How Is Management Changing?

The era of meetings, endless notes, and getting approvals for approvals before something finally happens is ending.

But what does that mean for employees who manage people but don’t do anything else?

It means they’re in trouble.

Managers used to be responsible for taking employees from 60/100 to 80/100. But ‘productivity’ is becoming more individual with every year. Here’s why:

• AI can make someone (at least) 5x more productive.

• Managers “levelling up” employees is a non-starter.

• Companies focus on hiring people who don’t need managers.

• “Crushing internal meetings” won’t matter. People send a doc or record a video.

Managers are essential in a business, though. So how does that work?

In this post, I’ll break down the old way, what works now, and how to thrive in this new paradigm.

Let’s get into it.

Back In The Day

Years ago, I was a salesman (business development associate) at a tech-forward design company. I went from a glorified assistant to a ‘manager’ in less than eighteen months because I sourced and closed over a million dollars in a year.

Despite doing well and having ‘manager’ in the title, we didn’t reach a point where I built a team.

How come? It boiled down to this sentence; maybe you’ve heard it before.

“If we make you (our best salesperson) the team leader, when will you sell?”

Herein lies the difference in the times.

• Back then, managers did not do the work. They told people what to do and how to do it.

• Now (and more into the future), managers still do the work 60% (or more) of the time.

The times have changed because people and companies are waking up to how bad the old way actually is.

If we’re not selling, designing, coding, etc, how are we in any position to say something to a team who is? How could teams respect a ‘VP of sales’ who hasn’t sold anything in 5 years?

A disaster waiting to happen.

What Works?

Tyler Denk, Co-Founder & CEO of beehiiv, a fast-growing, soon to be billion-dollar-company, and my long-time boss, describes it well.

Player-Coach.

The player-coach concept is from sports but extremely applicable, even though it’s new to business management.

A great basketball player can recognize where the defense fails, huddle up, and tell the team how to fix it. They don’t need a time-out to have the coach explain an essential thing great players see (and communicate) while playing.

• “hey Darwin, help me out on defense when that guy has the ball”

• “yeah i gotchu.”

Tyler’s application in business marks a new management paradigm. Note that it’s player first.

• The CTO codes, the VP of sales sells, the Support manager responds to customers..the list goes on.

• People get more autonomy and time because leaders doing the work have less time to micromanage or call useless meetings.

• There is attention to detail, communication, and feedback, but it’s largely (though not always) online and async.

  • “hey, I saw this…can we watch for it next time?”

  • “yes”

Coaching is essential, but now that productivity is increasingly personal, every facet of the work doesn’t need a full-time manager. Great players do the job well and coach others while playing.

For more details, check out Tyler’s full post here.

But, is it perfect?

Getting Ahead of Player-Coach Gaps:

Take a superstar and place them under a VP who tells them what to do all day while not doing any work…how do you think that’ll go after a year or two?

Employees lose interest, motivation, and belief in the business (and sometimes in themselves). They leave, the position is filled by someone else, and the cycle continues.

One of the reasons the player-coach approach works so well at beehiiv is our incredible team. It sounds easy (it’s not), but hiring hard workers who are highly coachable and communicate often (and well) is key. If the people don’t ‘get it,’ it’s just hard to make it work.

If you’re a business moving into the new way, I have an offer for you at the end of this post to help.

But, If you’re working at a company managing the old way (like I have), here’s what you need to know.

What Works (for Employees)

Here is a list of what worked for me at beehiiv, and what research suggests works.

• Work hard.

• Build goodwill.

• Make their goals your goals.

• Use AI.

• Communicate proactively (and often) with your manager.

• Be a nice person.

Here’s the short version of each. I’ll cover the long versions in separate posts, so stay subscribed if you want the details.

Work hard:

I know it’s a cliche, but it worked for me at beehiiv. I’ll give you a quick rundown of what I did, and while I’m sure I’ll get some flak for this (it’s not healthy), it’s important.

I’d start work at seven and work till six. Take a break, and start again at ten until midnight. I’d take every support ticket, write 2-3 support docs daily, publish the Creator Spotlight, comment on social posts from users, etc. I’d aggregate all our customer feedback for the product team and recommend what to prioritize to reduce the number of support tickets we’d get. Then I’d chip on other projects where I could, like our Newsletter XP course. Some nights, I’d be in the zone and ask Tyler if I could start at noon if I worked till four in the morning. Not everything happened at the same time, but (in general), this went on for nearly nine months.

Again, it's not ‘healthy,’ but it’s what I wanted, and I’m not upset I did it.

Does that mean you have to do this much? Not necessarily. But if you’re looking at me and wondering how I went from being a support rep to a product manager, this is a short list of why, leading to my next recommendation.

Build Goodwill

There was one distinct moment, about five months in, when I wrote to Tyler and Preeya (our COO) that I was looking for a raise.

But our already insane growth accelerated even more around that time, and the support tickets (and several other things) piled up. I took it back and told them I wanted to wait for the raise conversation until after clearing everything.

Sometimes, you just can’t be greedy. I was the only support person taking 150 - 250 tickets a day. Did I have leverage in that situation? It doesn’t matter. I’m all for getting paid, but when you have a responsibility, you have to put that greed aside until the job’s done. This is one example.

The leadership at beehiiv returned that goodwill to me because it wasn’t straightforward. I never caught up on all the piled-up tickets. I hit a breaking point eventually and actually had a pretty terrible month (or more tbh). But, as we hired a fantastic support manager (and a whole team), someone dedicated to our now awesome knowledge base, a superstar managing editor for Creator Spotlight, and more, we had first reached an understanding that I would then move into product.

It’s a long ‘short version’ of the story, which I’ll return to in more detail in a separate post.

Make Their Goals Your Goals

I got the job at beehiiv after cold-emailing Tyler (in different words):

“Hey, you’re the CEO answering support tickets (including mine). I’m a power user of your product, so how about I answer support tickets, and you get your time back for CEO stuff?”

My bet was that this had to have been his goal anyway. Through the job, I just kept doing this, and it worked.

I’d do the job well, and ask for what’s next. At a company, everyone is (should be) working towards the same goals. Remember, four teams are working towards one goal, not the opposite.

The key for me was doing it manually the first few times. Then, doing the work in a way that scales. You can teach an AI how to do it for you (my go-to) or use automation to get 90% of the work done. Otherwise, you add hours to your day but never feel like it’s “done.” If this adds up, you’ll find yourself in the hamster wheel. I’ve felt this often, so the next point was also huge.

Use AI

People talk about this a lot, and it’s for good reason. Even just the free version of ChatGPT can give you back hours of your week. Everyone who knows me has seen me go off about how incredible this technology is and will continue to be.

It makes us so much more productive. Here’s how I use it:

• Aggregating data like mountains of feature requests into the most popular or most impactful.

• Writing reports for me to finalize based on screenshots I send from competing platforms.

• Operationalizing long-form rants from my audio notes.

• Breaking down complex problems into their parts, in general and in specific cases.

I’m surprised when people tell me they’re not using AI at work.

Remember this. Now that AI can make a person more productive, it’s harder to see the manager as the issue (especially in the player-coach paradigm).

Communicate Proactively

This is not necessarily specific to my experience. Almost every management book, article, and guide I’ve read has mentioned the immense value of communication. Just be mindful that the communication is productive.

It can be about specific tasks or just re-aligning on the vision the leader in your department or company is setting. All my managers hear from me often, and while they probably get tired of it, nobody complains that someone is over-communicating (again, as long as it’s productive).

Be A Nice Person

I don’t know if it’s because I’m Canadian, but being nice at work is free, takes no extra time, and helps build great relationships. You don’t want to be a pushover (I’ve been one at times), but there’s no issue at all with being polite.

Especially when a lot is going on, it’s busy, and people are stressed. That one nice gesture, slack message, or public acknowledgment of someone doing well (but doesn’t hear it enough) can go a long way.

When I’d wear my suit and tie to work every day, I kept a stack of little thank-you cards in my desk drawer. Whenever someone did me a solid, I’d write them a little thank-you note, express my appreciation, and throw in a small token, like a Starbucks gift card. I did this because I once received a token like this at the end of a tough week, and I felt so strongly that I wanted to do the same.

Over a ten-year-long career, gestures like these go a long way.

Do You Want to Work The New Way?

beehiiv is still seeing tremendous growth. We have an incredible team of superstars, and our leaders get it. Almost everything I’ve described above is my direct experience working for this great company.

And we’re hiring. We also hire Canadians, and I can’t say enough good things about these opportunities. Want to join us? Check out our open positions here.

Do You Want to Hire Hard-Working Remote Employees?

Let me know if you’re reading this and want to tap into great talent. Reply to this email if you’re hiring, and we can discuss sharing your company and postings with my subscribers. It’s no charge.

Thanks for reading.