This is Steva Robbins.

Welcome to the Get It Done Guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

On becoming a manager, Melvin was for Klempt.

He was recently promoted to manager, and now his life is a living heck.

I need to make sure our website is immune to sequel injection attacks, he proclaims. But my direct

reports keep wanting to talk to me about irrelevant stuff. One of them was going on and on about

their Kansas City summer vacation. I don't have time for this stuff. All contrary, Melvin. That's

French. It means on the contrary. This is now the most important part of your job.

When you're promoted to manager, your job changes.

Your job is no longer getting things done.

Now, it's getting stuff done through other people.

And it's the through other people that becomes the focus of how you spend your time.

When Melvin's a programmer, his job is to make sure the green growing things website is

immune to SQL injection attacks.

When Melvin is promoted to manager, however, his new job is to make sure that his team is

making the website immune to sequel injection attacks.

In an ideal world, Melvin shouldn't even be putting his hands to the keyboard.

I can hear his shrieks of horror in the background. So what should Melvin be doing? Taking his

attention off the computers and on to the people. He needs to be growing and facilitating his

department. That means understanding their technical problems just enough to identify and hire other people

who can solve those problems.

When he interviews job candidates, he needs to be able to ask them questions that will reveal

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