First let's define management. 

MANAGEMENT is getting work done through other people.

There are two parts to that - the work and the people. A great manager melds those two together to produce an amazing outcome. The work is done better and, perhaps more importantly, the people grow and improve.

We're going to look at three reasons that management is hard through the lens of those two things: work and people.

First Reason: It's not your full-time job.

Most people who run companies of under 100 employees - especially founders, have work they need to do themselves, on top of all the work they need to get done through the people on their teams. So you may be tempted to feel like managing people is a distraction from your "real job."

This is a mistake. If you want to grow your company, your real job is to organize your company so that everything is done by people who do it better than you could. Except for what you do best. That takes care of the work. The people aspect is simply to tell people what you're doing. Explain the times you are available to help them and the times you're not. Be sure to explain why.

Use the Time Blocking Tool

The best tool you can use to help with this is time blocking. Set aside time for the work you produce yourself and a different time for management. Structure each in an organized fashion. Be sure to leave some white space in your schedule. Stuff happens and you need the flexibility to deal with it.

Second Reason: You're Afraid of Micromanaging

We have this idea that if we hire good people and leave them alone, they'll figure it out. Maybe this came from Jim Collins who said the most important thing is to get the right people on the bus. Maybe it came from Peter Drucker. He's the guy who coined the term knowledge worker and said, “The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail, he must direct himself.” (In Drucker’s world, workers were always men. He published this in 1967).

We know this idea doesn't work in the physical world. Imagine getting some carpenters and plumbers and electricians all together and saying “I want you to figure out how to build this house. We don't have any blueprints, but I have a picture of what it's supposed to look like from this magazine. Also, I'm not doing any scheduling because you're smart and I’m sure you'll figure it out.” It doesn't make any sense. In order for very smart people to work as a unit they need the support of management to define things like what their output should look like, how it should integrate with other people doing their work, and to provide them a schedule, and specifications of parts and inputs that they need to do good work.

However, in knowledge work we somehow think if we put those pieces in place we'll be accused of micromanaging. As a result, people show up to work and when they need some help, they end up interrupting each other with incessant emails and meetings that waste time because they lack a clear definition of what the output of a good job looks like.

It’s your job as a manager to provide these good, smart people you hired with the support they need to be effective. I’m not talking about training - though that's important too. I’m talking about these things:

1. A clear description of what the output of good work looks like.
2. Knowledge work often means making decisions. So be sure to include decisions in this description of their output.
3. A schedule or prioritization so they know what to work on when for them to be productive to the rest of the organization.
4. Workflow diagrams when appropriate.
5. A communication protocols so people have time to get deep work done without interruptions but can still get the help they need from others.

Now I say this is your job because it's your responsibility. I don't mean to say you are the one to figure it out sitting alone in an ivory tower and deliver the message from on high. In fact, many of the people who work for you have better ideas than you about some of these things. But they don't have the perspective you do of how their work fits into the bigger picture of the entire organization. So work with them to craft a description of the outputs you expect from each person so that you can in fact get good work done through other people. In some cases, there may be no one on your team who's good at (for example) developing a workflow diagram or a value map. That's when to bring in an outside consultant. Then make sure you publicize the results so everybody that needs to have access to it can find it easily and quickly.

Agile Gets it Right

There is an example of doing this right in software development. It's called the agile methodology. It's a very structured framework where output is broken down into small, well defined tasks. Those tasks are scheduled and people meet regularly to track progress. Within that structured framework people are free to be creative and direct themselves as Drucker said. But that framework is imposed by management. 

A final note about micromanagement. It usually happens when someone is told how to do a job in a way that doesn't affect the final output but is based on an arbitrary opinion or outdated policy. If there's a valid reason something needs to be done a certain way, then explain the reason, don't just make a rule.

People almost always object to what they consider arbitrary rules. If the rules are truly arbitrary get rid of them. The founder of Shopify one day eliminated all recurring meetings. Why? He felt many had outlived their usefulness and being Canadian, his people would be reluctant to mention this for fear of offending those who'd set up the meeting. I assume that relevant meetings got reinstituted.

But if the rules are not arbitrary, then explain them. What makes a rule arbitrary? The customer. if there's a reason that relates ultimately back to serving the customer better, then explain the connection. As the owner or CEO of your business you see those connections in ways that others don't.

The Best Tools for This

• A functional org chart - one that describes output from each function (not people and job titles).
• A communication protocol involving communication platforms and meeting rhythms

And that brings us to the third reason management is hard.

Third Reason: Management is not social intercourse.

It's human nature to want people to like you. We survive as a species because of this. But as any good parent or schoolteacher knows, sometimes you have to be willing to be unpopular in the short term to be effective, respected, and even loved in the long term. This is not the case with the folks you just hang out with. The norms of communication are different.

A good manager's job is to help people grow and improve - not to be their drinking buddy.

Ben Horowitz wrote about this in a great post called Making Yourself a CEO. Here's the gist of it.

In fact, even the most basic CEO building blocks will feel unnatural at first. If your buddy tells you a funny story, it would feel quite weird to evaluate her performance. It would be totally unnatural to say: “Gee, I thought that story really sucked. It had potential, but you were underwhelming on the buildup then you totally flubbed the punch line. I suggest that you go back, rework it and present it to me again tomorrow.” Doing so would be quite bizarre, but evaluating people’s performances and constantly giving feedback is precisely what a CEO must do. If she doesn’t, then the more complex motions such as writing reviews, taking away territory, handling politics, setting compensation and firing people will be either impossible or handled rather poorly.

This is true for all managers, not just CEOs.

A company is like a team not a family.

When people say their company is like a family, they're wrong. You can't fire your family and for the most part you didn't hire them. Ever go to a restaurant for a birthday dinner? Somebody paid for that meal. Did your mother ever make you a birthday dinner? I bet nobody paid her for it.

See what I mean? The norms are different. When people say they're a family at work what they usually mean is Uncle Bob shows up drunk all the time and talks politics. No sorry. What they usually mean is people care for each other. Sometimes they care deeply. And that's a good thing.

A better metaphor than a family is a team. People on the best sports teams also care for each other. Deeply. But they also know they need to perform. Not least because they don't want to let down the people they care so much about. And they know that if they don't perform they won't be on the team much longer.

One way a company can be different from a team is you can make exceptions for people who aren't performing. Sometimes this is temporary due to an illness or a personal situation. Sometimes you make a permanent exception to reward someone's loyalty. I'm reminded of an accountant I had in the 1980's. The firm was moving from paper to computers. But one of his oldest employees just couldn't make the switch. Out of loyalty, he kept her on and let her do everything on paper, then had another staff member put it all into the computer. Just because.

Exceptions like this wouldn't happen on a professional team. They are even unusual in a company, yet they'd be normal in a family. Which is why a family is not a business. And why family businesses have problems when they don't separate the family dynamics from the business dynamics - but that's a different TED Talk.

Here are some tools to make this aspect of management go better.

• Mutual Understanding that it's your job to improve people. Make sure you know this, and your people do too. Regular 1:1 meetings are useful for this.
• User Manuals for a person not a machine. These help explain the best way to communicate with you.
• Good Feedback that comes in constant, immediate informal contexts as well as more formal, structured settings.
• Radical Candor see below.

Many of these principles are wrapped up in the concept of Radical Candor

Kim Scott coined this term. She says there are four ways to communicate, defined by two axes:

• The CARE PERSONALLY or "Give a Damn" axis
• The CHALLENGE DIRECTLY or "Willing to Piss People Off" axis

If you're willing to challenge directly, but don't show that you care personally, your communication comes off as Obnoxious Aggression. If you back off from challenging but still don't show you care, you'll come off as manipulatively insincere. And the most common is when we do care personally but fail to tell someone something they'd be better off knowing. That's what she calls Ruinous Empathy. Radical Candor requires both showing you care personally and being willing to challenge when necessary.