Managing outside your expertise
As a senior manager/founder, at some point in your career you will be in a position where you are managing a team or individual with a skill set that is not your core expertise. A question I get asked often is how do you coach and help people when you are not the subject matter expert?
You could be a backend developer turned engineering manager that now has frontend developers or data scientists reporting to you. Or perhaps a product manager turned director of product leading a design team or data analysts.
This scenario is inevitable. It’s impossible that today one person can develop expertise in everything. You cannot be a competent engineer across so many various disciplines — frontend, backend, qa, android, ios, machine learning. There will always be skill sets that you are unfamiliar with or get outdated with time.
So how do you manage a department or person in a field you have no idea to run yourself?
- Impostor Syndrome- When you are initially asked to take the job, you might feel you don’t deserve it. This is natural. But as you grow into a role of a general manager, the focus is less on technical expertise but rather on people management.
- Start with humility- Don’t try and fake it. Focus on asking good questions rather than trying to provide all the answers. Your job is to be a facilitator.
- Measure outcomes- Make sure you are clearly aligned about the end goals and the value you are looking to generate. If you’re not sure what outcomes you are looking for, spend some time defining the role and requirements first. It’s okay if you don’t know the how, but the what and why should be clear.
- Coaching- Ronaldo’s coach doesn’t teach him to how to kick a ball. Being a coach is not necessarily all about being a subject matter expert, but rather it is focused on helping the individual to unlock their own potential. The focus is very much on what is inside their head. Focus your 1:1s on motivation, alignment and making sure the team is engaged.
- Earn respect- As your team starts looking to you as someone who can help them you will earn their respect over time. Help them by getting them the resources they need. Unblock them by navigating other teams within the company. If they are stuck on a technical problem connect them with a mentor outside the company.
- Hiring- Hiring can be a challenge initially. How do you hire a data scientist when you don’t know the first thing about it? One way is to request friends and executives at other companies to help interview the first candidate. This will help you evaluate candidates better as well. Lean hard on the references candidates provide to help evaluate them.
- Hiring a leader — Hiring an executive for a function can be far more challenging and dangerous to get wrong. There are some great articles from the folks at a16z - Ben Horowitz and Steven Sinofsky that covers this really well.
Working with a team in a different field is a great chance to learn about something new. Embark on the adventure and embrace the opportunity!
