Thread by @copyconstruct

I'm at the developing developers event at Asana now.

It's for managers really and I'm not a manager nor ever want to be one - but came here for the unicorn stickers.

But if you're here and want to say, find me. 😃 I literally know no one at this event.

"My career consists of mostly throwing myself into chaos" -- @mipsytipsy at the developing developers event for managers

"I'm now the accidental CEO of a company" 😃

"I'm deathly afraid of irrelevance" - @rands

"I became a manager because I wanted to be in the room where the decisions are made" - @mipsytipsy

"The hierarchy of management is inverted - managers should be supporting the people and not the other way round " - @mipsytipsy

"Equally important as the people management ladder is the technical leadership ladder - or the CTO ladder where people are empowered to make technical decisions" - @rands

"You either pick going upwards where you're more and more distanced from the tech or you go back and forth where you're not long term unhappy - there's so much more dopamine as an engineer than a manager " - @mipsytipsy

"During the first 90 days I try to get the feedback thing going where I can say sth to a direct report and they can give feedback for me. The first 60 days I get no feedback but then I start giving *them* feedback - usually in month 2 or 3, they start giving feedback" - @rands

"I do my 1-1's on a Slack channel - so there's a paper trail for everything." - @rands

"I don't do anything tactical - we have artifacts and data for that. It's usually career growth and something of substance that I talk about during the 1-1's" - @rands

"I ❤️ motivating people to do terrible things - like a year longboard project. That's terrible for an IC but important for the company"

"Tell people how impactful things can be - that can be a great motivator" - @mipsytipsy

"Different people respond to different motivations. Some people want to be useful. Others want glory. It's important to figure out what motivates each direct report. This should be a part of the promotion criteria" - @mipsytipsy

"For teams looking for motivation, explaining their accomplishments and recognizing it company wise can be a great motivator" - @rands

"My startup roots are showing, but I don't hire for a particular role or a particular person. I see all the holes that need to be filled and see who can fill the most and bring the most value to the company - which isn't sth you can do when you have 1000 people" - @mipsytipsy

"You can be a successful manager of engineers without knowing engineering. The best ones have a deep understanding though - and it takes judgement to know when and whether or not to leverage that knowledge, b/c it's not always best to leverage it" - @mipsytipsy

"Ideas don't get better wth agreement - they get better with discord" - @rands 👏

"It's harder to find different philosophies because they can change the dynamic of the team" - @rands on promoting managers from within to hiring externally

"Management isn't a promotion - it's a lateral transition" - @mipsytipsy

"You want to get the right people doing management for the right reasons" - @mipsytipsy

"My rubric for assessing managers

- vision for an ambitious scary future
- strategy - do you have the skills to break it down into signs
- tactics - how to get from sign to sign to get to the end
- judgement - their wisdom, the things they have been through and decisions

@rands

"Management can't be rushed" - @mipsytipsy

"It can't be rushed. I don't expect anything from my directors for a quarter. It takes intuition and understanding to be able to be effective" - @rands

"The more senior you are - whether you're an IC or a manager - you're impact increases. And it becomes a social position and people centric " - @mipsytipsy (I'm not paraphrasing entirely correctly - but live tweeting is hard - maybe Charity could correct me here)

"I optimize long term for the success of the direct report and not the organization - because that eventual leads to the success of the organization" - @mipsytipsy

"Internal transfer policy should be the IC's choice not the manager's choice" - @rands

"There's this moment I'm looking for in director types (not manager types who are more responsible for getting work done) - where they delegate something they are really good at to someone else who's probably not that good at it and then invest in them" - @rands

"If you're ever scared of saying something to your direct report, then you should *definitely* say it. Your direct reports don't necessarily have to think you're better at doing the work than they are - your job is to facilitate." - @mipsytipsy

"Wanting to work on something "cool" but not useful to the business should be seen as a HUGE red flag" - @mipsytipsy

"If you're big enough as a company, you can absorb a lot of failures" - @mipsytipsy

Whew - that's a wrap. I definitely learned a lot even if I'm not a manager myself.

Lastly, there's an eng manager Slack

Engmanagers.github.io

#developingdevelopers channel