I had a lot of trouble with this in my early 20s. Everything I read was bullshit.
There are two important distinctions: how you manage mediocre workers you didn't hire, and how you manage good workers. The former will require 98% of the effort of the latter, and will give you a fraction of the same results. If you are running a tech company, the former will probably prevent you from ever running things well or smoothly. The former can include people who don't show up for work, but it can also include high IQ people who are constantly screwing around and coming up with elaborate excuses. The best way to manage those people is to fire them as fast as possible.
For managing the former, let them get their work done and don't do stupid shit that impairs it. If you can't figure that out yourself, you shouldn't be a manager.
Step 0: come to grips with the existence of workers outside those two groups, and the possibility of workers who fit in different groups in different contexts or at different times in their life.
> [..] The former can include people who don't show up for work, but it can also include high IQ people who are constantly screwing around and coming up with elaborate excuses. The best way to manage those people is to fire them as fast as possible.
> For managing the former, let them get their work done and don't do stupid shit that impairs it. If you can't figure that out yourself, you shouldn't be a manager.
I have a manager who also can't write two sentences without mixing up "former" and "later", "production" and "dev" and "staging" and "testing", "monday" and "thursday" and "wednesday". Doesn't help he's also an insufferable know-it-all taking everyone for an idiot (even though that's true more often than not but you get the point).
Fire these people first since they have a tendency to be manipulate the truth: "high IQ people who are constantly screwing around and coming up with elaborate excuses".
There are two important distinctions: how you manage mediocre workers you didn't hire, and how you manage good workers. The former will require 98% of the effort of the latter, and will give you a fraction of the same results. If you are running a tech company, the former will probably prevent you from ever running things well or smoothly. The former can include people who don't show up for work, but it can also include high IQ people who are constantly screwing around and coming up with elaborate excuses. The best way to manage those people is to fire them as fast as possible.
For managing the former, let them get their work done and don't do stupid shit that impairs it. If you can't figure that out yourself, you shouldn't be a manager.
There, I just saved you 10,000 hours of reading.