Sketchnotes for my coworker’s excellent talk: From Developing Software to Developing People.

Matthew, now an engineering director at my company, started as a software engineer. After becoming a manager, he experienced many trials and errors. He shared his lessons as a manager and what good managers focus on most: the people.

Some say good attitudes = good outcomes. But good managers know that this is not true.

Attitude comes from a lot of things — personality and the environment are among some of the most important factors. They care about each team member, find ways to best utilize them, based on their personality and skill set, and create great environments for them to be their best selves.

In a great environment, where stakes are low, people tend to collaborate with and support each other more, which brings great part from humanity and personality, makes a better team, and therefore leads to better outcomes.

There are many ways to “lower the stakes”. For example, encourage shared ownership, have constant gut checks, re-strategize approaches to desired outcomes.

People + Environment = Outcome.