I was recently asked by a new connection on linked in, “What are you selling?” My gut response was, “nothing”. I still struggle to see myself as a sales person. But I am cold connecting with people on LinkedIn, I have a paid substack and coaching, so of course I am selling something. But what is it?
I’ve gone through many iterations of my thinking on what you need to make the shift from individual contributor to manager. As I think about this problem more and more I have come to the conclusion that there are 3 shifts that need to happen for a person who is moving into management.
A shift in your skill set
A shift in your mindset
A shift in your systems
I believe I as and industry we rarely talk about 2 & 3. There are a dozen books talking about 1. I call them the “bag of tricks” books. They tell you how to do the different functions of the job but they don’t tell you about how to find fulfillment and joy in the job. I write about this in the biggest h’urdle article.
I also don’t feel like they give a framework for how to approach the job. It can be almost overwhelming to jump into one of those books. If you sit down and read a book like “Managing the Unmanageable” as a new manager you will get 1000s of ideas and areas to improve but will be unable to answer the question “what should you focus on first”?
Lets dive into the three shifts:
Skill Set
The tactical hard skills to be a manager are actually pretty easy. Keeping on top of email, running meetings, managing your own calendar and doing the needful HR paperwork. Obviously the hard skills you bring as a developer are very useful as a manager, you just don’t use them directly that much unless you retain some contributor roles.
The big skillset shift is from hard skills to soft skills. The problem with soft skills is that you cant learn them alone. Lots of us were drawn to programming because we were able to focus and learn for long stretches of time. We had the patience to hammer away at problems till they were understood. Soft skills cant be learned that way. They require a small amount of work spread out over time.
You also may only get short opportunities on occasion to work on skills. For example, if you wanted to work on conflict resolution you would only get an occasional opportunity to practice. Maybe your org provides ample opportunity but lets hope not.
There are lots of good resources on the topic of soft skills. One of my favorites is Small Things Done Well by Michael Lopp.
Mindset
Software development is a dopamine driven activity. Creative endeavors are all dopamine driven. There is a certain high you get from completing a task and seeing the results. This is such a great feeling. Its what keeps a lot of us going.
Once you move into management you loose this. You start to feel like you did nothing all day.
As a developer your goal was to shorten the feedback loop. This feeds back into the dopamine loop. The better you get at development the shorter the feedback loops and the more dopamine you are pumping into your brain.
The better you get at leadership the longer your feedback loops become. You start to make decisions that you wont have the answer to for months or even years. By the time the answer is there you hardly remember making the decision.
I think this is one of the hardest things to hit developers when they make the jump to management. You have to have a plan for how you are going to shift your mindset once you become a manager.
Systems
Every developer has their own systems. Systems are a combination of tools and practices that you have put together to solve problems. These systems are built much like a software system. You learn from mistakes and a little bug fix goes in here and there and at the end you have a system, or a set of systems for software development.
For example if there is a production issue you have a system that gets engaged. You check the error, you check to see if something has been recently released, you check for config changes, and so on.
Your skill as a developer is in your collection of systems you have developed. Often times they are intuitive and unwritten but sometimes you have to articulate them so you can train others to develop good systems.
I think there are some clear systems that can be developed for management that will make the transition much easier. Systems are extremely important in management because if you don’t have proper systems you can spend a lot of time doing low value work.
Start with Why
I’m my course I talk about developing a rock solid life mission. You have to see that management is on the path to achieving that mission. If it is you will have the vision and the purpose to make the 3 shifts.
A shift in skillset will give you the tools you need to do the job.
A shift in mentality will help you find joy and fulfillment in the job.
A shift in systems will help you become lethally effective.
I think management is a blast when you know what you are doing, find joy in your job and are incredibly effective. It just takes a willingness and awareness to make the 3 shifts.