Thanks for the summaries, I found them quite useful and they've caused me to probably read some of these books soon. The following ones are both new to me and seem worth thinking more about:
- You should judge a person's performance based on the performance of the ideal person that would hold their position
- Document every task you do more than once, as soon as you do it the second time.
- Fun is important. (yes, really)
- People should know the purpose of the organization (specifically, being able to recite a clear mission statement)
- "I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them"
A question I had while reading your notes -- it seems like people fail at implementing many best practices not because they don't think the practices are good, but because of a lack of capacity. For example, there's an entire cluster of that basically boil down to "people do better with fast feedback":
- After a task is delegated, make sure that it's progressing as intended.
- After a task is completed (or failed), keep people accountable.
- Make sure to check in on goals in regular time intervals.
- Provide positive reinforcement immediately.
- Provide negative feedback immediately.
These require that managers be very attentive to the going-ons and constantly on top of the state -- but when there are other priorities, this might be pushed back. Do the books also talk about what not to do, such that you'll have the slack to implement best practices?
Also, a typo:
- Use OKRs (objectives and key results) and check if you're meeting them regularly. Switch them up often to avoid goodhearting.
goodhearting -> Goodharting
Thanks for the comment :)
Do the books also talk about what not to do, such that you'll have the slack to implement best practices?
I don't really remember the books talking about this, I think they basically assume that the reader is a full-time manager and thus has time to do things like this. There's probably also an assumption that many of these can be done in an automated way (e.g. schedule sending a bunch of check-in messages).
Preface
A while ago I read four books on leadership and management and wrote summaries of them. The summaries are slightly biased in that they are mostly what I found to be useful and how I interpreted the books. I don’t necessarily endorse the points made by these books. If you are interested in management I would suggest you read these, with Managing to Change the World as my strongest recommendation.
These books mostly talk about how to manage a team of people that are being paid to do some work. If you are managing a team of volunteers, the dynamics change significantly and you, as a team leader, have much less authority over how people behave. It is important to set clear expectations with people in such a context (how many hours a week they’re willing to work is the most important variable).
Managing to Change the World
The Great CEO Within
The One Minute Manager
The Culture Code