About

Hi, I'm Wes. I became a manager sort of by accident, and it was rough.

I was the most technically experienced person on the team and for some reason that meant I was manager material. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I appreciated the opportunity, but the problem is there was no "how to be a manager" guide out there for people like me.

Sure, there's a healthy Business Section at the local bookstore, but I quickly found that it was full of fluff and platitudes (you know, the stuff that sounds good, but doesn't actually mean anything). I craved something that talked about the common day-to-day problems I was constantly stubbing my toe on.

I had one good manager up until that point, and a whole slew of bad managers that I swore I'd never become. I emulated that good manager as much as I could, but I screwed up a lot. I quickly began running into scenarios where I had no clue how he'd handle them.

How do you get your team to snap out of a slump when there's nothing to really be excited about?

How do I get this person to understand why they're not ready for a promotion yet without becoming the enemy?

How do I deal with two people that can't stand each other on my team?

I would have given anything to have a realistic and practical guide for how to deal with common manager scenarios, instead of having to figure things out by trial and error.

I never found that guide, but over the years I've put together a pretty solid toolkit for being the kind of manager I wish I had back in my early days. Many of these ideas feel obvious once you hear them, and some of them even feel like cheat codes. There are no silver bullets, and you'll still have to use your own judgement, but my goal is to provide the guide I wish I had.

This guide is for both new and experienced managers, because once you think you know it all, you've become that manager you swore you never would.