Hiring. I have found that hiring smart people is particularly beneficial. I have found that hiring good people is even more effective. I try to live my life by surrounding myself with people that I admire and want to be more like. It has served me well. Friendships that I put effort into are with people who reflect these attributes. The hiring process can benefit from the exact same criteria. Hire people you like to spend time with. Hire quality people with ethics and values that the entire team share. This absolutely does not mean that you consider political views or spiritual orientations. In fact, if you can not tolerate people on your team that do not share your specific views in that regard you are destined to fail as a manager.
Hire a mix of people who think about design and produce design. Design thinking is extremely powerful. Design as a craft is necessary, but a room full of design craftspeople is not a formula for success. If I thought it would be effective I would repeat this paragraph 12 times. It is that important to designers to THINK more than they DO.
Manage rules and projects… not people. And that last thing I spend time doing is supervising. If a team member requires management pressure to get the job done they should be set free. Management is about providing leadership and vision… not enforcement. A good manager mitigates enforcement through quality hiring.
