BusinessMarketingCareers

Management For Startups Podcast

Cedric Chin

The Management for Startups Podcast is a weekly show by Cedric Chin that covers the basics of management for startups, small teams, and organisations between 2-50 people. The goal is to produce a complete resource for new managers on the startup treadmill.

Play

Open in

20 episodes
Avg 14 min
English

Episodes 20

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

#35
May 1, 2020 · 14 min
Finding Failures Early
When you're moving to a new role — be it as an individual contributor to a manager, or a manager to another part of the organisation — your move is often fraught with uncertainty. This week, we talk about a method for increasing the odds of your success
#34
Apr 15, 2020 · 14 min
#34 The Two Things You Need To Be A Good Manager
Why is it that certain people can't seem to get better at management? Why are there so many bad managers out there? A year or so ago, I came across the first plausible explanation for this observation, from Ben Horowitz, a VC with Andreesen Horowitz.
#33
Apr 3, 2020 · 14 min
#33 Taking Care Of Yourself Before Taking Care of Others
In our last episode, we talked about transitioning from a physical workplace to a remote work configuration. This week's episode is about taking care of yourself before you take on the responsibility of taking care of others. This applies to managers who
#32
Mar 20, 2020 · 14 min
#32 Managing From Home
Many of us are stuck working from home this week, as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe. This week's episode is about managing your team from this position — especially if you're not used to working remotely. What should you do? What should y
#31
Dec 11, 2019 · 14 min
#31 Beware Idea Bombs
Idea bombs, or founder bombs is the tendency for you to tell your subordinates about this great big idea you have, and then distract them from execution. In this episode, we explore three methods for resisting this nearly universal urge.
#30
Nov 27, 2019 · 13 min
#30 Mission is Overrated?
In my previous episode about my new book, Keep Your People, I mentioned that 'mission is an overrated tool for employee retention'. This was a throwaway comment that I realise should properly be explained. This episode, I spend some time unpacking the ass
#29
Oct 23, 2019 · 14 min
#29 An Overview of Keep Your People
I launched Keep Your People — The Startup Manager's Guide to Employee Retention last Friday, and the book is available on the MFS website. In this episode of the MFS podcast, we cover a quick overview of the contents of the book, as well as my apology f
#28
Jun 6, 2019 · 13 min
#28 Executive Intent: Let Them Read Your Mind
Giving good instructions is difficult! This week, we look at 'executive intent', an adaptation of 'Commander's Intent', a technique that was developed by the US Army for better, clearer instructions. The two books referenced during the episode: - Sourc
#27
May 22, 2019 · 13 min
#27 People Judgment: Beware the Simple Narrative
We spend a great deal of time as managers forming accurate models of the people we work with. It's important to resist the urge to stick to the first narrative we generate. This episode, we explore how to resist the narrative fallacy, and why it's impor
#26
Apr 24, 2019 · 11 min
#26 The Hard Thing About Disagree and Commit
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos popularised the idea of 'disagree and commit' in his 2016 shareholder's letter. It's a fascinating idea, but it isn't the most common form of 'disagree and commit' that you'd experience as a middle manager. No, the most common scen
#25
Apr 12, 2019 · 14 min
#25 Finding Motivation as an Old Manager
We all have down days. When you're an individual contributor, this isn't so bad. But when you're a manager, your entire team depends on you. How do you deal with motivational issues when you're hit with an inevitable down day?
#24
Apr 4, 2019 · 14 min
#24 Finding Motivation as a New Manager
This week we deal with the challenge many makers — programmers, designers, hardware engineers — face when they make the leap to management. How do you wake up in the morning to go to work when you no longer get joy from what you do? (Inspired from this
#23
Mar 27, 2019 · 14 min
#23 Understanding Your Boss's True Motivations
If you're a middle manager, dealing with your boss is going to be one of the main things that you'll have to learn to do. This week, we'll talk about a fundamental technique that every manager would eventually need to learn: the ability to really understa
#22
Mar 20, 2019 · 15 min
#22 Being the shit shield for your team
One of the implications of the manager's job of 'increasing the output of the team' is to serve as the 'shit shield' for said team. This means protecting them from the natural randomness of events in your organisation, especially when it doesn't affect th
#21
Feb 28, 2019 · 14 min
#21 Discovering Career Conversations By Accident
In Kim Scott's 2017 management book Radical Candor, Scott describes a management technique that she attributes to ex-Google manager Russ Laraway, who had to integrate the Doubleclick team post Google acquisition. The technique is called Career Conversatio
#20
Feb 21, 2019 · 13 min
#20 When Delegating, Explain Why
We've talked about delegation before on the MFS podcast, but one thing that I've neglected to mention is that it's important to 'explain why' when delegating to subordinates. Explaining 'why' — sometimes called providing context, or communicating executi
#19
Jan 23, 2019 · 14 min
#19 How to Introduce a Process Change
Process change is something that is inevitable at every startup. This week we look at a general template for introducing process change, and two ways of evaluating an impending change you're considering.
#18
Jan 16, 2019 · 14 min
#18 Firing Too Quickly
Last week we discussed the dangers of firing too slowly. This week we'll discuss the dangers of the opposite view: that of firing too quickly. In my experience, startup managers who fire too quickly tend to have 'high standards', and they tend to come fr
#17
Jan 10, 2019 · 14 min
#17 Firing Too Slowly
We've discussed the difficulty of firing bad performers in the past — in the last episode on the Manager Ugh Field, for instance, I illustrated the ugh field with a personal story on the difficulty of firing an underperforming subordinate. In this episo
#16
Jan 2, 2019 · 14 min
#16 The Manager Ugh Field
The Manager Ugh Field is what you feel when you're facing a difficult situation at work. Your brain throws up a deflector shield to force your attention away from a difficult action, conversation or confrontation at work. Knowing how to deal with the ugh

Showing 1–20 of 20 episodes