[KeepTalking]

The most interesting aspect of this playbook IMO is the cartoon. Using 1-1 to bring up promotions.

When employees ask for promotions:

good managers know how to harness this ask with clear, manageable, attainable goal setting and delivering on the promise. Most employees are also not beyond solid transparent reasoning. Average managers get into a defensive mode

If anything good managers are like high-performance coaches, they understand your motivations and channel your energy. The reality is most companies promote people into management roles by picking people like them.

As a counter test, watch out to see if a newly promoted manager starts talking and acting (in subtle nonconscious ways) like their manager or the real power in the organization. Examples include - Working hours, decision making, predictable agreeability and even hobbies etc.

[ashtonkem]

As a manager, it’s your job to grow your directs until they’re ready for a promotion. It’s also your job to make sure that they want whatever that promotion entails. Typically speaking the crossover from IC to management is a pretty common trouble point for engineers, and you should make sure that nobody gets put into management who doesn’t want to go there. You’d also be surprised about the number of engineers that are actually interested in leadership too, fwiw.

As a manager myself, I actually keep a private sheet of the internal career ladder and progress for each of my directs, with notes and an unambiguous “meets expectations, exceeds expectations, or needs improvement” across each category that company has set for their role. This helps me keep my feedback to them consistent, clear, and focused.