Welcome!

This is a newsletter about the practice of management. I’ve been a manager for more than ten years, and management fascinates me more now than it did when I started. First, I want to explain why I chose the name Management for Anarchists. It came to me after I heard Noam Chomsky define anarchism for Ezra Klein. Here’s Chomsky’s definition.

Anarchism, the way I understand it, is pretty close to a truism. That’s it. And I think everybody, if they think about it, will accept at least this much. We begin with assuming that any structure of authority and domination has to justify itself. It’s not self-justifying. It has a burden of proof. It has to show that it’s legitimate. So if you’re taking a walk with your kid, and the kid run in the street, and you grab his arm and pull him back, that’s an exercise of authority. But it’s legitimate. You can have a justification.

As managers, we have to accept that our role exists within a “structure of authority and domination” as Chomsky describes it. I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in any position within such a structure, and I’ve always been wary of authority. What I’ve learned though, is that these feelings and doubts made me a better manager, rather than rendering me unfit for management roles.

For the purposes of the newsletter, my definition of management is simple — if you can fire someone, you’re a manager. If you can’t fire anyone, you're not. (Obviously at any reasonable company, nobody can really fire anyone based on their sole discretion, so it’s more accurate to say that you can initiate a process that leads to someone being fired.) Firing someone deprives them of their livelihood and separates them from an institution where they find connection and meaning. The potential to fire and to be fired establishes a power dynamic that can’t be ignored. For this reason, management is a structure that requires justification.

What I like about Chomsky's definition is that he doesn’t suggest the elimination of structure and hierarchy. I think the “holacracy” craze is over, but for awhile, some businesses tried to labor under the illusion that you eliminate hierarchy. Doing so was a form of denial, because there were always some people who could fire other people. That’s hierarchy. While Chomsky ultimately proposes a system that is essentially a pure form of representative democracy, and most companies aren’t likely to adopt that either, the implication is that a person can manage in a way that would be compatible with a fully a democratic system.

This newsletter is really about answering two questions. How does a person whose values align with Noam Chomsky’s succeed in a leadership position in the corporate world? What might a person who’s less wary of hierarchy and authority learn from someone who is? Nobody hires you as a manager or gives you a promotion because you share Noam Chomsky’s skepticism of authority. What I believe is that this skepticism provides an interesting vantage point from which to look at what does and doesn’t work in management, and to ultimately become a much more effective manager.

Maybe you’re a person who has some blind spots when it comes to the role authority plays in the workplace, or maybe you’re a person who sees managers as mostly standing in the way of doing great work. In this newsletter, I plan to explore the contradictions of management, and to really examine how to most effectively use the tools managers have to build great teams. I have some fun management stories to tell as well.

I should add that while this newsletter is about management, it’s not just for managers. Figuring out how to work effectively with your manager is a huge part of work, and one of my goals for this newsletter is to help people build better relationships with their managers, whether they themselves are a manager or not.