The Maker-Manager Spectrum

One of my biggest mental dichotomies is between makers and managers. Paul Graham defined them in 2009 based on different schedules, but its actually more useful to consider the spectrum.

1. Pure maker: writer working on their book. A student writing PhD thesis.
2. Maker with a coach: writer with a book advance. A student writing their final essay for the semester.
3. Maker with a manager: waiting tables at a restaurant.
4. Coach/Advisor/Counselor: a mix of maker preparation and manager performance.
5. Middle Manager: squeezed between schedules and agendas of others.
6. Peacetime CEO: Managing team of makers
7. Wartime CEO: Managing team of managers managing managers managing makers, hoping the fires are put out before the whole thing burns down. (and sysadmins.)

Outside of the tech world, most of high status goes to the manager work. We hear about Seal Team Six, not the researchers who made their work possible. We see stories about firefighters rescuing people, not stories about fire prevention specialists stopping fires from beginning in the first place.

This isn’t true everywhere: I’m told in Taiwan, the doctors are compensated more if you don’t visit them. They prize the work of fire prevention over the work of a firefighter.

In tech, there is sometimes more value conferred to makers, but then we often take the top makers and promote them to managers.

Worst case, we end up with the Peter Principle, which restated could be “makers rise to their level of managerial incompetence.”

Best case, we end up with makers who reach the manager peak of a short mountain, and they have to run back down to maker’s camp before scaling to another manager peak.

Crises and shifts between maker and manager

Or at least thats how I want to view it. A few times in my life I’ve shifted on the spectrum from manager toward maker, and each time its been an apparent setback that propelled me forward long term.

Working at Denny’s at 20, all I wanted was to be a manager. In hindsight I don’t know exactly why, but I probably conferred some status to the position. Not understanding their insurance disallowed it on account of my age, I left to take a management position at a Domino’s franchise, where I quickly felt the Peter Principle at work.

A few years later, wanting to finish university, I shifted back to the maker side, taking a position bartending at an Applebee’s. To say this was a relief understates it: I actually increased my contribution (and income) while lowering my stress levels.

Next, I left ten years in restaurants to volunteer at a legal office. On the spectrum, I moved from a maker with a manager (fulfilling a queue of 100s of drinks in a night) to a maker with a coach (here’s a project to complete eventually.) Some people struggle with a lack of deadline: coming from the habit of short term deadlines, I brought the same habits to the longer term work.

This pattern continued for a few years: I would take on someone else’s maker work and use my work ethic to produce a high amount.

When I started Beachhead, I wanted it to be in a position of a coach myself, managing longer term visions and schedules. In hindsight, this was too much to expect of the situation I chose, and I found myself dragged toward the extreme end of the manager spectrum.

Now I’ve forcibly moved back to the maker side of the spectrum, and its thrilling.

Finding your place on the spectrum

How do you find the right part of the spectrum for you? Perhaps you looked at it and already figured it out. If you’re pigheaded like me, you probably don’t know yet where you belong, or find yourself optimizing for the wrong one. In that case, it may help to consider different elements of the two extremes and try them out.

Maker Schedule vs Manager Schedule

Paul Graham wrote plenty about this, but here’s the short version: managers can live on a calendar of 15 minute appointments, while makers need four hour blocks of uninterrupted time to really get anything done.

As I’m writing this, its 1:30pm and I just completed three hours of manager style calls. I have no more energy remaining to actually make anything.

Well, except this blog post. It doesn’t count as maker work because I have zero pressure to do anything with it.

If you thrive on a maker’s schedule, but have to play manager sometimes, its worth considering how to allocate your days so you can avoid commingling the two. I’ve tried dedicating half days to each, but I’m finding the entire day should be blocked off for maximum effectiveness of maker time.

Maker Sleep vs Manager Sleep

Many people brag about functioning on four or five hours of sleep per night. Fuck em. As a manager, you might actually be more productive on less sleep, but for me, my highest productivity comes after 9–10 hours of rest.

If you’re a maker and struggling with writer’s block or similar, try scheduling a week where you have permission to sleep at any time of the day.

If you have children, I’m sorry for your loss. Hopefully you prefer manager work.

Maker Coffee vs Manager Coffee

One reason for the sleep discrepancy is the difference between how makers should use coffee and how managers should use coffee.

As Arvind explains there are two approaches to caffeine consumption: antagonistic and reinforcing.

Antagonistic means you drink coffee when you’re tired, and you smooth out the highs and the lows. Perfect for managers.

Reinforcing consumption means you drink coffee only when you just woke up and are refreshed. This amplifies your peak, but then increases your crash, probably 4–8 hours later.

For a manager, caffeine this way would lead to combining antagonistic and reinforcing until you are able to brag “I can drink a Venti drip coffee with three extra shots and still go to sleep an hour later.”

For a maker, caffeine this way is magic. Tired 6 hours after waking? Take a nap! You’ll probably be more productive dreaming than you are awake.

Maker thinking vs Manager thinking

In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman distinguishes between System 1 thinking (fast, instinctive, and emotional) and System 2 thinking (slower, more deliberate, and more logical.)

With some exceptions, System 1 is managerial firefighter thinking. Sure, you might need logic as a manager, but more likely you need to make fast decisions based on logic you already resolved years ago as a maker.

System 2 is far more of maker thinking. Sure, designers and writers might apply more instinct and emotion than logic, and the flow state might be somewhere in between, but in general maker thinking is thinking to a resolution rather than thinking to a stopwatch.

Maker fitness vs Manager fitness

The perfect manager exercise routine is a 30 minute circuit, likely with others, including loud music and a drill sergeant. Soul Cycle, Peloton, these types of classes.

I enjoy manager fitness. But while immersed in manager work, I found solace in maker fitness.

Maker fitness is going through a routine without a time limit. Alexander Faleev’s 80/20 Powerlifting is a great example. Here are his words on rest between sets:

“Never train to failure! Don’t attempt a rep unless you are 100% sure you will make it. Ideally, keep one extra rep in the bank. “Save your strength for the next set.”

This sounds similar to the advice on writing from Ernest Hemingway:

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.”

A manager takes a class; a maker takes a walk.

Maker stress vs Manager stress

Manager stress is external. Fires happen unexpectedly, and all you can do is train to prepare. Your most loyal and productive employee, one day walks into your office and announces she’s resigning.

Maker stress is more often internal. Its the gripping pain of writer’s block. Its the feeling of impotence when you cannot focus.

Maker quality vs Manager quality

A manager defines quality by its conformity to specifications. Like caffeine consumption, the goal is to stay close to the average, to minimize valleys.

A maker defines quality by its ability to reach new peaks.

Having spent the last few years far to the manager side, I’m looking forward to some time indulging in the maker side.