Tools
Instruments for the working manager: each one explained, sourced, and ready to use with your team tomorrow.
The Calibration CallToolA short research conversation with someone who has done the role or hired for it, to learn what great and failed performance look like before you define it.The Competency StackToolA five-layer standard for what a hire must clear: the role, the level, the company's values, its stage, and the team they're joining.The Dreyfus ModelToolEvery skill runs on a ladder from novice to expert, with a sixth rung, mastery, for those who push further, and where you sit changes how you learn it and how you should be coached. The Dreyfus model is the map: name the rung, name the next one, and the vague feedback that helps no one turns into a plan.FlowToolEngagement lives in the channel where challenge and skill stay matched: too much challenge and you're anxious, too little and you're bored.The Golden MeanToolMost human behaviors sit on a spectrum: underdo it and it's a vice of deficiency, overdo it and it's a vice of excess. The Golden Mean, or "Goldilocks Zone," is where you'll find the "habitable," effective, and admirable state of a behavior.The MOCToolThe MOC is the document you write before you talk to a single candidate: the Mission the role exists to serve, the Outcomes you will hold the hire to, and the Competencies it takes to deliver them. Get it right and the same page becomes your interview guide, your onboarding plan, your ninety-day scorecard, and your grounds for letting someone go if it comes to that.Skill vs. WillToolSplits a performance problem into skill and will, then names the fix for each case: assign, teach, diagnose, or reassign.Task-Relevant MaturityToolMatch your style to someone's maturity on the task at hand, not their general experience: low maturity needs structure, high maturity needs goals and room.The Terrain TestToolA hiring screen for stage fit: has the candidate recently succeeded under the same ambiguity, structure, and support this role will demand?