As a manager, your responsibility is to manage other people. At least, that's what we understand about management. But it's much more complicated than that for the successful manager. That's what we're talking about on today's episode of Developer Tea. This is a continuation of our ongoing series, The Model Manager. And in this episode, we're talking about what exactly is it? We're responsible for managing. It's easy to believe that our goal as a manager is to relay some kind of information, to provide some kind of specific feedback and to tell people, essentially, what to do. Sure, we can answer questions, we can provide information. But the ultimate reason that we have the title manager is because we're managing something. We like to fill in the blank of that something with managing the actions of other people. But this misses the mark in so many ways. The most obvious error of this for anyone who spends any time thinking about psychology and behavior is that no one person can control the actions of another person. We can influence those actions, but ultimately, control of another person's actions is very unlikely. Not only is it unlikely, but doing so in such a way that is beneficial for both the person who is trying to impose the control and the person who is being a kind of victim of that imposition. The likelihood of that happening is extremely low. Most of the time, that kind of relationship puts strain on actually both sides. So if our job is not to manage people's decisions, not to tell them what to do, basically, what is it? What are we managing exactly? We're going to break this up into two thinking models for what it is we should be managing. Just let's talk about what we have control over. Generally speaking, and of course, this could get deep into philosophy. We're not going to do that on this episode. But generally speaking, we have control over ourselves and we have some control over the world around us. But we don't really have control over the people around us, the other people who have agency, we don't really control that. And we don't control random factors. So the kind of opportunity for management must be in the realm of things that we have control over. Of course, the things that we have control over can also influence some of the things that we don't have direct control over. But we can't focus entirely on those influenced outcomes because once again, that's not what we have direct control over. So we'll start with what seems like the most obvious answer. But it turns out it's very often overlooked. And that is, we are responsible for managing ourselves. We are responsible for managing ourselves. It's become almost a meme at this point that the job of the software engineer, the job of the modern knowledge worker in general is to always be learning. To always be adding to our understanding, our context of the world around us as it relates to the job that we do. And so if our job is to be continuous learners, then it makes sense for us to recognize what exactly is proof of that learning. One of the most salient clues that learning is likely taking place in your life is that something is changing. It's very possible, and many managers do this to fall under the illusion of learning. The illusion of learning is the idea that as you go through your career, you continue to memorize or encounter information and you assimilate it into your existing belief systems. Now that doesn't mean that every learning opportunity that you have has to have some revolutionary effects on your beliefs. But if you're never updating your belief systems, then what you're doing with that information is either selective filtering at the top level or you are adapting that information in some way, you're transforming it to fit your existing beliefs. And therefore you're not really learning the information, you're changing it. And so a sign of a manager who is doing a good job of managing themselves by engaging in constant learning, one of the byproducts of this is change. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back and talk about the other side of the coin. Of course, we should be managing ourselves, but how do we do our job of managing a team? We're going to talk about that right after we talk about today's sponsor, Command Line Heroes. Season 7 of Command Line Heroes is available now wherever you listen to podcasts. In Season 7, our host, Serrani Barak, takes us back to a pivotal year for many of our careers that year happens to be 1995. In this year, a ton of things happened that had lasting impacts on our careers. Back then, for example, you couldn't just hop on GoDaddy to grab a domain name and start your company. There was a woman that you would have to call and quite literally they would manage who owns what domain on paper. 1995 was also the year that ISP became the dominant gateway to the information superhighway, but how exactly did that even happen? On Season 7 of Command Line Heroes, you'll take a journey back to 1995. Along the way, you're probably going to learn a little bit about Batman Forever. It has a critical role in the birth of the internet. Command Line Heroes is available on any podcast provider you use. I've already mentioned it, but I recommend you start with the episode talking about domain names. This is such an interesting picture of how these things that we come to rely on and just kind of assume are going to work, how they really get started at a ground level. So definitely check out that episode and the rest of Season 7. My huge thanks to Command Line Heroes for their support of Developer Tea. So we talked a bit about managing yourself. Of course this is one of the only things that you actually have control over for the most part and managing yourself comes in the form of learning and ultimately changing. You consolidate information and you update the way that you act in response to those new pieces of information, those new facts that you learn. But how do we manage teams? We can't force other people to learn. We certainly can't force other people to change. It's easy to try to resort to creating rules, creating guidelines, creating some kind of standards and using only those tools in order to manage. Now there's certainly a place for developing a shared standard amongst a team. And there certainly is a place for having behavioral guidelines in an organization. So then people have some kind of clear boundaries that are set for them. Not every organization is going to have the same boundaries, which is why it makes sense to make those explicit. But this is not what management is really about. If all you're doing is creating those rules and boundaries, then you're not really taking advantage of the most important aspects of what it means to be a human. If all you're doing is creating boxes for people to fit in, then you probably would be better off relying on machines to do those same jobs. Instead, our job as managers is to manage the environment. We've talked about this on this podcast before. We will probably talk about it again. And I've talked about it with other engineers, other managers who have actually used the same exact metaphor, the same model of thinking, being a good manager means cultivating the space, cultivating the mindsets, cultivating the environment that your team is working in. Being a manager is much less like being a political leader and much more like being a gardener. For example, by creating an environment where people celebrate high quality software, where people celebrate testing, by creating an environment where failure is tolerated and learning is the status quo, where excellence is normal, not an anomaly, the people who work in that environment will work to those standards. This isn't a bulletproof solution. This isn't just a roundabout way to impose your control on people. Instead, you have to truly care about giving people the autonomy, the space, the tools, resources that they need to reach their actual potential. Your goal is not to change people. It's to give them what they need to make the changes they want to make. Thank you so much again for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. I think you again to today's sponsor, Command Line Heroes. Season 7 is out with host Serrani Barak talking about how the web was born. The dot com boom starting back in 1995. That is the year that you'll be visiting throughout season 7 of Command Line Heroes. You can find that podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Starting off places you listen to podcasts while you're at it, please leave a review and rating for this show. I'm sure you've heard that a billion times on podcasts, even on this one many times in the past. It really is the best way to help us out, to help us reach other engineers. Your rating, your review, is a much stronger data point, a much more reliable data point than if I just go out and try to market this thing myself. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for leaving ratings and reviews. Thank you for sharing this show with your friends. And until next time, enjoy your tea.