book written from a manager POV

1. Bosses guide a team to achieve results
   • guidance: feedback
   • team-building: figuring out right people for right roles – hiring, firing, promoting
   • results: get things done
2. Manager “Personally cares” & “Challenges team”
3. Maintain personal relationship to show you care
4. Bring your whole self to work
5. Model by showing vulnerability to people who report to you
6. Good working relationship is a personal one
7. Challenge employees to meet and exceed expectations
8. People who care actually challenge
9. If performance is deteriorating, and manager refuses to be critical, then you are hurting the business too
10. Provide guidance and criticism while coming across as useful and helpful
11. Direct and honest doesn’t mean being mean and aggressive
12. Show humility when giving and receiving feedback
13. Even with overall success, complement and help improve
14. Don’t wait to provide feedback
15. Praise in public, criticize in private
16. Formal performance reviews
    • no surprises
    • don’t rely on your unilateral judgement
    • write it down
    • schedule at least 50min, and don’t do back-to-back
    • spend half time looking back, and half time looking forward
17. Avoid manipulative insincerity – stems from manager being lazy, don’t care and not challenging
18. Ruinous empathy – avoids conflict in the misplaced fear of hurting feelings
19. In a perfect world – job would be fulfilling for which employees have passion, but in reality, jobs can be tedious
20. Job with meaning and a noble purpose can inspire, but it’s not the job of the manager to create or manufacture the meaning and purpose
21. Some jobs have only one reward – pay bills, solving employees’ existential dilemmas is not manager job
22. Being radically candid means no sugar coating
23. Rock Star
    • steady growth
    • steadier presence and will be great if given stability and time
24. Super Star
    • steep growth
    • need to be challenged and permitted to grow quickly
    • figure out who’ll replace them when they move on
    • need mentorship
25. Need both rock stars & super stars
26. 
27. In order to distinguish between the two, must let go of any bias in favor of ambition
28. Keep raising the bar, there is no B-player
29. When assessing pas performance, it’s useful to consider both their results and more intangible things like “teamwork”
30. Being fired is not boss’s choice
31. Ensure employees are aware when someone is let go, a manager will need to keep the existing employee trust
32. Fire for the right reasons
    • make every effort to improve performance
    • consider effect of bad employee on overall team
    • ask for outside opinion if needed
33. Common lies managers tell themselves to avoid firing someone that needs to be fired
    • it will get better
    • somebody is better than nobody
    • transfer is the answer
    • it’s bad for morale
34. Collaborative leadership
    • don’t tell employees what to do, bossing around is bad way to lead
    • team should be able to speak-up
    • listen to what people what to say, make it safe to speak minds
    • give team time and space to develop ideas
    • allow for healthy debate
    • communicate the idea up the chain and then execute on it
35. 
36. Two kinds of listening; practice what’s your personality
37. Create a culture of listening
38. Quite listening
    • if you want honest opinions, then do this, don’t disturb
39. Loud listening
    • for leaders who are confrontational
    • make a strong statement and push people to do the same
    • shy employees will be drawn out of the shell
    • respond positively so they continue to speak-up
40. Clarify
    • be clear in your own mind – create a safe space to nurture ideas
    • be clear to others
41. Debate
    • keep conversations focused on ideas and not egos
    • create a obligation to dissent
    • use humor and fun
    • don’t grab a decision since debate became painful
42. Decide
    • you are not the decider, people with best information should be
43. Persuade
    • demonstrate expertise and humility
    • show your work
44. Execute
    • as the boss, part of your job is to take on a lot of the “collaboration tax” so team can spend time on execution
    • don’t waste team time
    • stay connected with the work, keep dirt under your fingernails
45. Incentives drive behavior – managers should support dreams in realistic fashion
46. Personally talk what aspirations are
47. To understand dreams/aspirations, use of the 3 techniques
48. Life story conversation – employee tells everything until today and manager tries to find motivation
49. Dream job conversation – employee describes what’s the biggest career goal, then work backwards
50. 18mo plan – look at immediate goal and do everything to stay on track
51. Emphasize caring, listening, understanding and healthy debate to empower employees to make decisions
52. Explain reasons behind directions
53. Build a team that looks forward to coming to work

there are many good books on leadership and management and remembering an entire book is not possible. for each book I read, I make notes (cheat sheet) and catalog them here. not an editorial / opinion piece, but bullet point list of what’s in the book