Learning, Vulnerability, and Being Managed

One of the things that happened when I got back from Morocco, is I became a manager. I posted about that a while back, and boy howdy it has started draining my ability to write in my spare time.

So instead of just not writing (boo), I’m going to write a little bit about managing. Okay? Okay. Maybe I’ll get into the habit of writing daily again and then I’ll have more mental juice for being creative and then we’ll learn more about The City Morning. Who knows.

Anyway, here’s some thoughts.

I've been thinking about learning lately, prompted by a comparison between what I sort of want from people I manage, and what I want from my manager.

When I talk to y'all, I end up hoping that you will tell me where you're struggling. After all, my first and most important job is to find where my reports need help and figure out how to help them. On the other hand when I talk to my manager, my gut reaction is to talk about the things that are going well and skip over the parts where I'm struggling. After all, my reaction there is to look strong and capable and like I know what I'm doing.

Asking for help is vulnerable. When I do, when I tell my manager where I need help right now, he's always really supportive- I get what I need, which is usually advice and ideas from someone who has been there before. Most of the time, the things I think of as huge issues are actually way more surmountable than I'd have thought. I just didn't want to bring them up because it felt like admitting defeat, like I was unable to do this thing by myself.

Learning is the same thing. In order to learn, you have to accept that there's stuff you can't do now or don't know now. It implies change from and change to. On the other hand, learning is probably the most important thing we can do here. This probably varies by manager, but my opinion is that everyone should be learning things most or all of the time. It doesn't need to be some big curriculum, but there's always some stretch.

For me as a manager with an educator background, I realize it's not my first job to make sure I'm providing education to my reports, but it is one of my jobs. On the other hand, it's also my manager’s job to do that for me, and he can't if I don't tell him where I feel comfortable and where I need help. But that's back to the vulnerability thing, which feels uncomfortable. But when I do ask for help and get it, I'm a better engineer and a better manager.