Sketchplanations

Explaining one thing a week in a sketch

Umbrellas and Funnels illustration: On the left, the effective manager uses an umbrella to shield their team from a downpour of tasks and requests coming from all directions. This sheltered team are focussed and productive and celebrate their achievements. On the right, in place of the umbrella, the less effective manager uses a funnel as a catch-all, showering their team with actions, sending the team members running scared.

Umbrellas and funnels

Much of the success of a good manager or leader is making sure your team can get the right work done. The demands on a team, say a product team in a tech company, increase as organisations grow. Before you know it there are requests from all sides that can sap a team's time, energy, and ability to get the key work done.

Todd Jackson, former product manager of Gmail, memorably shared that a manager can be an umbrella or a funnel. The umbrella protects their team to let them get work done and the funnel lets everything pour through.

All of us want autonomy to choose our own actions but none of us want to be overwhelmed.

Be the umbrella.

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Keep exploring

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The Business Flywheel illustration: the model of The Business Funnel, where prospects are filtered to yield end customers is compared with The Business Flywheel, where customers are at the centre, acting as the driving force behind your business momentum.
The knowledge funnel - Sketchplanations
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