My daughter had started a new school this year, one which requires her to leave home much earlier in the morning. She also depends on the bus or parents’ carpool to get there, which means the deadline is not only earlier but also much stricter. Mornings with 3 kids are never easy regardless of this new constraint, so no wonder it added a lot of pressure on everyone.

Arik and I have very different approaches to managing the morning routine. Arik is all about the outcome. When he gets up, he immediately starts working and fiercely manages our daughters’ prep. It includes constantly reminding them what they need to do next and making sure they actually do it. He does not tolerate dealing with anything else until everyone is ready, even if it means raising his voice. 

I, on the other hand, take it more loosely. I understand that they need some cuddling in the morning, and I expect them to manage their time and be ready when needed without my constant reminders. I do it for two reasons: the first is that I want to train my daughters to be responsible and self-manage, and the second is that I like the warm, relaxed atmosphere. I don’t want to add pressure if it’s unnecessary. 

Up until this year, when there was no strict deadline, my approach worked well for me. Yes, it meant compromising the results sometimes (which means my daughters were a few minutes late to school), but that’s also part of letting them own it and learn how to self-manage. Now, with the dependency on the bus and/or carpool, the consequences of leaving home a few minutes late are much more severe. These few minutes could mean missing the bus and being 30 minutes late to school, or delaying the other kids on the carpool which is unfair and impacts my relationship with the other parents and not just my daughter’s school timeline. My approach no longer works in our new situation, because the trade-offs have changed.

If I’m taking these two approaches to the workplace, they are equivalent to two different management styles. Arik’s translates into a more strict and result-oriented, and mine is more about empowering my employees and developing their skills so that they can eventually perform at a higher level.

In the tech industry, generally speaking, the latter is perceived as a better management style. We manage smart people, and their success is not as trivial as working with the checklist of putting your clothes on and brushing your teeth. That’s why, by the way, Arik’s management style at work isn’t like the one he employs at home in the mornings and resembles mine much more. 

If you, like me, want to be an empowering manager, there are two pitfalls you need to be aware of and avoid. As always, it’s about balance and the thin lines make a difference. Here is what you should look into.

Pitfall #1: Not Managing at All

Managing talented and capable people is a treat. They take the load off of you, they feel like true partners, and they help you sleep better at night. When we are recruiting, we do our best to find those people and make them the best offer so that they will choose us. But that’s not the end of the story, that’s just the beginning.

I’ve heard so many times from managers that they were able to bring in good, experienced, people, and that now all these great people need is that we simply let them do their work and interfere as least as possible. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

Think about yourself. I don’t know how you feel about your manager, maybe you feel that they give you too little freedom and intervene too much. Maybe they are even micromanagers in some cases. But would you want them to disappear altogether? Probably not.

Managing yourself without any guidance from your manager is really hard. It’s true even if you are completely independent, but it’s even harder when you’re not. And regardless of how empowered your teams are, they still need guidance. They live in the context of the larger company, its goals, and its constraints. 

Marty Cagan’s Empowered introduced the concept of empowered teams. But it also puts so much emphasis on active coaching by the manager. And coaching is never ending, it’s not that at some point your people no longer need it and then you can finally go back to doing your own work and not worrying about them.

Managing people is a profession and your job as a manager. Back to Marty, in his Coach the Coaches session back in May, he addressed this as one of the mistakes managers make: thinking that empowered teams mean that you as the manager cannot give guidance. It’s the exact opposite. In order for a team to be able to work independently, they need to get clear goals and expectations from management. It is your responsibility to make sure these goals are well defined, communicated, and understood by everyone in the company. It is also your responsibility to help them reach their goals.

That means that as a manager, applying the empowerment concept means that you need to be involved. You need to give the context and goals and make sure they are well understood. You need to understand how they are planning to achieve those goals, and share your thoughts on whether or not you think it’s a good plan. You need to know if they are making progress and be extremely transparent when you see that the results are not good enough. You need to ask them if they think are going to make it, and if they need help. Don’t wait for them to reach out – that would mean you had taken too many steps back.

Pitfall #2: Making Unanimous Decisions

Isn’t it lovely when everyone agrees on the right thing to do? We all live in peace and harmony, the collaboration is in the air, and everyone is happy. If only it was that simple. Some unanimous decisions are easily made. In these situations, it’s great to make the mere fact that the decision was made unanimously a goal in and of itself. It usually means that everyone agrees on the right solution, and everyone is engaged and on board with the decision. It’s really great.

But most decisions aren’t made easily. Especially not the big ones, which are by definition hard decisions to make. When the answer is clear you almost don’t need a manager or even people to be involved – the decision makes itself. It’s the hard decisions that are a real challenge, and unfortunately, these are most of the decisions that you and your team will need to make. There is so much built-in uncertainty in product management, and the higher up you go, the more uncertainty you encounter. 

Striving for a unanimous decision in these cases is risky for two reasons. One is that the decision-making process itself takes time and you don’t always have the time. If you know what the right decision is, but still want to let the team get to it themselves and get everyone to agree, make sure you take into consideration the trade-offs. In some cases, it would still be the right thing to do, but you want to do so knowingly and not because you think a great manager lets their team always decide. A great manager must be able to make bold decisions. And a great team must be able to accept decisions that they don’t agree with. ‘Disagree and commit’ is an important operating principle for the best teams out there.

The other problem with unanimous decisions is that sometimes they are not the right decisions. Getting everyone happy sometimes means that you are making a compromise that you were not necessarily willing to make. It means that you are avoiding the hard questions of what are you willing to give up on in order to meet your real goals, as unfortunately usually you can’t have it all. If you are allowing a unanimous decision that is inferior to the real decision you wanted to promote, it will impact your results. It’s easy to think that this would not be the case, because this impact will be in the future and the inconvenience of deciding when people aren’t happy happens now. But like in my morning routine with my daughter, telling myself that she is responsible and would be ready on time nonetheless, doesn’t really make it happen. The bad outcome of her being late is unavoidable, and by preferring a relaxed atmosphere over a stressful one, I also made the unaware but unavoidable decision that she will be late.

Striving for unanimous decision-making processes is a great starting point. In the easy decisions, your team will figure it out and will keep everyone happy. But it is important to keep your eye on the matter and understand when you have crossed the line to the non-productive area.

Remember: A great manager isn’t one that brings in smart people and then interferes as least as possible. A great manager is someone who is involved the right way, and one that the team knows that they can rely on. It’s such a relief to know that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. Be a great manager and give your team the support as well as the boundaries and leadership that they need. It will work much better for them, for you, and for the company.