Thread by @polotek

I'm going to answer this question. It's going to require context. As in not all situations and companies fit this mold. It's also going to require throwing away some deeply held assumptions.

https://twitter.com/zippy1981/status/1447328977996193799?t=f_47IJxxG1oSDK6P0Pe81A&s=19

The core context is knowledge work. That's the only context I'm speaking in because that's what I do. When people talk about "tech work" that is a subset of knowledge work. So you can assume most of what I'm talking about applies to tech jobs.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1167473325297127424?t=f_47IJxxG1oSDK6P0Pe81A&s=19

Most of the time, we have this simple notion of how work gets done. If each individual does their one part, then eventually the whole thing will be done. You can do your part without being too worried about whether other people are doing their part.

But this simplistic notion breaks down pretty quickly. A good example is moving house. If you carry a box, then you're helping. But someone has to make decisions. Which boxes? In which order? How do we not break the fragile things?

If you've ever tried to help someone move when they're not organized, you know what it feels like when that coordination isn't happening.

When we talk about knowledge work, that system of coordination is so much more complicated. Because the systems are more complex. No one person can wrap their head around all of the details of what needs to get done.

One of the things that makes knowledge work different (and more valuable), is that each person gets to make *important* decisions about what happens in their area. We spent a long time trying to give people "detailed requirements" and we realized that produced terrible results.

We have people doing parts of the work. Those people need to make important decisions about their work. And those need to be matched up with decisions people are making in other areas. That's the only way we're going to get to a finished product that does what it's supposed to.

Middle managers absorb a tremendous amount of the overhead required to coordinate large groups of people and their detail work. We try hard to create plans and help people show up at the right place at the right time so everything works out.

What makes this pretty difficult is that a lot of knowledge workers are still in that simple mindset. "Just tell me my part and leave me alone. I don't want to care what other people are doing."

That makes everything more difficult. For everybody.

So knowledge workers have to make important decisions. Without the details being handed to them. Those decisions have to fit into an even more complex whole. People can only make good decisions in that environment if they have lots of context about what's happening around them.

So the most important thing managers do in a knowledge work environment are these.
1. Try to understand their part of the plan
2. Help the people under them understand their part of the plan
3. Help people understand how their decisions are impacting the group so they can adjust

If you don't know what the plan is and how your team fits into it, you won't be a very effective manager. If you don't learn to get good at translating the plan to your team, your team will blame you for being ineffectual. (They will be right)

The skills you have to develop as a manager are about how your team can produce the right outcomes despite all of the unpredictability that comes with individual humans. You can try to control people, or you can learn to develop plans that have flexibility.

My biggest leveling up as a manager was understanding that outcomes are mostly due to problems in the system, rather than the performance of any individuals in the system. The best managers start to understand how to make changes in the system that incentivize better results.

A big part of my argument around these things is that managers don't have all of the power, but they do have power. And it's important for middle managers to understand what power they have and to wield it thoughtfully and intentionally.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1353424047443374080?t=pNkcXM1rUK57MUDvdc8iNw&s=19