Where we are
Last session ended on an uncomfortable piece of arithmetic: coaching costs manager hours, and if the hours do not exist the system is theatre. This session goes one layer down. Even with the hours available, the conversation only works if the manager can hold it - and holding it is a learnable skill that most organisations neither select for nor teach. The pattern is well documented: strong individual contributors get promoted as a reward, arrive with no coaching capability, and are handed a team plus their old workload. Then we express surprise when the performance system produces ratings rather than growth. The framework is not the system. The manager is the system, and the manager is a decision you make.
Coaching leads the list 7 min live
Google's Project Oxygen began from a genuinely open question - do managers even make a difference? - and produced a ranked set of behaviours that distinguish the effective ones. Revisited about a decade later, the original findings held up, with two behaviours refined and two added.
LiveThe uncomfortable implication for how you promote3 min▶
Read the list against your own manager-promotion criteria and the gap is usually obvious. Most organisations select almost entirely on the items near the bottom, then wonder why the items at the top are missing.
- Technical excellence is a real requirement - it is on the list, at eight, because a manager who cannot advise loses credibility. It is just nowhere near sufficient.
- Coaching is a distinct skill, not a personality trait and not a by-product of seniority. It can be taught, and if you do not teach it you are relying on luck.
- "Empowers, does not micromanage" is second - and it is exactly what a newly promoted expert finds hardest, because their instinct is to do the work themselves.
Cartwheel's best buyer. Cartwheel promoted its strongest buyer to lead the team, as a reward and a retention move. Within two quarters the team's output was flat, two people had left, and the new manager was doing the three most interesting buys herself because it was faster. Nobody had told her that the job had changed, nobody had taught her to coach, and her old workload had never been reassigned. The organisation then recorded this as a management failure - which it was, but not hers.
Select for it, train it, protect the time 6 min live
Three levers, in order of how often they get skipped. Most organisations do a little of the first, almost none of the second, and actively undermine the third.
LiveWhat to actually ask in a manager interview3 min▶
Selection for coaching disposition is not mysterious, but it does require asking for evidence rather than philosophy. Compare the answers you get:
- Weak question: "What is your management style?" Everyone has rehearsed an answer about being supportive but demanding.
- Better: "Tell me about someone whose capability visibly changed while they worked for you. What specifically did you do?" Listen for teaching detail. A candidate who grew people can tell you what they taught and how they knew it landed.
- Better still: "Tell me about someone you could not turn around. What did you try, and what would you do differently?" This tests honesty and diagnosis, and it screens out both the person who has never had a hard case and the person who blames the individual every time.
- Watch for: a candidate whose every success story is something they did themselves. That is the empowerment failure at number two, visible in advance.
Self-studyThe management career track nobody funds2 min read▶
Two structural fixes worth considering, both of which cost money and both of which pay back through the coaching layer:
- A genuine dual ladder. If the only route to seniority and pay runs through management, your best individual contributors will take management jobs they do not want, and your teams will get reluctant coaches. A senior IC track that reaches the same levels and pay removes that pressure - and it only works if someone visibly gets promoted on it.
- A way back. Most organisations treat stepping out of management as failure, so a manager who discovers they dislike it stays and quietly does it badly for years. Making the return route ordinary and non-punitive is one of the cheapest quality improvements available to you.
Both of these are ladder decisions, which is a3.
Audit your manager-promotion criteria ★ 12 min · think it through
Put your real criteria next to the behaviour list and see what you are actually selecting for. Most organisations discover they are selecting almost exclusively for numbers eight and four.
Write down what genuinely gets someone promoted into management here - not the competency document, the actual pattern of the last five promotions.
Map each criterion onto the behaviour list. Note which of the top three you have no signal for at all.
Add one evidence-based question to your promotion process for the top behaviour, and decide who assesses it.
Then check the other side: what happens to the person's previous workload on the day they become a manager? If the answer is "they keep it", you have not made a promotion, you have added a second job.
| Actual criterion used | Maps to | Signal for coaching? |
|---|---|---|
| Best individual results two years running | #4 productive and results-oriented | None |
| Deepest product and category knowledge | #8 key technical skills | None |
| "Ready for more" in the talent review | undefined potential | None - and see a4 for the bias risk |
| Well liked by the team | partial #3 and #5 | Weak, and easily confused with conflict avoidance |
| Has grown someone before | #1 is a good coach | Direct - and nobody was asking for it |
Find the manager you are quietly setting up to fail ★ 8 min · your org
Somewhere in your organisation is a willing manager whose structure makes coaching impossible. Locate them, because they are usually about to become a retention problem twice over.
List your managers with their number of reports and whether they carry an individual delivery load.
Flag anyone above about eight reports, anyone who is a player-coach, and anyone managing across more than two locations or time zones.
For the worst case, ask what you would remove. Reports, delivery load, or scope - one of the three has to go.
Check whether they were ever taught to do this job, and when. "They have been a manager for years" is not the same as having been taught.
The double loss. A Cartwheel team lead with eleven reports and her own category to run stopped holding 1:1s during a peak trading quarter - reasonably, because the buys had deadlines and the conversations did not. Two of her strongest people resigned within four months, both citing lack of development. She then resigned herself, citing burnout. The organisation lost three people and blamed a retention problem. The actual decision that caused it was made a year earlier, in a spreadsheet, when someone gave her eleven reports and kept her category.
Try it yourself - this week ◐ 30-45 min total
- Audit the last five manager promotions against the behaviour list. Write down what signal you had for the top three behaviours - honestly, which may be none.
- Add the "tell me about someone you grew" question to your manager promotion and hiring process, and decide who assesses the answer.
- Pull the span-of-control numbers and flag every player-coach. Pick one and remove something.
- Ask when each of your managers was last taught anything about managing. If the answer is an onboarding workshop three years ago, that is your training gap.
- Check whether stepping out of management is survivable here. If it is not, some of your managers are staying in jobs they should leave.
Sources covered (cited)
Taught from the manager-effectiveness research. This session covers:
Three questions before you go 🎯 ◐ 90 seconds
1 · Where did technical skill rank among the Project Oxygen manager behaviours?
Being a good coach led the list; having key technical skills to advise the team appeared much further down. Most organisations select almost entirely for the lower items and then wonder why the top ones are missing.
2 · Which interview question gives you real signal on coaching?
Ask for evidence, not philosophy. Someone who has grown people can tell you what they taught and how they knew it landed. Follow it with the case they could not turn around, which tests honesty and diagnosis.
3 · A candidate's every success story is something they personally delivered. What have you learned?
"Empowers the team and does not micromanage" is second on the list and is exactly what a newly promoted expert finds hardest, because their instinct is to do the work themselves. A story pattern with no one else in it is a real signal.