
It’s easier to manage four people than one person - chesterarthur
https://staysaasy.com/management/2020/07/24/Managing-One-Person.html
======
magneticnorth
I've been on the junior report side of this in my first job, and these points
really resonate with me - it was the worst manager situation I've ever had,
due to the situation-induced micromanaging and my having no one else in the
same situation to validate how bad my experience was, or share a different
perspective.

I switched teams as soon as I could, and I and that manager have both gone on
to be reasonably successful - that manager has a lot of reports now who seem
to really appreciate him, and I haven't had a bad manager since that
situation. I think the bad manager-report scenario wasn't really about either
of us nearly so much as it felt at the time.

It is validating to read this is an anti-pattern observed by a lot of people;
it was hard not to take things personally at the time or blame the manager for
how unhappy I was.

~~~
JamesBarney
Was the biggest issue just the micromanaging?

I've seen this several times when newly promoted managers are given 1 or 2
reports. Specifically individuals that are high conscientiousness, i.e. hard
working, detail oriented, organized. Then they are promoted, and put into
stressful position where there previous strengths can become liabilities and
they spend all there time making sure their reports do the job in the same way
they would have done it. And if they had more reports it would quickly break
them of this micromanaging habit because they just don't have the time.

I found that more relaxed/laid back managers tend to do better with a 1-2
reports but then quickly start to run into issues as the team size grows and
overwhelms their organizational abilities.

~~~
magneticnorth
Yeah, I think that's about exactly it. He was micromanaging and also somewhat
randomizing, asking me to switch focus often when he thought something else
was higher priority, which doesn't work well for my work style in terms of
actually getting things finished. And to my non-credit I didn't really
communicate this issue to him at the time.

But I think he did figure it out much like you described, and is successfully
managing (and not micromanaging) a high performing team today.

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lacker
Yeah, it's usually a mistake for a manager to have 1 report, except in
temporary situations like you are planning to have a 6-person iOS team, the
team started off with just a manager and a budget, and they just hired the
first person.

An org chart is like a B-tree; if you split it up and create a new node too
early, you'll have more inefficient hierarchy than you need. Wait until one
team is getting large before splitting it into multiples.

~~~
bluedino
I worked at a place where it was somewhat common to have a manager with one
report. It was usually because the report was such a screw-up, instead of
firing the person they would bring someone in to 'manage them'.

Then, they'd blame the manager when the report screwed up, fire him, and bring
in another manager...

~~~
giancarlostoro
Amazing the many ways companies waste resources.

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DDerTyp
Thank god for this article. I'm a new tech lead with 1 person in my team. This
person is even from a different country, new to the industry and not that
advanced in his programming skills. I noticed everything this article
describes. Although everything gets better day by day, week by week, it is
still difficult and I sometimes even have the feeling "damn, do I really want
to be a tech lead?"

Every tip is appreciated.

~~~
JamesBarney
I have a couple pieces of advice.

There are hundred ways that you would have written any piece of code
differently than your mentee. And if you correct all of them you will both be
unhappy and unproductive. There are truly amazing coders who code differently
than you or I. Focus on issues that materially affect the
application(correctness, reliability, performance, security, reliability,
maintainability - less important than the other) and give clear explanation of
why you're making the critique and how it affects the application.

Also remember you're a team, and he wants the application to be awesome too.
Approach critiques with "here's a way we can make the application faster" as
opposed to "you wrote slow code".

Document every critique you make to create a code guidelines document. This
will help anyone else who joins the teams, and will make your critiques feel
less arbitrary, and help them remember and be able to lookup your critiques.

Make sure you have a standup every day to watch over their progress and code.

It's really easy to focus too much on getting your own work done and slack off
as a tech lead or mentor. Always prioritize your mentee's work over your own.
Don't start your work until you've set him up for success for the next few
days. (code reviews, making sure he has work lined up and understands what he
needs to accomplish and how he needs to accomplish it)

Maintain a positive attitude, remember to compliment them, err on the side of
over complimenting than under complimenting.

Don't be afraid to ask for their advice or for them to do research.

Expect the quality to not be up to what it would be if you wrote it. Try to
plan for this by increasing QA time, testing, and spending more time reviewing
the parts of the applications where correctness is the most important. Also
make sure to do performance testing in case he did something boneheaded.

Over communicate. Explain the why's of everything. There are 100 tech leads
who under communicate for every tech lead who over-communicates. So chances
are your team will run better if you communicate more.

~~~
iooi
This is great advice.

> Document every critique you make to create a code guidelines document.

It helps more to have as much of this as possible in lint and style checkers,
so there's no arbitrariness at all.

~~~
JamesBarney
Agreed, also saves a lot of time for everyone.

------
rdiddly
You really don't know anything when you have just one of anything.

The stock market went up after I flapped my arms! I might be controlling it or
it might be a coincidence. Try it again a few times and you realize you're not
gonna be rich.

I looked at one row in my data table and discovered that it has a wacky value!
It might be just the one row or I might have bigger problems. Look at more
rows to find out.

One witness tells the police "Jeff committed the crime!" Well Jeff might've
done it, but maybe the witness just hates Jeff, or maybe they're the guilty
one, trying to deflect blame. Detectives have to look for corroboration.

One plane crashes into one of the WTC towers! Could be an accident. Wasn't
until the 2nd one that we knew it was intentional.

One person is dancing! Could be spontaneous, could be a planned routine. Add a
second person doing the exact same moves at the same time, and now you know
it's planned.

My wife sure is great, she's the best! Well maybe she's just one of many great
wives. Probably she is, but in that case you just decide to ignore the other
data points and provide your own corroboration! ;)

~~~
irrational
>Well maybe she's just one of many great wives.

So, people in polyamorous relationships are just looking for more data points?

~~~
nzealand
If being data driven is wrong, I don't want to be right.

------
temporalparts
One interesting detail is that this describes 99% of internships in Tech.
Interns are given to a single full time engineer who have never managed before
because it is their first foray into management.

Yet I don't hear a lot of complaint about the program (or maybe I've not been
listening hard enough). I wonder what the different about internships.

~~~
staysaasy
OP's co-author here.

The biggest difference is that internships are short and low-stakes, so if
something goes off the rails it isn't too costly for the managee or manager.
Also, at least in tech, hiring is hard enough that interns tend to get the
benefit of the doubt on "performance issues" in my experience.

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curiousllama
> Avoid at all costs the combination of: new manager, 1 report, report is new-
> to-industry, manager is not a subject-matter expert.

This is interesting. Consulting teams are often structured exactly this way,
with a Lead managing 2 "managers," each leading one Associate/Analyst. I
wonder why that antipattern is so consistent...

~~~
Traster
I suspect it's because the job titles are meaningless hierarchy to keep people
happy, and collapse into a 1 boss N employees structure any time anything
important happens.

~~~
staysaasy
OP's co-author here. This has been my experience in consulting as well. In
practice, most consulting projects are led by the partners / seniormost
managers in a tribal fashion so this distinction doesn't matter as much.

------
rusabd
It is easier to handle 4 children than one as well. The realization came when
I wasn't able to hold 3 children with just two hands and had to rethink my
approach

~~~
chrisjarvis
I have heard almost verbatim from two different friends with large families
that after the 4th kid they start to take care of themselves!

------
koonsolo
I've done it a few times successfully. My direct reports were very pleased
with the way of working, and preferred it to some other working environments.

How I worked was taken 100% from a section in "7 habits of highly effective
people". This is how I communicate with them the first time:

1\. X is the goal. How you get there is up to you.

2\. If it was up to me, I would do Y, but of course you can choose.

3\. Every x days you can show me your progress. Then we can see how far we are
towards the goal.

4\. I have x hours available for you. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll
do it.

So the trick is basically to put them in charge, not you. You have the
supporting role, they can request things from you. But the goal needs to be
very clear.

One other thing they mentioned is that I set very clear objectives, and other
projects they worked on were not that clear.

~~~
cutemonster
I think i like that approach.

Maybe combined with the manager adding auto tests, to verify the things that
get created work well

> My direct reports were very pleased with the way of working, and preferred
> it to some other working environments.

How did you find out about that? (Did you ask them?)

~~~
koonsolo
I didn't really asked them. This was feedback on linkedin, or they personally
told me, one after I told him that I was very pleased with his work.

Maybe I was also a bit lucky to manage these eager young devs, full of energy
to prove themselves.

------
staycoolboy
Dead on. My first time with a single direct report was a catastrophe. I was
like a helicopter parent (as opposed to a micromanager). I did get feedback
from him that we felt more like peers than manager/report, which he said felt
weird but couldn't explain. He left the company, and I hope it wasn't due to
me.

Fast forward two years and I was managing 8 people, and I didn't have time to
helicopter. Just like this article: I was too busy rotating through each
person to spend too much time on any one. Plus I had one really good report
and one terrible report, so I had to spend more time with the latter. Just
like the public school system.

Yeah, this is a great article. Short but important. Wish I had seen it ages
ago.

------
corpMaverick
It can happen when there are a lot of power dynamics that can create a
dysfunctional org structure. In one company I worked the Director had like 20
direct reports, and then went 3 more levels deep with one or two reports each.

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ck425
Hmm I've had new managers a couple of times. It's only now that it occurs to
me that sticking a new manager with an intern/grad/early career is a bad idea.
I've suffered because my managers weren't yet particularly good managers and
in both cases they were new or newish managers. I never held it against them
but at the time I never questioned it either. Looking back it seems kind an
obviously bad idea to stick us together. The best manager I had as a grad was
a super experienced manager who really helped me get my shit together.

------
treeman79
Worked as a sole developer for a guy once.

He would have 6-8 Hour planning sessions 4 to 5 times a week. Nothing got
done. Later I realized I was providing him an education on project management
and I’d experience.

------
dataduck
This seems like pretty good advice, but what if you can't follow it? Say
you're the one with ultimate responsibility for a tech team of exactly two.
What's the least bad thing you can do?

~~~
staysaasy
Author here - I'd recommend two things.

First, per the article, I'd aim to become an expert in whatever your report is
doing. Being able to just do the thing yourself is a great release valve.
Things can get really hairy when you have the combination of high pressure
deadlines/deliverables and total reliance on one report to fix it.

Second, look to set up things like performance calibrations where promotions
and comp changes are decided by a collective group, even if it's just you and
your manager. Partnering on raises/comp changes can help you both make better
decisions and have your report more comfortable that the outcomes are high
quality and the decision of the entire organization, not just you.

------
bbu
Why would you need a manager for 1 person? There are 0 benefits in creating a
team like that.

~~~
balls187
Typically it's a temporary, an intermediate step, or politics.

I managed several teams, and during that time I inherited a new team with 2
headcount, plans to increase headcount, and company initiative to grow that
product.

I didn't have bandwidth to manage that team myself, so I turned one of those
headcounts into a manager position.

In the world of startups, the first hire is often an engineer, who normally
reports to the tech-cofounder.

------
jake_morrison
A friend came from a very large family. I asked him how his parents coped. He
said once you get beyond the first number of kids, it basically runs itself.

The first kid requires X attention. The second kid adds 0.7X. Then the third
is like 0.3X, for a total of 2X. As you have more kids, the older ones can
look after the younger ones. The amount of work actually goes down. You are
basically the supervisor / police.

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pessimizer
My instinct on this is that managing four people is coordinating a team, but
having a single report is just having a servant. A manager performs a valuable
service for a team of four, keeping them from having to confront/monitor each
other when it would be uncomfortable/time-consuming to do so. A manager with a
single report is at best a shield and champion against upper management, and
at worst just a annoying/useless cop/scold.

Maybe the manager with a single report can act as a mentor, but it's a coin
flip whether the manager is more capable than the report. It's not an
apprenticeship.

edit: I was once the only report for a manager and it generally worked out
really well, but it's because the manager had no professional ego and I was
far more knowledgeable than he was, so he deferred to me whenever he had any
ability to (i.e. the issue wasn't a mandate from higher up.) It still
generated (well hidden) resentment because he was making twice as much as me.
If I were less laid back about money, it still would have turned out ugly in
the end.

------
TBurette
C. Northcote Parkinson wrote about single reports in his 1995 Parkinson's law
article published by The Economist[1]. That's the article that articulated in
its first sentence the Parkinson's law we all know.

In the article he explains that a worker that feels overworked prefers to have
subordinates rather than a peer of his own level that would be a rival for
promotion.

A single subordinate is not ideal because the work would be divided between
the two and the subordinate would assume an almost equal status in practice.
With two subordinates each is kept in order by fear of the other's promotion
and the new manager has the merit of being the only one to comprehend the work
of the subordinates. This sets the stage for the two subordinates getting
their own assistants. He explain how this new group of people make work for
each other.

[1]
[http://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf](http://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf)

------
encoderer
Great points. I've observed this myself for years as a Director in a tech co.

Only other thought about it: managers with 1 report are also very likely to be
new managers. Experienced managers do not (usually) take on roles managing a
single person.

To put it more generally: Good managers are unlikely to take a role managing
just 1 person so therefore managers with a single report are likely not good
managers.

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theredsix
I've definitely noticed this in the past and it's good to see a concise
logical reasoning of the problem.

------
mywittyname
My experience has always been that my happiness with a manager is directly
related to the number of reports that they have. They rarely have time to
"just check in" unexpectedly, so meetings and interactions tend to be
scheduled. You're also afforded much more autonomy in every respect, so long
as there are no complaints from others about your performance, they are happy.

And lastly, managers with a large number of reports have a more significant
pool of talent to help you with a task that you're struggling with. Since your
manager is directly in charge of the other person, you can be assured that the
person knows the problem and that they will find time to assist.

------
JimTheMan
I think part of the problem is a difficulty of language.

A manager with a single direct report isn't a manager. It's a worker with an
assistant and they should work accordingly.

Manager term only really makes sense with more reports.

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dougmwne
Ouch. Yes I've experienced this. I struggled with my first experience
supervising a team of one. We were also two people in different places in our
lives and maybe less shared experience than I have with a fellow gamer or
geek. And it was remote. We did build trust, but it was slow going. I pushed
hard not to micromanage. Weird to see all the adverse incentives I experienced
all lined up like this. Curious if anyone else has developed any strategies.

------
monkeydust
Have min number of directs for anyone to become a manager, number of companies
do this. Somewhere between 3 to 6 from what I hear.

------
hartator
Interesting I've a similar take. To hire at least 2 people for the same
position even if you need only one. This way you achieve redundancy, can
manage the people using same tools and compare results, and they can
collaborate between them.

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paloaltokid
_> "Avoid at all costs the combination of: new manager, 1 report, report is
new-to-industry, manager is not a subject-matter expert."_

This is crucial -- when these combinations happen they can drive people out of
the field altogether.

~~~
cutemonster
Makes me curious about if there's a story behind that?

------
phjesusthatguy3
I'm sure some companies have valid business-related reasons for having
managers with one report, but the only times I've ever had one report was when
my organization was testing _me_.

------
mathattack
This is similar to what I’ve seen. Most toxic boss relationships are where the
boss has only one person to dump on, or the other extreme of too many folks to
stay on top of.

------
connectsnk
Just thinking if polygamous relationships are happier than monogamous
relationships based on the same logic.

~~~
Arbalest
Romantic relationships are supposed to be for equals. This article is clearly
not a relationship targeted at equals.

------
notenoughhorses
Even worse, 2 managers, one direct report

------
agumonkey
Maybe a root factor in societal structures too. 2 people is an unstable
system, a third party helps.

------
an_opabinia
> that’s 100% bad feedback from your reports. If the report doesn’t do well,
> that’s 100% of your reports that aren’t succeeding.

It kind of goes to show, if it's a bad measurement for N=1, just because it's
a better measurement for N=7 it may still be meaningless. Your employees are
not a science experiment.

Another way of looking at it is, if 100% of Mark Zuckerberg's employees, in
say 2006-2007, were saying he was a bad manager, if 100% were "not
succeeding," would it matter?

Another way of looking at it is, while 90% of businesses benefit from an
objective look at manager performance, don't you want to work for the 10%
where it doesn't matter instead of the 10% where it matters and they actually
score well?

