151. Are You Managing People or Chairs?
Send us Fan Mail What if the problem with management isn’t that companies have too many managers—but that managers are managing the wrong thing? As companies flatten organizations, increase spans of control, and turn to AI to automate more work, we need to rethink what management is actually for. In this episode of Love Monday Like Friday , Ryan explores the critical difference between managing work and managing people . Managing work means coordinating tasks, schedules, workflows, deadlines, metrics, and outputs—the kind of work technology and AI are becoming increasingly capable of doing. Managing people is different. It means understanding human performance, motivation, strengths, energy, development, potential, and fit. That isn’t administration. It’s a craft. We’ve spent decades promoting great individual contributors into management and then burying them in meetings, reports, approvals, projects, and administrative work. Meanwhile, actually developing the human beings on their teams becomes something they’re expected to squeeze in around everything else. Maybe it’s time to change that. People management shouldn’t be something you do because you happen to be responsible for six chairs. It should be a profession practiced by people who have developed expertise in human performance and development. Ryan connects this idea to the Excellence Trap™, Gainers & Drainers™, Skill-Will-Fit, the Coaching Cycle™, and Manager Mirror™ and asks a bigger question about the future of work: If AI and technology can increasingly manage the chair, what becomes possible when managers can finally focus on the person sitting in it? Stop managing the chair. Start managing the person. Support the show For more information on how to love Monday just like Friday, got to: LoveMondayLikeFriday.com . Find more information from Ryan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-houmand/ Get the book! "A Passion for Monday"
