Matchmaker, matchmaker: how to spot a good manager before you accept the job

1:1s shouldn't feel like a rollercoaster ride. And not just principles and abstractions – what do I specifically look for?

Great question, also-Pete! As the saying goes, judge a manager based on how they handle the hard stuff, not how they handle the easy stuff. Most often, this means looking at how a manager acts when there's an "issue".

Concretely, here's how a good manager approaches an issue / giving feedback. The first thing to look for is what they define as the "issue": do they dig deep enough to define their need instead of doubling down on their expectation?

I'm going to take a quick step back here: we need to define what I mean when I say "need" vs "expectation". Think of needs as the core of what a person requires. This can be an emotional need or a logistical need, but the idea is that there is a clear justification for this need. Expectations, in contrast, are needs masked by time. They're habituated needs. Expectations are created when needs are met in one particular way over and over, leading someone to expect "this need must be met this way".

As a very tangible, if contrived, example: Jeff is hungry. Every day, Jeff's father makes them a PB&J. Jeff's need is hunger: Jeff needs food. Jeff's expectation is that they'll be eating PB&J to meet the need of hunger. When Jeff's father serves them baked ziti for a change, Jeff's expectations are not met. So Jeff cries. In this context, Jeff is 6 years old. In 35-year-old Jeff, the frustration may not be expressed through tears, but if Jeff's a bad manager, they will still conflate "My team needs to support their clients" with "My team needs to respond within 30 minutes to every email."

In reality:

• The expectation is "My team needs to respond within 30 minutes to every email"
• The need is "My team needs to support their clients"

The question a good manager will ask themselves is: Does my team need to respond within 30 minutes to every email in order to support their clients?

Here's how answering that question can look.

They'll identify what their need is at the most basic level. Instead of the expectation "I expect you to respond to clients within 30 minutes" they see the need "I need to have signal that you are supporting your clients".

They'll describe the circumstance where they observed what they interpreted as not meeting their need. Instead of "You didn't respond to PetSmart's urgent request for 6 hours", it could be "PetSmart wrote in at 10am with an urgent ask for more wholesale crickets for their gecko customers. They followed up at noon, and I saw your response come through at 4pm."

They'll work with you to meet both of your needs. Here, they should tell you what outcome would have met their need and ask you what you would need to be able to make that happen: "Given the urgency expressed by the client, we'd ideally get back to them within a few business hours. Was there anything that blocked you from being able to respond sooner? I want to make sure I have an understanding of the context you were working in."

Lastly, a possible way to make the situation better for you both: you both get your needs met. And this should be paired with validation that the proposed solution works for you, too: "Okay, cool – let me work on getting some of the more procedural stuff off your plate so you're able to tackle the urgent asks sooner. Always feel free to shoot me a message if you need an assist. Does that sound good on your end?"

This path allows space for you to tell Jeff that in fact you are supporting your clients in a way Jeff might not have visibility into – by not presuming fault, Jeff keeps the door open for a better understanding on their end. Maybe you had a phone call with another contact at PetSmart. Now the ask is for you to make that clear in your response, so everyone on the thread is aware.

Wow, examples of good management in corporate contexts are thrilling. And if it turns out the clients are not being supported as needed, y'all are coming at the problem together. This makes for a wildly better experience on both ends. Just like at Six Flags: more compassion, more fun!

At the core, I want you to take away this: good managers are considerate and work with you to resolve a problem. Bad managers do not.

Want to be the best manager you can for your team? Head over to my guide for making managing manageable (for you, and your team).

Let's make work suck less.