July 17, 2022

Measurably Improving Managers to Help People do Great Work... and be Totally Psyched Doing It (with Russ Laraway, author ”When They Win, You Win”)

47 minutes

An interview with Russ Laraway. Russ was a Company Commander in the US Marines before entering Big Tech at Google, Twitter & Qualtrics. He also co-founded Radical Candor LLC with Kim Scott, and believes that anyone can be trained to be a good manager with the right approach. He wrote about this approach in his new book "When They Win, You Win".

We speak about a lot, including:

Why the world needs doesn't need another person's opinion on what makes a good manager, and how he wants to move away from opinions and move to data driven, measurable results

How the US Marines set the stage for him to be a good manager, what moving to Big Tech taught him about focusing on results, and how the military can teach Big Tech a thing or two about Commander's Intent

Why it was important to simplify the mission to make managers better, because most people aren't getting better and some are getting worse because there's so much conflicting information out there

Why companies are so bad at developing managers, and how his STAC (Select, Teach, Assess, Coach) approach might help get us away from the best Individual Contributor getting thrown into the pit with no support

How everyone wants to do great work & be totally psyched whilst doing it, and why people's direct managers are ultimately the key to making that happen

The big three of Direction, Coaching, Career, how they can help managers thrive and the importance of helping managers not just concentrating on the stuff they're best at

Whether managers are born or bred, and whether introverts or extrovert make the best managers

And much more!

A brief interruption from my sponsor - me!

I'm terrible at asking for money but if you would like to throw any spare change at me to prevent me having to read out tiresome generic podcast ads, you can buy me a coffee. If not, I love you all anyway!

Buy "When They Win, You Win"

"Businesses everywhere are plagued by managers who seem to think that keeping their staff miserable is the best way to deliver profits. This is a failure of leadership that also hurts the bottom line; research has shown that maintaining a happy, engaged workforce consistently drives measurably better business results across the board."

Check the book out wherever you get your books, or check it out on Amazon or the book website.

Check out my interview with Kim Scott

I spoke to Russ's former colleague Kim Scott last year on the podcast about her book "Just Work" - it was a fantastic conversation and you can check it out here.

Contact Russ

You can find Russ on his website or check him out on LinkedIn or Twitter

...more

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By One Knight in Product

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