Management is disappointing people at a rate they can absorb

Earlier this year I went through performance reviews with my team.

I currently have 7 Senior Product Designers reporting to me and many of them want a promotion to staff designer.

I can’t possibly promote them all, right?

It’s a real Hunger Games scenario and I knew folks would be disappointed as I walked through each review.

I felt bad. After all, it’s my job as their manager to go up to bat for them. While disappointment is a fact of life, maybe we can get better at managing it.

Facing Reality

The quote above is attributed to Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. I first read this quote in The Disappointment Frontier. While that might sound a bit grim, disappointment is a fact of life.

The article goes on…

Even as a new-ish manager, I can already see this playing out in my team.

• I’m not able to give someone a promotion because there isn’t a need for the role they want. How many staff level designers do we need on a team of 15? Not everyone can be a VP.

• I can’t give someone the raise they want because the company doesn’t have enough budget. What if the company hasn’t made enough money? What if the market is down and we need to conserve cash?

In my first few performance review cycles, I spent more time mitigating disappointment than celebrating with my team. Through this, I’ve learned that managing disappointment is a core leadership skill.

Just as parents teach their kids, we’re not always gonna get what we want in life and we have to be able to handle a degree of disappointment.

What am I doing about it?

Back to my team of seven senior product designers. During our 1:1s I try to be straight with them. I tell them what I know and what I’m hearing from other parts of parts of the business.

1. I over-communicate. I’m transparent about what’s going on in the wider company. Shielding folks so they don’t get worried feels good short-term, but keeping people in a bubble of protection rarely ends well. I tell my team as much as I can so that there aren’t any surprises when delivering a performance review.

2. I’m honest about what I can control. I tell my team that I will advocate for them, but ultimately can’t control the budget or other people’s recommendations.

3. I underpromise (and hopefully overdeliver). The last thing I want to do is make a promise that I don’t deliver. That’s sure fire way to lose someone’s trust. See the previous bullet point.

4. I don’t BS people. If someone’s close to a promotion, I’ll say that I’ll go up to bat for them but can’t make any promises. If someone’s a little farther away from that next step, I’ll explain what needs to happen, give specific examples of behaviors or accomplishments I expect, and work with them to get to that next level.

Managing disappointment often boils down to increasing context and setting realistic expectations.

Conclusion

By over-communicating, being transparent, and clearly defining what is within and beyond our control, we can better manage the inevitable disappointments that arise between our team’s expectations and reality.

It’s not our duty to create a perfect world for our team. Reality will always mess with this perfect world, so it’s our responsibility to coach our teams through it.

I’d highly recommend reading The Disappointment Frontier, it’s one of the best things I’ve read this year.

📣 Cool Job Alert

I’m hiring a design systems product designer at Dialpad. This role is remote-friendly in available in most locations of United States, Canada, and Argentina.

🧶 Stray Links

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🏛️ From the Archives
A favorite article I periodically re-read

How to Email with an Old Friend After Falling Out of Touch offers great advice for catching up with an old friend beyond talking about superficial things.

Thanks for reading ✌️
- Ted (@tedgoas)