Hire Smart People and Get Out of Their Way
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Sometimes the most straightforward advice is the most valuable. In one sentence, Steve Jobs clarified one of the most useful qualities required to lead a company. In my own professional life, I’ve seen bad managers, good managers and great managers. One thing I can say about the ones that moved from good to great — they got out of the way.
I try to be my own ideal manager. I also know I fail at that on most days. One of the hardest things is being a good leader in the tough times. And, as with most hard things, there are very few real articles on how to be a great leader in those tough times.
Being a Good Leader
Being a good leader when circumstances are stable is easy. Being a good leader when things are hard, you’re exhausted, and (sometimes) when you don’t know what the hell to do is infinitely harder. One typical response to stress and exhaustion is to micro-manage. I’ve seen it over and over again, and have fallen into that trap at least a few times myself.
Compounding that, when you are at a startup, it is all too easy to go to a team and start providing ideas, making slight movements to the direction to find the path that leads to short-term gains. The dreaded reprioritisation. However, when I look back, many of those “helpful nudges” simply stymied progress. While this won’t sound unique, I’ve learned the hard way that it is more about providing the end goal and letting your team do what they do best. It is something I always valued from my managers, and it is something I have committed myself to do.
Provide the Goal, Not the Directions
There is plenty of information on how a leader should provide a vision and give direction. It is true but often lacks a real-world feel to it. What does it mean to provide vision? In my view, it means providing the end goal, giving a purpose to that goal, and helping others to excel in there jobs in achieving it. Here is a bad example of a simple goal:
We want to a new system to perform with X% accuracy, save X% of an analysts time. We can then talk about potential ways to tackle the problem, where we are willing to make tradeoffs between development time and performance, and a bevvy of other assumptions.
Alternatively, I could tell them that we are trying to answer a question or solve a specific pain point. I.e., give them a goal with a purpose.
We need to develop a quantitative tool to help our clients understand the risk that U.S. equities face from major media events. Ideally, I would put them in front of the client and have them ask the questions. If that’s not possible I should give them as much domain knowledge as I can.
I should see myself as an indirect guide rather than as a director of specific activities. The goal is to give them as much information as necessary to make the best decisions without my input in the future. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to let them ask the questions and make the decisions in the first place.
Wait, There’s a Problem
Two weeks later, they have some issues. We’re not able to get accuracy as high as we want, we’re not progressing as fast as we thought. Here are only two ways to approach this from a leadership perspective:
- Get directly involved, tell people precisely what algorithms to use and what adjustments to make and re-orient the project.
- Talk to them about the assumptions and the difficulties they are having. Can the assumptions be adjusted? Have they tried another option? Did we ask the right question? Do we have the proper domain knowledge?
The first is much more comfortable in the short term (assuming you know what to do), the second will not only help them grow and develop, but it is also likely to lead to a better outcome. Do you know more than they do? They have been working on this problem for weeks, and you’ve merely poked your head in.
Good leadership in this situation means reviewing or adjusting the goals based on evidence, providing some ideas from a fresh perspective, and letting them choose what to do from there. Leadership in traditional companies often means acting like you always know what you are doing. Real leadership means admitting that you don’t always know what you are doing and empowering others to find out.
A Real Life Example
I’ll show you a video of my daughter Nia. She decided to climb on top of her chair for whatever reason. I can’t communicate that well with her (she’s seven months old), but the goal for her is clear — to learn!
I could jump in and say she might get hurt, or that there isn’t any real benefit of precariously trying to jump off of the chair, but I think she’ll figure out the best thing for her at the end of the day. A few falls can’t hurt.
Hiring the Right People
If that is how I want to lead, how should I hire? This one is easy. Hire people that are better at their job than you are. Barring that you should hire people that, given a chance, could excel at that new role. If you hire people that are inexperienced (which can often be very rewarding), recognise that you will need to provide guidance and mentorship to those people.
While I have often heard managers declare this to be their intent, it is rarely what their actions show in practice.
Reflect on the Past
If your a leader or manager at a company, think back to the last time you had a product meeting with your team.
- How did you act?
- Did you merely provide the goal? Or did you give a purpose and guidance towards that goal?
- Did you work with them to adjust that goal if the assumptions were unreasonable or wrong?
- Did you get out in their way?
While the attributes of a good leader are visible, leadership is far from easy. It is about throwing away your ego, being self-reflective every day, and striving to be someone that you would want to work for. If you assume you are good at it, then you probably aren’t.
