Okay. First of, let me say that writing a blog entry about managing people is a bit of a head trip. As I eluded to in my previous entry about this new promotion, I have a lot of assumptions and attitudes about what it means to be a manager.

I have no illusions. I am not a good manager yet. I have learned 2 very fundamental pieces of the puzzle here: learning to let go (i.e. delegation) and learning to slow-the-fuck-down. The thing is, everything I am doing, and learning about management is like looking an an elephant in a dark room with a flashlight. I can see bits and pieces everywhere, but what I am looking for is two things:

1. the overall big picture, and
2. the linchpin that holds it all together.

The thing of it is, I cannot really talk about these things without turning into one of those fluffy "personal power" Tony Robbins worshipers that squick me out.

Essentially I am battling two problems, the first is one of ignorance. I know I am ignorant, but I don't even know enough to ask the right kind of questions to erase my ignorance. The second is the stereotypes, prejudices, and attitudes I have about management. So not only do I have a problem with not really being able to ask the right questions, but I also have a problem understanding, and even accepting the answers that I get. I think that the biggest resistance comes from the fact that I want to keep looking at the people I work with as the people I work with, not the people "under" me. I especially want to avoid the kind of attitude where they are not people anymore, but just means for the overlords to get more profit.

What I need is the management equivalent of "Getting Things Done". GTD basically gave geeks the tools they needed to be really geeky about their productivity. I need to find a similar process to get really geeky for managing people.