jonathan@researchcomputingteams.org
This resource first appeared in issue #113 on 12 Mar 2022 and has tags Becoming A Manager: Other
Management Development As Skincare Regimen (Twitter Thread) - Angela Riggs
So how should you start learning the new skills you need to be a manager? Riggs has one way to think about it.
I’m always on the lookout for new analogies for management, leadership, and strategy. For management I personally like sports metaphors, but they’re so overused that every ounce of insight that can be extracted from those comparisons have long been exploited. I’ve always found war and combat metaphors distasteful and aggrandizing, and now especially. Our jobs are tough, but no one’s getting killed.
In #42 there was a pretty helpful comparison to TV show writing, which is another example of collaboratively creating something new. Here Riggs uses the metaphor of adopting a skincare routine. It’s not something you do all at once; it’s something you start with an eye towards the problems you’re trying to solve. You add and change products as needed. You test each change to see if it advances your goals, even though it can take some time to see the result. You have to unlearn old things (exfoliation!). And of course you get input from others trying to solve similar problems.
