73 - Being Easy To Manage

Management is a two way street

I saw a post on social media that said being easy to manage was the most underrated career skill. That stuck with me. I realise that it tends to be completely ignored, but it’s critical. 

The base equation for how we tend to look at the outcome of a four person team of three individual contributors and one manager is:

M1 x P1 + M1 x P2 + M1 x P3

The P’s being how well the person performs at the tasks of that role. The M’s being how well managed they are by their boss. The two are obviously interrelated. The better the managed a person is, the more motivated and better trained they are. The better they will then be able to perform the tasks of the role over time. But this equation falls short. The actual equation is:

M1 x P1 x E1 + M1 x P2 x E2 + M1 x P3 x E3

With the E’s being how easy each of those three team members are to manage. Management is a two way street. The ease with which those people can be managed has a huge impact on managerial leverage. The harder one person is to manage, the less ability the manager has to manage effectively elsewhere. It directly impacts each of the M’s in the equation, which per the above, directly impact the P’s.

I look back at my earlier career through this lens. I worked hard and had decent enough ability. There are times where I would have been a massive pain in the arse. There are times where I will have been so-so. I never thought about being easy to manage. I will have missed out on opportunities as a result.

When any new project arises, a manager has 3 options: 1) delegate it to person A, 2) delegate it to another person (assuming there is that size of team), 3) do it themselves. In considering whether to delegate it to person A vs the alternatives, it is a two dimensional construct: Capability x Ease. Capability is considering how well suited person A is to the requirements of that project. That’s the obvious one. Ease is considering how easy or not person A will be to manage in doing the project. By optimising for Ease, person A maximises their chances that they will get their choice of projects. This is a virtuous circle superpower. Maximising choice of projects means maximising scope to work on the most challenging things. Which in turn maximise scope for learning and growth. Which in turn increase Capability and the scope to work on even more challenging things. And so on.

I’m going to write more about the components of being easy to manage in the coming days. The advice I would have benefitted from earlier in my career, and in due course others will hopefully benefit from. There is a risk that “being easy to manage” can be misinterpreted as advocating master-servant, bow down before me, etc. Quite the opposite, as will become increasingly clear. The fear of writing on this subject coming across that way can preclude communicating something that could be all round helpful.