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skeeter2020today at 6:58 PM1 replyview on HN

Three buckets of "management":

1. Mentoring: "this is what I did in a similar situation..." - overused and often not as similar or detailed as needed.

2. Coaching: "what do you think?" valuable for longer term development that depends on deeper thought and introspection; Your immediate problems a generally neither of these.

3. Sponsoring: "You mentioned you're looking for X and I heard about a new project where you could learn... want me to connect you?" under-used by managers, super valuable but harder to scale & can be hit/miss.

What your ICs actually need a lot of the time: "solve this problem for me." Most managers can't do this, which is why they became managers. The good ones combine their own skills with 1-3 above to unblock and DON'T push it back on the requestor.


Replies

jvanderbottoday at 8:33 PM

"Can't" is not why people become managers.

At least be thoughtful and say "Won't" (because they prefer management)

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