I think of managing as keeping a bunch of freight trains from smashing into one another. The manager can't claim to be making things move twice as fast, and it's hard to recognize the absence of disaster as a contribution. But if the managing were going poorly, everyone would be far worse off.
Pretty much. A good manager is easy to spot by the how predictably their freight trains crash (if its not above company norms or team standards prior to their tenure). A bad manager is easy to spot, because you can see the disaster around them. But a 2x manager is like a blackhole - there's nothing to observe directly, and you can only spot one if you're carefully observing everything around it. But if a really good manager disappears and is replaced by just a good manager, you'll slowly see that blackhole-like influence disappear and their team metrics revert to company norms.
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Yeah, you nailed it.
I think of managing as keeping a bunch of freight trains from smashing into one another. The manager can't claim to be making things move twice as fast, and it's hard to recognize the absence of disaster as a contribution. But if the managing were going poorly, everyone would be far worse off.
Pretty much. A good manager is easy to spot by the how predictably their freight trains crash (if its not above company norms or team standards prior to their tenure). A bad manager is easy to spot, because you can see the disaster around them. But a 2x manager is like a blackhole - there's nothing to observe directly, and you can only spot one if you're carefully observing everything around it. But if a really good manager disappears and is replaced by just a good manager, you'll slowly see that blackhole-like influence disappear and their team metrics revert to company norms.