I have no aspirations to become a manager at either job I presently work at. I would, however, like to become a team leader, or the closest thing my primary job has to one. And so it was with this in mind that I tackled the fourth book I read from the Humble Win At Work Bundle (The link is to the Humble Bundle homepage; the specific bundle is no longer available), Managing for People Who Hate Managing by Devora Zack.
The first thing to note is Zack’s writing style, which is rather heavy on humorous asides and jokes and the like. I found this welcome, as it kept me reading through a book that (Like a lot of “self-improvement” books, if I’m being honest, this one being the worst example I’ve read) was probably longer than it really had to be, even at a scant 176 pages for the Kindle Edition.
As for the book’s goal, it begins by discussing various reasons why people hate managing (Chief among them is that managers can feel like they’re not tangibly adding results to the group. It also changes the relationship between co-workers.). It then goes on to essentially divide people into two groups along a spectrum: Thinker versus Feeler, and discuss how the two groups use language, how they treat their jobs, etc.
One thing I was shocked to discover was that, according to the (Admittedly brief, and maybe not very scientific) test early in the book, I’m actually slightly on the Feeler side of the Thinker/Feeler spectrum. The book has a couple other exercises that I actually tried to do this time around–one gets into how males and females are perceived as managers based on whether they’re thinkers or feelers, another asks you to think of the best manager you had and their traits, and a third makes the point that positive people are better to be around for various reasons.
The book’s main point is that being a good manager involves deducing whether your reports are thinkers or feelers, and tailoring your language to suit their style. The two approach things very differently, to the point that it can feel like they speak different languages. One exercise that Zack had two teams do involved (One of “thinkers”, one of “feelers”) writing down how they would fire somebody. The feelers were, by and large, more concerned with the feelings of the person being fired, while the thinkers were more concerned with discussing procedure (severance, etc). While the thinkers were reading out their results, one of the feelers stood up and said roughly “That’s ridiculous! How would YOU like to be fired like that?!”. To which the thinker replied “What do you mean? this is exactly how I’d want to be fired.”
I think this point is the most useful one in the book, even if you don’t have managerial aspirations. Even if you stop and do the exercises in it, the book is a quick read, and Zack’s writing style makes it pleasant to go through. I’d recommend it to anyone who has to lead a team of any kind, regardless of if they’re officially a “manager” or not.
-EE
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