Essential Books

Radical Candor

Leadership Pipeline

The Making of a Manager

Essential Links

Kerr

One Rubric Changed Box's Engineering Performance — Here's How

The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: "You're Fired"

Management Roles

• Defining clear outcomes so that they know what they are working against.
• Defining clear expectations for folks—what you expect of them. Providing clarity on what is a poor, effective, and exceptional job looks like.
  • People performing on an exceptional level are given the toughest assignments. You would fight to keep this person.
  • Effective performance suggests that equivalent talent could be found, if needed.
• You pretest ideas, decisions, and proposals with individuals. You collect opinions before making decisions.
• You're fearful of over-managing: i.e., "eventually they stopped trying to help and only did what they were told." You cannot impose your will on your team—it only creates alienation and removes sense of guidance.
• Focus on outcomes, not activities: let people take the initiative to define jobs themselves, where they should be contributing, how they will be measured.
• Inspire and energize teams
• You own people's failures.
• Be the one to start the conversation about values. It’s important for this conversation to start at the top. If as a newsroom exec or manager you believe in the importance of diversity in our news organizations, proactively bring this up with the rest of the leadership team. Then, tell your organization about the ways you’re thinking about it and incorporating it as your organization weathers this moment in history. Good and honest communication about this will go far.

Coaching Roles