Managers, where are you? Would you write for us?

After I pointed you to Terry Starbucker’s place the other day, I took a good long look at the list of RSS feeds I follow, and I realized there were only two feeds I think of as written by in-the-trenches managers pursuing the calling they have for being managers: Starbucker’s, and the one written by Simplerich.

I also thought about how great it would be if we could get more "calling for it" managers to blog.

This is a shout out for those of you out there who

a) are thinking about it, and/or

b) are blogging about your calling for managing people too, and I just don’t know about you yet. Toot Sweetly: Comment here and leave me your link.

There are a lot of people like me who write about management as a calling, and who like me, truly do feel that managing other people is, or was, their calling at one time. However there aren’t as many I can point to ~ like Starbucker and Simplerich ~ who blog right now as managers period, and not as the once-were-managers who are now coaches, consultants, and teachers… also like me and a LOT of others, like my buddies Lisa Haneberg, Kevin Eikenberry, Trevor Gay and David Zinger as a few examples.)

There are some really good managers who blog that I think of as in transition, and who are planning to eventually move on, like Phil Gerbyshak.

There are some really good managers who blog, but not about their good work with managing other people (the calling part) as the mainstay of their online writing. They blog about their other interests or their business (Dave Rothacker, Dwayne Melancon, Dean Boyer and Chris Bailey are the first four of many examples who come to mind for me) versus offering up the managing people case studies we can learn from ~ which I know is very difficult, especially when a peer or an employee can read it and think, "I know who they’re talking about…"

However there is a way to do that and do it well: Simplerich is the best (and only) example I can think of at the moment, of someone who does it brilliantly. He has never exposed his company or his employer on his blog, and he writes about what they go through in a very instructive and constructive way.

In a way, all of my book Managing with Aloha is like that… scores of people know exactly who I am talking about in the stories I told though I didn’t mention many names: I only wrote about the stories that I knew someone so exposed would say, "Yep, that was me alright" and be proud to admit it, and they are stories used to illustrate a point I’m making, or for the, really works because this really happened… not a what if or pipe dream effect.

Management can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be and we can learn a lot from each other’s stories, both about the success, and the process itself.

What we need, is more sharing.

Who are the great calling-for-it managers you are reading online that I should be adding to my list of feeds? I want to use Talking Story to help them further the cause: When done right, management matters, and we need to celebrate the good stuff.

Flood this comment string, and give me your suggestions, would you?

Toot your own horn if I haven’t found you yet, and be proud of your calling: Link your name with one of the best posts you have written ~ I know how to pick up your feed, and get to your main page and your About Page (I always read those before subscribing… mini rant here: Puleeze fill out those About Page templates before you turn your blog on publicly and people can click some stock template link- you are missing a golden opportunity).

More about horn tooting here: Toot Sweetly: Create Your Distinction. It is a mantra I am keeping alive at Joyful Jubilant Learning. (Mahalo to Joanna Young for mentioning it sometimes and helping me!)

As an aside… someone who used to blog about his own experiences managing people (and I miss when he did it) is back with a new blog in the "other interests" category: Bren Connelly has started up a new blog called BikeHacks: Bikes don’t rule the world”but they should! If like me you’ve missed Bren, or if you never knew him but are crazy about Bikes, check it out.

If I still haven’t convinced you managers-with-the-calling in the trenches out there to consider blogging, maybe this success story will: While I think Phil and David are doing an exceptional service to all of us in keeping it going with their reinvention, my humble opinion is that Bren got the SlackerManager legacy going in the first place because of the time he wrote it with his calling for being the great manager he is. b5media (who bought SlackerManager) knew a good thing when they saw it.

Photo credit: Big Brass Band! by peasap