Managing People More Talented Than Yourself
One of the most important skills I’ve developed over the years is learning how to manage people more talented than myself. Beginning at Facebook and later transitioning to Quora, I’ve had the great privilege to manage many exceedingly talented designers. Some of which were much more talented than myself. Those experiences have taught me a lot about being a better manager for talented people generally, however—and, while similar—managing people with more talent than yourself can create its own set of unique challenges. So while the lessons learned could really never get distilled into a practical set of instructions (there’s too much context, specificity), there are many generally useful tidbits of information I’ve collected over the years.
There are a few things you must acknowledge at the outset if you want to be successful: I. Your ego may make this hard but at some point you must recognize that out of the many people who report to you, at least a one or two will be more talented than you[1]; II. Managing people with more talent than yourself is a real skill and you should approach it as such; III. You may not have the skills and/or experience to recognize and understand their level of talent. In order to build this skill most productively you really want to understand how, why, and on what specific dimensions they are more talented.
There are a bunch of different ways you can measure how talented someone is but a good place to start is to think about their last few ideas and suggestions. Do you wish you could have thought of those ideas? If so, the next step is to think about how they came to those conclusions. Is there something significant you can learn from their approach that you hadn’t considered? At what level is that approach? Does it demonstrate high-level or strategic thinking? Is it something you can use in the future? How often does the person have suggestions or ideas like that? Does the person have depth in one particular skill or many skills?
Asking these questions will enable you to understand the nature of their talent, but since you’re at a presumed deficit you need to do more to get a better picture. That deficit may create a situation where by its very nature you cannot fully appreciate the person’s actions. This is where you need to start asking questions directly to your report to get a better understanding of their approach. These questions allow you to better assess the motivations behind their actions. The answers to your questions should be clear, direct, and understandable. If you get lost in maze of jargon or the pieces never really connect to a cohesive vision there’s a good chance the person is just a skilled bullshitter. If you understand everything but don’t agree with the conclusion, don’t let that disagreement get in the way. Instead, start arguing. If after the majority of the arguments you walk feeling like you’ve learned something and/or have changed your opinions more often than not, there’s a very good chance your report is very talented[2]. However, very talented is not the same as more talented.
In order to determine if someone is more talented, you should also start to think of yourself as a dispassionate conductor of information. Being very careful to not manipulate or distort the information in any way and to pass as much information along to the person as possible. As a manager you are naturally the central contact point for a lot of information and while this gives you personally a lot of power, that power is wasted unless it’s in the hands of the person who can make the best use of it. What does the person do with the information after they receive it? Do they create something better than you would have when you considered the same information? Can they recreate that output consistently? Do they use the information productively or just complain about the circumstances that led to the issue in the first place[3]? If you have already been relaying information and things have been going well, is there a meeting where they should be included?
If, when armed with the information and organizational support to take on real challenges, the person consistently creates output that you could not have imagined—and you have to do real work to best understand—well, the person is probably more talented than you. This is by no means the only approach to determining this, but it gives you an idea of what to look for or at the very least an example of one approach.
Once you have made yourself confident the person is more talented, the best ways to help them might not be that obvious. Because if they really are more talented, they are probably already doing a lot of the work themselves. I had a lot of luck using a multi-front effort of asking, anticipating, and aggressively delegating. Maybe it’s blocking and tackling, maybe it’s being a good organizational representative, maybe it’s protecting their time, maybe it’s asking them questions to spur introspection, maybe it’s running interference when they are making hard tradeoffs, maybe it’s taking part of the hit when they try something ambitious and it fails[4], maybe it’s assigning them projects you would normally assign yourself, maybe it’s not allowing them to settle, and maybe it’s doing nothing at all. If the person is really talented they will suggest something to you when asked but you should always be looking ahead for opportunities they don’t or can’t see[5].
Ultimately, your job as manager isn’t to be the most talented person on the team, it’s to help the team create really great output. By learning this skill you can ensure anyone who has more talent is in a position to be as leveraged as possible while the rest of the organization catches up to what you already know. You will be seen as having good judgement and putting the company’s priorities ahead of your own personal gain. More importantly, I would argue, you have already had a very good opportunity to learn from that person. If you were right about their talent level, those learnings should be invaluable.
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[1] This fact doesn’t reflect at all on your standing as manager. There are many factors that go into reporting structures and not everyone is cut out for management.
[2] Anyone can act like they are more talented than someone but there’s an art to distinguishing between the people who are just insecure/arrogant/overconfident/etc. from the people who have real talent. You will inevitably learn some things from your reports, but the key here is that you are almost always in learning mode and, when applied, the lessons make your output better.
[3] I call this out specifically because sometimes you are working with someone really talented but they are so mired in their own dissatisfaction that they aren’t productive. If someone who is really talented is already in this state, it may already be too late and it’s best to move on and apply your attention elsewhere.
[4] When they try something ambitious and it succeeds, absolutely do not take any credit unless there was a clear, direct, and meaningful contribution from you.
[5] Usually they can’t see it because you as a manager are in manager-only meetings or have otherwise sensitive information. If you have to do this too much, however, it’s likely you were wrong about their talent-level and should adjust your approach accordingly.