Management checklist

Summary

If the group/team/person you manage/work with is not meeting expectations, here are the questions to ask before making any kinds of assumptions.

  1. Do they know that this is expected of them? (This is like 60% of cases)
  2. Do they have the skills or knowledge needed? (This is like 30% of cases)
  3. Are they blocked by something? (This is probably only 10% of cases)
  4. Do they not want to do it? And do they know the ramifications of not doing it? (This is rare; seek support from higher-ups if this is the case)

The non-bite-sized version

Many years ago I was talking to my boss about why my team wasn’t performing well. He asked me these questions, but at one point he shifted and taught me instead. I don’t know why, but I’m thankful all these years later because it’s been transformative.

I’m not sure where this checklist actually comes from and neither is GPT, it seems to be an amalgamation of a bunch of different management philosophies. The closest I could find was Andrew Grove’s High Output Management, but I haven’t actually read it, so I’m not sure.

1. Do they know what’s expected of them?

At the time it sounded crazy to me, and it may or may not sound crazy to you, but over the years I’ve found this to be like 60% of cases. I think this goes along with Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

That’s not my favorite phrasing, because it assumes that the problem is with the subject, but in my experience, you’ll almost always find a manager nearby who actaully is incompetent. Most employees are not empowered enough (or safe enough) to really push back against even the most terrible ideas.

So I prefer to say, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by uncertainty or poor management”. Sometimes I’ll add on my standard exception: “(except in the case of marketing, where it’s safe to assume that it’s always malicious)”. But it’s not quite as tight and catchy.

2. Do they have the skills or knowledge needed?

If they do know that it’s assigned but are still not succeeding, this is my next assumption.

I have observed that teams are uniformly afraid of seeking help from anyone outside their immediate team boundaries:

  • Even when there’s experts sitting two rooms away
  • Even if it would save them a week
  • Even if it would dramatically improve the feature they’re building

This is a huge problem in incident response and it’s the reason my company now auto-escalates for large incidents.

Don’t assume that this is going to get fixed by some online tutorial system or dead-trees book, the underlying challenge is more likely about self-confidence.

Some things you can try:

  • (Get meta) Follow the manager checklist and ask them questions about why they aren’t asking an expert!
  • Find the expert and schedule a coffee walk so they know the person better
  • Set up a meeting where you can ask questions and they can observe you not knowing the answer and still asking a stranger

3. Are they blocked by something?

There are a few legitimate cases where the team is actually blocked by something. It could be resourcing, process BS, organizational scar tissue, or a thousand other things. But this is often the easiest to resolve for us directly, but it’s both rare and it’s often an opportunity for the team to learn, so you probably shouldn’t.

Here are the things I try:

  • Ask what prevents them from resolving the problem?
    • There are legitimate things like resourcing that may not be something they can handle, but I’m frequently surprised at how crafty EMs and Directors can get when they’re empowered!
  • Ask what prevents them from bypassing the problem?
    • We can usually give/obtain permission, but it would be better if they asked us for a :+1: and asked on their own.

4. Do they not want to do it? And do they know the ramifications of not doing it?

My boss at the time was careful to make sure I knew that if this turned out to be the answer, it was no longer something he wanted me to solve on my own. So I’ll suggest the same, if you get to this point, ask your boss.

If you are the top boss, it’s time to talk to HR and start collecting evidence for a dismissal. It sucks, but it’s usually better than the alternative of them sticking around forever.