Management Reading Notes 2020

You tell your boss how to build a company for the long haul, and he tells your boss he can mortgage the next 100 years of profit and then sell it off.

Whose advice do you think the boss follows?

Obviously, selling the equity lets him start another company. This is how a boss views a business.

The same logic applies from an employee's perspective. They're just there to work; all they care about is what they get out of it.

No matter how well the company performs, if they don't get equity or a raise, and then get thrown out when they're too old to be useful, what does that success have to do with them?

Conversely, even if the company is failing, as long as they secure their short-term interests—like a shiny addition to their resume or a fat bonus—they can move on. Their阶段性 goal here has been achieved.

Once you understand both sides' motivations, look back at management. What exactly is management?

As a manager, you need to keep both sides satisfied. If you only please the top, your team runs away, and without people, where's your power? If you only please your subordinates, the top finds a replacement, and you can't even keep your seat, let alone wield power.

Therefore, deceiving both above and below is inevitable—it's in your interest, and it's all you can do.

For a manager, the most important thing isn't getting things done; it's expanding the number of people under your control, which is often called consolidating power. That is your top priority.

It's not hard for a manager overseeing a team of 300 to manage seven more people. But for someone who manages seven, how do they handle a team of 300?

This is why I say that every manager's ultimate goal is to grow their headcount, not necessarily to accomplish actual work.

The more people you have, the more secure your position in the company becomes. Whether things actually get done is someone else's problem.

Management generally boils down to a few strategies.

First, dangle carrots.

Dangle carrots for the boss so you can secure more headcount and hire more people under you.

Dangle carrots for your team so you can motivate them to do more with limited resources.

Second, create imbalance.

We've all learned that people worry less about scarcity and more about inequality. But in the workplace, you have to do the opposite.

In the corporate world, what you need to create is precisely that inequality.