can’t offer ourselves any guarantee that the way that we are managing others is the right way.

I certainly didn’t plan to be a manager. When I joined a local startup, I had just finished my PhD in compilers. For the previous twelve months, I was trying to find an academic role, but I failed. I had to do something else. I decided to give writing back-end code a try instead. It was fun and I built some cool stuff. But I had no idea where I wanted my career to go. Would I be writing code forever until I retired? Was that my path?

As that startup grew rapidly, teams began to form. I asked whether I could be considered to manage one of those teams—mostly out of curiosity—and the rest is history.

I didn’t know how to be a manager, so I bought books. Lots and lots of books. They were stacked on my desk in the office and also at home. Some were good, but many were bad. Few gave practical advice that I could actually implement in my job. It’s all well and good learning how the CEO of a Fortune 500 company spends their day, but how did that apply to me? I just wanted to know I was doing the right thing for me and my team.

Searching online for advice was even worse: a mixture of contradictory information. Some of it was written by people clearly pushing their coaching services. Some felt wrong, old fashioned, or irrelevant. I didn’t need 7 Ways to Motivate My Staff nor did I need to know The One Thing to Make Your Team a Success. What I really needed to know was what I should be doing each day, week, and month that would make me a better manager and make my team better as a result.

That was almost nine years ago. Unfortunately, the situation hasn’t changed much for new managers. I still talk to people who are running a team for the first time who find themselves without support, without suitable role models, and without the ability to confidently say that they are doing a good job. This is a tremendous shame, since managing people can be one of the most rewarding jobs out there.

Consider this: you can create the conditions that allow others to succeed, to learn, to feel psychologically safe, and to be creative. You can be the person who helps your staff grow and achieve way beyond the level they thought was possible. You can create the team that allows people to enjoy turning up to work each day, ready to tackle challenging problems together. Twenty years from now, you can be front of mind when your staff are asked where their careers began to take off. Yes, that really can be you. This book will show you how.