Tips for Managing Up
summary
Practical steps for getting leadership buy-in include translating engineer reasons into business benefits using a what's-in-it-for wheel, proposing a limited experiment or single step rather than demanding wholesale change, and sharing real failures to model learning. Concrete examples: reframing technical debt as cross-team value, running a P90X-style rotator pilot, and letting direct reports submit self-reviews (no one scored themselves a five). Replace “manage up” with partner up to enlist leaders’ strengths.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Managing up challenges
- 1:09Leadership dynamics frustrations
- 3:35Blame and adversarial mindsets
- 4:03Power dynamics demo
- 7:11Better business cases
- 13:35Steps over demands
- 21:51Controllable parts of problems
- 22:37Vulnerability and transparency
- 31:54Stop saying manage
- 38:21Q&A
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