June 2025- Five Things We're Probably Wrong About
this is issue #76
Only 26% of tech workers rate their managers as highly effective. At first, I thought it was about bad hiring or poor training. But looking closer, I started seeing something bigger: a set of quiet, almost invisible assumptions about what makes management work and how often we get those assumptions wrong.
This month's selections challenge five assumptions that quietly shape how we lead: that our current workload is necessary, that hierarchy drives effectiveness, that focus equals productivity, that good leadership means having control rather than being in command, and that we can control outcomes.
The Workload Fairy Tale
"Much of our weekly work might be, from a strict value production perspective, optional."
Studies across Iceland, the UK, and Germany found that reducing workweeks to four days doesn't substantially decrease productivity. How is this possible? Cal Newport calls it "the workload fairy tale": the belief that our current commitments represent exactly what we need to be doing. In reality, we associate activity with usefulness, saying yes until we've filled every minute. The key work that matters requires less than forty hours a week.
The practice: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
Why Hierarchy Is Inherently Problematic
"Rather than being a neutral tool that can be beneficial when properly implemented, hierarchy appears to be inherently problematic for team functioning."
A meta-analysis of team effectiveness research fundamentally challenges conventional wisdom about organizational structure. Hierarchy is structurally flawed for team performance. It only helps under specific conditions: when tasks are highly ambiguous. The findings suggest organizations should be more cautious about creating hierarchical structures and focus on mitigating conflict-prone conditions when hierarchy is unavoidable.
The classic: Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan
What a Wandering Mind Learns
"Mind wandering may actually help people learn probabilistic patterns that let them perform the task better."
Hungarian researchers discovered something counterintuitive: when participants let their minds wander during simple tasks, they adapted to hidden patterns significantly faster. Brain scans showed more slow waves; the kind dominant during sleep. Mind wandering, the researchers suggest, may function like a light form of sleep, offering similar learning benefits. The finding challenges our assumption that focus equals productivity, suggesting zoning out might reveal patterns our conscious attention misses.
The science: The Distracted Mind by Larry Rosen, Kerry Gazzaley, and Mark Rosen
The Command Distinction
"Being 'in control' is impossible, perhaps not even desirable. Being 'in command' is ideal: honest, introspective, agile, aware, and proactive."
I’ve shared distinctions here previously. Jason Cohen's cuts through leadership confusion. Managers "in command" identify problems first and rally people around solutions. They don't eliminate surprises; they seek new information intentionally. Command isn't about controlling outcomes but about proactively seeking truth, working rationally, and communicating clearly. The best leaders combine analysis, decision, and action in a single person.
The framework: High Output Management by Andy Grove
Anything Could Happen, At Any Moment
"Anxiety isn't a silly mistake about how bad things could get. It's a logical response to what's entailed by the human situation."
Oliver Burkeman cuts through the productivity myth that we can plan our way to safety. We're thrown into time, unable to know what's coming, condemned to "total vulnerability to events." The deepest solace isn't in compulsive planning or rehearsing worst-case scenarios, but in recognizing that everyone's in the same boat. You find peace through action: inching forward, doing tiny bits of anxiety-inducing work, discovering concrete evidence that you can cope with reality as it comes.
The foundation: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
In Case You Missed It
These are the weekly essays I published this month:
The Identity Crisis No One Talks About - Management isn't promotion; it's transformation through loss. Can you find worth in what you enable rather than what you create?
Keep It on the One: From Funk to Management - James Brown would tell his band to "hit it on the one"—that first beat that anchors everything else. Teams need the same shared pulse.
Trust Doesn't Work Like That - Trust isn't the automatic result of psychological safety. Trust is someone else's decision. You can knock, but the door opens from the other side.
The Necessary Chaos of Management - What if constant disruption isn't failure but simply what management is? The core competency becomes working within the mess, not conquering it.
I hope you’re having a good start of the summer.
Richard