On Management

Managing people is EASY.

The goal of a manager is to get things done with quality, speed and reliability, through other people.

You only have to remember to do 1 thing.

Do what your team members, fellow managers and everyone else doesn't want to do, so they can do the things that they want to do. (And in that order - team members come first.)

If your team, say, team of developers, hate meetings, go to the meetings for them, and lend them your voice.

If the team don't have time for necessities like meals, expenses claiming, do it for them. Make life easy for other people.

Mess up the order and it's no longer management. You will find yourself slave-driving or just struggling with everything against you and nobody on your side.

There's a lot of emphasis on communication skills and other stuff, but that's all built on strong relationships.

Looking into the future, I wonder if automation could rapidly bring down the costs of management.