“Quote yourself shamelessly for a better grandiosity”
Ignacio Chechile
Intro
First of all, a proper manager never writes an article. Managers write books. Long, repetitive books with endless pages populated with the same point made over and over. We managers write books to celebrate ourselves and to perpetuate the notion that we are better than the rest—because we are. So, I must admit, this article was meant to be a book, but my ghostwriter suddenly died under uncertain circumstances, drowning in a pool in a cheap motel near California City. Thanks Thomas, great timing. He’s still floating there, according to high-resolution satellite imagery.
What is Management And What It Is Not
“A manager with a can-do attitude can push harder than a 99’ Honda Civic”
Chinese proverb
In my extensive career as a manager, I’ve been asked this question many times by subordinates1. Those lovely morons. The answer is surprisingly simple: management is about tuning your decision-making process in order to maximize the benefits of an amorphous, affluent collective called shareholders. We help shareholders make more money while they enjoy life traveling, sailing, spending time with family and mistresses. We help perfect the natural virtuous cycle by means of which the rich get richer. What a noble task life and God2 have put on our hands. We shall take it with responsibility. Milton Friedman famously said: “there is nothing as elevated as dedicating your energy and your best years into making an obnoxiously rich person infinitesimally richer while you stress every month to cover the mortgage”. Being a manager means feeling an unrequited love with a Delaware corporation, and to ask almost nothing in return.
Creating New, Groundbreaking Mental Frameworks
“A new day, a new mental framework”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Mental frameworks are the quintessential tool we managers must have at hand in order to lead, inspire and help others to think, but also to prove that we exude erudition and are capable of producing and sharing with mortals powerful ideas; i.e.; open the kimono. Frameworks may sound empty and vacuous, and they surely are, but heck they make us sound sophisticated when we use them! The more vapid and obvious, the better, because it saves us from having to explain them. The key to create a mental framework is to steal from what Donald Rumsfeld famously stole from someone else3: the known unknowns, unknown knowns, unknown unknowns platitude, and slightly rephrase it with your own terms. It’s no crime to steal from a thief, let alone a war criminal.
One key aspect of defining mental frameworks is that we, as creators of such frameworks, have access to the so-called ‘managerial wildcard’ which frees us from having to follow what the framework states. This is a necessary way of keeping managers and leaders’ hands untied by rules, so we can continue being creative and disruptive.
Leading in times of crisis
“Great managers learn how to always be on holidays when shit hits the fan”
Harry Houdini
A somewhat unspoken fundamental skill of a world-class manager is to be able to sense when the tide of shit is rising and things are getting ugly only to rapidly book a holiday or a business trip right on time. This way, when the unholy kicks in, we are safe thousands of miles away, in a different time zone, avoiding being splashed with the fecal matter that the situation is spreading back home. It is very important we will still frequently call the subordinates dealing with the horror and ask them to “keep us posted” as the mayhem unfolds; it gives a strong signal that we are on top of the situation, leading it.
Managing Complexity
“It doesn’t matter how much complexity you get, you are left wanting more”
Nelson Mandela
It's a known fact in management bibliography that complexity only can be tamed with more complexity. Analogous to the known formula discovered by Archimedes taught in primary school chemistry class which states that fire can be easily put out with fuel. Equivalently, complexity can be suffocated by making everything around it more complex, as research shows45. Dealing with too many JIRA boards? Add more JIRA boards. Too many processes? That begs for another process, or even better, a full-blown business process modeling team. If complexity gets out of hand, the solution is rather simple: start using the word lean extensively.
Meetings
“The meetings will continue until the morale improves”
Elizabeth Holmes
One of the first things we learn as young managers is that people love meetings. They may jokingly say they hate them, but that’s just good-spirited banter. One of the main mechanisms to become a true leader is to gather people frequently in meetings and calls so they can hear the sound of your voice. If possible, research indicates it is highly recommended to run rounds of introductions every single time: people just love them.
How To Make Projects Be On Time
“Projects are never late, people are”
Barbra Streisand
Working with engineers is without a single doubt the most challenging part of being a leader and a manager. Engineers are known for their unjustified cynicism, and their constant urge to mansplain how “things just don’t work like that” and their obsession with that little thing called “risk”. Yawn. It is a scientific fact, supported by an extensive body of knowledge on tech management, that matters tend to work out if everybody keeps a “can-do” attitude and we all bring ‘good vibes’ to the table. Managers are instrumental to keep the right spirit in the team. Naysayers are not welcome here.
Managers Reward Loyalty
“Minions: Assemble!”
Pope Francis
Nothing like friendship. As managers, there is no better than seeing someone expressing us their blind loyalty as we lead them. Engineers tend to call it “ass smooching”, but us true leaders call it ‘commitment’. Overly loyal subordinates are to be kept, and must be rewarded with promotions and bonuses, as they become a small court of highly servile vassals every executive manager must have. A necessary clique of middle managers acting as a private army of group thinkers.
Learn the Art of Crossing the Line, The Managerial Way
“As CEO of this company, it is my right to lead the conga line”
Jeff Bezos
As a manager, partying is part of your duties6. And if you happen to be a white, male manager in his late fifties, you must master the art of double entendre and frequently engage in expeditionary campaigns of innuendo with your subordinates7. A distinctive trait of a unicorn or a soon-to-be unicorn is to have a management layer rich not only in stock but also in harassment reports.
Conclusion
Managing and leading is not for everyone. Only the gifted visionaries, those who can see the big picture, the unknown unknowns, those who can be data-driven, can circle back, can right-size it, can step up to the plate, be an agent of change, those who can be truly actionable, those who can open the kimono, are the ones who will lead the way to maximize our most precious asset: shareholder value.
Gotta admit, I love the word subordinate. It is so beautifully dismissive.
This means Peter Drucker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03380-y
https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2_noafterword.pdf