A good manager is a lazy manager

Have you ever observed how the project manager has been constantly engaged in fire fighting from the very beginning, completely immersed in the fight against urgent problems, the pace of which exceeds the speed of their solution. All the tasks that the project team receives have the highest priority and urgency: “This should have been done yesterday!” Labor heroism. Permanent overtime. Subbotniki. Avraly. Training, analysis, planning, designing, testing, refactoring - “this is all then!”.

Is that familiar?

“A well-run company is a peaceful place. But "the factory, which is distinguished by" vigorous "activity and" labor heroism "of workers, which catches the eye of any visitor, is actually poorly managed," wrote Peter Ferdinand Drucker , managerial authority.

The problem with most software development projects is not that people work a little, but that they are not doing the work that needs to be done. A good manager should be guided by the fundamental principle of least action and therefore be lazy. And he will succeed. Why?

Because he…

Has its own goals

To complete the project on time, in the budget and with the required quality is not the goal, this is work. Work work lazy manager laziness. He usually has personal goals. They can be material - increase in salary or position. It can be ideal - to learn new things, to do something that no one has done before, or, finally, to make all of humanity happy. But they are.

And most importantly, for him these goals are so significant that they allow him to remain persistent in their achievement from the beginning to the end of the project.

Manages Priorities

A lazy manager has only two types of work. The first type is important and urgent: critical situations, problems, burning deadlines. The second type is important and not urgent: planning, risk analysis, search for opportunities, building relationships, development, recovery. The important ones are only those without which goals cannot be achieved. All other work, even if they are urgent to him is not important. Like Michelangelo, he cuts off all activities that can be dispensed with and achieved the goal from a snowball of design work.

In each project, problems and critical situations occur that have the highest priority, which must be resolved right now. And this is hard work. But if you deal only with them, then it is highly likely that you never get to the point of important, but not urgent. Therefore, the lazy manager is ahead of the curve. Every day, it allocates a quantum of time for fire fighting and, of course, a quantum - for important, but not urgent matters. Anticipating problems, it gradually reduces the flow of burning tasks, which allows it to focus mainly on work ahead of the curve.

Delegates

Micromanagement is definitely not for him. The lazy manager does not like to work, so he delegates everything that he can delegate. Delegates authority, but not responsibility for achieving goals. If Vasya screwed up, then - “I’m a fool myself, that I entrusted him with this assignment,” the lazy manager will conclude. Delegation is not possible without mutual trust. The one to whom the leadership has been delegated becomes his own boss, guided by his own conscience in the direction of achieving the agreed desired results. Trust requires time and patience, the need to educate and develop people so that their abilities can match this trust. But having made these one-time investments in human capital, we will then be able to receive dividends for a long time.

Sharpening a saw

You can, of course, cut firewood with a blunt saw, but lazily. Therefore, a lazy manager constantly observes and evaluates the effectiveness of all project processes: “what are we doing superfluous?”, “What can be done easier?”, “What threatens the project?”. It works to reduce unnecessary efforts instead of striving for new heroic victories. It identifies bottlenecks and applies corrective actions where processes begin to stall or the risks are too great.

Builds relationships

The lazy manager is rather kind than evil. It is troublesome to be evil ... A

lazy manager tries to accept people as they are, respects their right to their own opinion and to make mistakes. He selects a team of people who are most relevant to the goals of the project. For each fighter, he is looking for the most suitable task for him. Patiently works with each member of the project team, helping his development, protecting him from external and internal shocks, in order to maximize his individual abilities, increase his contribution to the common cause.

But this does not mean that it is impossible to piss him off. Will bark so that it does not seem a little. Or just fire nafig. Only for this it is necessary to do, much more effort, in comparison with the workaholic manager.

"What goes around comes around". Neglect of people will only give rise to neglect. Having invested in people a part of your soul, you get a hundredfold.

Bill Gates said:

I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because he will find an easy way to do it .

Something like this…