People Management

Here's how to manage, build and grow your team in a human and effective way.

We'll give you concrete and unconventional tips from the most innovative companies and backed by the science of what motivates people.

Start here with our management guide and how to take back your work day.

A Scientific Guide to Summoning Your Creative Juices

February 22, 2021 by Blake Thorne 4 Comments

Does this happen to you?

It’s Friday, and you’re sitting in an all-hands-on-deck staff meeting. The boss needs creative ideas for next quarter.
“Concentrate!” you’re told. “Be creative!”

You concentrate with all your might, but you’ve got nothing.

The next day, you’re outside cutting the grass. There’s the steady hum of the lawn mower and the rhythmic predictability of the mowing pattern. Your mind slows down. Wanders. Drifts off. But suddenly . . . light bulb.

Some creative idea nearly knocks you over. It’s brilliant. Where was that kind of thinking when you needed it in yesterday’s meeting?

The answer has to do with our creative juices and the science behind them. And although “creative juices” isn’t exactly a scientific term, there’s plenty of science behind what we understand to be creative juices.

3 Ways Productivity Increases When You Take Control of Your Health

December 18, 2020 by I Done This Support Leave a Comment

Productivity increases when you realize that “productivity” isn’t a goal; it’s a side effect of being a healthy and happy person.

That means the root of the problem isn’t laziness or lack of motivation, but the certainty that we’re human beings and we run out of energy. Our bodies shut down when they’re not treated properly—as do our minds, our motivation, and our productivity.

We’re going to offer a few tips on how to prioritize your health, boost your workplace productivity—and do it all without going completely bonkers.

Unlock Intrinsic Motivation to Inspire Your Salespeople

October 30, 2020 by I Done This Support Leave a Comment

If your best tried-and-true motivational techniques don’t seem to be working on the otherwise talented members of your sales team, you might want to try appealing to their intrinsic motivations.

According to a recent survey, 95% of managers think money is the most motivating factor for employees. In fact, an adjacent survey of 12,000 employees found that emotional rewards led to greater performance.

Not every salesperson is motivated by promotions and money, and using the same old motivations may unexpectedly fail. That doesn’t mean it’s time to look for a new hire — it means you’ll have to break out a different tool from your managerial toolbox.

Remote Work is Here to Stay

July 23, 2020 by I Done This Support Leave a Comment

Remote work is increasing across the globe, in every industry that can manage it—and it isn’t just the pandemic that’s making it happen.

Sure, the pandemic forced an increase in speed and breadth of adoption, but this snowball has been rolling down the hill for years. Employees expect more flexibility; employers need to prepare for a massive change in the average worker’s schedule, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Industrial Revolution.

Whether you’re a team leader, an investor, or a business owner, you have to understand this: Remote work is here to stay. And it can be very effective, too—especially with the use of tools to help you and your workers maximize their morale and production, no matter where they’re logging on from.

3 Stages of Successful Team Bonding

April 30, 2020 by Jonathan Figliolino Leave a Comment

Your team won’t stay together just because they work together. If you don’t give your team a chance to bond, you’ll spend more time handling workplace drama and politics instead of getting work done. You can use team bonding activities to encourage cooperation outside of the office and strengthen workplace bonds.

Team building helps everyone get to know and trust their fellow coworkers, but you don’t build trust overnight. Your team goes through gradual stages as they grow from a collection of strangers to efficient collaborators. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman’s team building model describes three stages — forming, norming, and performing—to show how teams can become more united over time.

Entrepreneurs Share the Only Thing that Matters

April 14, 2020 by I Done This Support Leave a Comment

The journey of the entrepreneur is to figure out what matters. We know that starting a company requires extreme focus and prioritization. We know that a focused culture can make an unbeatable team. We know that humility creates adaptability. But figuring that “one thing that matters” is no easy task. We have to navigate a jumble of possibilities and complexities of running a business, on top of the cottage industry of abundant, contradictory, and just plain bad business advice. These pieces are the thoughtful reflection of industry leaders on what matters, above all else, in building a successful company from scratch. Continue Reading

Bad Managers Talk, Good Managers Write

March 9, 2020 by I Done This Support 13 Comments

The exemplary manager is often shown as the outgoing guy that gives his team pep talks and high fives. In truth, though, that stereotype couldn’t be farther from the truth.

To four highly effective, seasoned, and successful executives, being a good talker isn’t just overvalued, it can actually be detrimental. Rather, there’s a subtle, often-overlooked ability that’s one of the most vital skills you can have as a manager — the ability to write.

Writing creates a permanent knowledge-base

“Written communication to engineering is superior [to verbal communication] because it is more consistent across an entire product team, it is more lasting, it raises accountability.”

—Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz

When managers write, you create work product — white papers, product requirement documents, FAQs, presentations — that lasts and is accessible to everyone in the organization. From marketing to sales to QA to engineering, everyone has a single document off which they can work and consult.

The upshot is that the manager also takes public responsibility for what happens when the rest of the team executes on the point of view taken by the documents. That ratchets up accountability through the organization.

To Horowitz, author of Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager, the distinction between written and verbal communication is stark and, in fact, it’s what separates the wheat from the chaff. Good managers want to be held accountable and aren’t looking for ways to weasel out of responsibility. And so, good managers write, while “[b]ad product managers voice their opinion verbally and lament … the ‘powers that be’.”

The Shit Sandwich and Other Terrible Ways to Give Feedback

January 23, 2020 by I Done This Support 5 Comments

Contrary to common misconception, giving feedback—insightful, useful feedback—is surprisingly difficult. Why? Because, as legendary venture capitalist Ben Horowitz once observed, it’s completely, utterly unnatural.

“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 build up 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.”

Sometimes it’s tempting to feed our employees a shit sandwich—more on this momentarily—and give vital feedback in other completely awful ways, but it’s crucial to your career as a manager that you resist the urge to do so. As a cautionary tale, here are three uniquely terrible ways that inexperienced managers often give feedback and how you can avoid doing this yourself.

How to Keep Calm and Carry On When You Feel Ignored

January 6, 2020 by Elizabeth Grace Saunders Leave a Comment

(This is the last part of the 3-part “Manager’s Series” by our friend, productivity expert and CEO of Real Life E time-coaching company Elizabeth Grace Saunders.)

Feeling ignored is one of the most infuriating situations you can be in — but it’s your job to control how you react to it.

When you’ve tried so hard to address team members’ emotional hurdles to accepting change and walked them through how to apply the change to their work situation, your blood can start boiling when you still don’t see the desired results. You feel ignored. Have you ever caught yourself thinking “How could they be disrespectful?” or “Do they notice? Do they even care?”

Before you stomp over to people to tell them exactly how you feel about their impertinence (or, send them that fiery Slack or email), step back and take a deep breath . . . and one more, just in case. Count to four, inhale. Count to four, exhale.Continue Reading

Written Communication Channels at Work – Where Your Intranet Fits

December 19, 2019 by I Done This Support Leave a Comment

This is a guest post from Lisa Banks, an expert in workplace communication and writer at content marketing agency Animalz.

Good communication is vital to a productive, healthy workplace. But where that communication takes place — the channel or medium used to convey the message — can make a big difference in how successful it is.

Written communication channels have risen to the forefront in recent years. Many people now prefer written communication over phone calls and would rather read an email than have a meeting. And thanks to technology, there are more tools available now than ever before that let you tap out a message to your co-worker without having to get together in person or on the phone.

But the plethora of tools have also complicated the choices we must make when choosing the right communication channel. With teams moving to instant messaging, social intranets, and even texting as a way to communicate, the written communication channel alone brings a multitude of decisions: Should I text Sharon about this? Should I try her on Slack first? Do I need to also follow up with email? What happened to that document where we discussed this same topic last week…?

It’s as important as ever to match the message to the medium. So, how does your team know which written channel to use when they have something to say? And how does your intranet fit into the mix?