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On Series by Sai Dhanak
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On management

People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers. Management is the art of getting work done through others. A high-functioning management organization attracts and retains exceptional people who leverage tools and processes to get work done and self-improve.

Relentlessly look for evidence of exceptional ability when hiring.

After resume screens, facilitate an opportunity for the candidate to demonstrate evidence of exceptional ability, such as a case study or presentation. Look for whether they were instrumental in achieving an outcome that is rare, or their efforts were exceptional if the outcome was not. Ask whether you could admire this person one day and why. Never settle.

"If you can't see yourself working with someone for life, don't work with them for a day." -- Naval Ravikant

Hire drivers not passengers.

Drivers feel a strong sense of ownership to get things done. They exude a strong sense of urgency and ambition. Passengers on the other hand are comfortable in inertia, offering little input or impact. Screen for this in interviews.

“Faced with a challenge, [Drivers] usually say ‘Why not’ rather than ‘that’s impossible’. -- Frank Slootman

Be clear on how many hours per week a new hire will need from you.

Based on your read of the candidate’s skills and expertise, write down a clear estimate of the number of hours a candidate will need and whether you can accommodate it. Overpromising your time does a disservice to the candidate and creates fragility in your organization. Never have more than six direct reports.

Propel higher-level thinking.

Use first principles to examine macro trends, socio-economic conditions, and technological breakthroughs to help inform your product strategy and roadmap.

People are allowed to fail, avoid parachuting in. Coach to course-correct.

Parachuting into a program causes dissonance within the team as to who they should be listening to. Instead, coach your leader-in-charge as to how they can course-correct. Coaching is asking the right questions, and if disagreement remains, encouraging a disagree-and-commit culture.

Give frequent feedback. Use vulnerability to create acceptance.

Frequent feedback (ideally bi-weekly) coupled with strong goals creates
motivation
⁠
. Angry or overly-deferential feedback degrades trust. Being vulnerable, such as how you made a similar mistake, helps create an atmosphere of acceptance followed by direct positive or constructive feedback. Use the Situation, Behaviour, and Impact (SBI) model to drive clarity and minimize verbosity. Corrective feedback insinuates what the person could have done, constructive purely calls out what went wrong and it’s impact.

If it’s important, measure it.

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals to create a sense of momentum and surety in what people are doing (ie. ‘OKRs’, health dashboards, revenue pipeline). It also gives them a sense of consistent purpose.

Every one of your team members should know the vision.

Ask each person if they can recite back to you in one sentence what they think the team’s vision is. If the answer isn’t crisp, relentlessly coach until they do. Being able to succinctly and quickly remember the team’s vision keeps people going through the ups and downs, motivates, and creates antifragility.

Delegate things that someone else will do better than you, not just to offload tasks.

Delegation should enable you and your reports to do the best possible job on your critical responsibilities. Most importantly, ask whether you have enough time to give sufficient instruction, support, and monitoring to delegate. Secondly, ensure the person(s) have the necessary expertise, and thirdly, that the task is appropriate. For example, don’t delegate high-profile or confidential tasks that the person couldn’t handle, or overwhelm them with too many disparate tasks that disrupt focus: your team members should feel like they have an
umbrella
⁠
over them. Lastly, delegate the outcome not the process, and ensure there are checkpoints along the way.

Build rapport.

Giving feedback, teaching new skills, and overall career coaching, all require a relationship between two people. Find common ground, use people’s names, use humor to break intensity, and demonstrate that you are present (such as
repeating back
⁠
what someone said, or employing
Active Listening
⁠
).

Great coaching is asking great questions.

Probing questions, such as those articulated by the
GROW
⁠
framework, ensure that people reach the solution on their own. This creates organic motivation, accountability, and moments of micro-fulfillment. Prescription snowballs into micro-management and makes your organization brittle.

Goal
What problems are you trying to solve?
What do you want to achieve from this conversation?
What could we work on that will make a big difference at work?

Reality
How is this impacting you?
If things don’t change, what will happen?
What are the barriers to improving the solution?

Options
What would the ideal outcome look like? Who could give you another perspective? Who could you delegate to?
What are the pros and cons of the various solutions?
What have you done in the past?

Will
What are the best next steps?
What obstacles might you face?
What is the best way for us to follow up on this?

Allow for cool-down before resolving conflicts.

Taking time (up to a day if necessary) to let people cool off can help ensure that conflict resolution is objective and solution-oriented, rather than emotive. Take the time to understand what you and the other person truly want to get out of the disagreement, and what are the real sources of disagreement. Then, approach the situation with clear intention on whether you want a lose-win (where you accommodate), a win-win (requiring some compromise) or a win-lose result (your point must win over the other person). Each one can be appropriate depending on the situation.

When mediating conflict, understand each side individually, share the problem, highlight the impact to the company and others (to remove ego), how the conflict is perceived by their peers and leadership, ask each person to share their side, agree on the actual problem to be solved, and get commitment to actions with deadlines. Follow up accordingly.

The most critical skill in conflict resolution is Active Listening.

Build teams with oil and gas.

Like a machine, every team needs gas (visionary, assertive, and expressive people) alongside oil (analytical, precise, factual people). Hire accordingly.

Be aware of what stage your team is in - and plan accordingly.

Use the
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing
⁠
cycle to track your team and act
accordingly
⁠
. For example, when Forming and Storming - use mission-definition, role-clarity and conflict resolution to minimize the Storm. In Norming and Performing - focus on goal-setting and celebrating wins.

Topgrading.

⁠
Build a sports team not a family
⁠
. Building a team is not just about hiring, but also about constantly optimizing. If you would not fight to keep someone on your team, offer a generous offboarding package with sufficient severance that pays respect to their past contributions and enables them to find their next challenge. Replace with exceptional ability.

Topgrading is only possible if you are constantly maintaining succession, recruiting, and team redundancy plans. Topgrading will be hindered by sudden and acute-hiring needs.

Continuously cultivate a network.

Attend events, continuously make and take warm intros, send useful links and articles to nodes in your network. Your network will accelerate hiring, partnerships, and your own career trajectory.
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