Episode Details

Choosing between being an individual contributor or a manager
It’s a common dilemma across all fields: the top contributors are most likely to get promoted to a management position. The issue is that not all contributors make good managers, while almost all managers need to have some subject matter expertise acquired through being an individual contributor.

In this episode, Jon and Phil break down the differences between each career track and make a case that most people would be happier as an individual contributor.

Will you be happier as an individual contributor?
Most people will be happier as an individual contributor. Everyone is different, but many individual contributors seek management roles because it’s perceived as the only path to promotion within an organization.

This is a dilemma faced by many individuals across different types of roles: the top individual contributor is flagged as for promotion to management. But the skill of managing people is quite different from being a great contributor. The other question is will contributors be happy spending their time managing people?

Think about it: if what you love about martech is figuring out how to set up automation, workflows, testing new tools, working with teams to solve problems, and getting your hands dirty, the shift to management is going to draw a stark contrast. Managers in martech, like Directors of Marketing Operations, are responsible for their team, the strategy, and overseeing all those moving parts.

The skills required to be excellent at marketing operations are different from being great at management. One could make the argument that you could be excellent at management without actually being a great contributor. Just consider one skill all managers need: emotional intelligence.

People issues arise all the time in management and require a thoughtful, considerate manager to resolve. Understanding team chemistry and paying close attention to the needs of individual team members is critical, but a skill many of us need to cultivate. Consider the quiet team member who struggles in silence with the team dynamics, maybe never feeling the opportunity or encouragement to bring their ideas up in team meetings. Then, one day, they leave the team because they found a better opportunity.

Benefits of being an individual contributor
Being an individual contributor can be a fulfilling and rewarding career choice. Here’s why individual contributors love their work:

• Deep work and flow state
• Time management
• Specialization and be true experts
• Autonomy in daily tasks
• Aligned with strength and interests

Deep work and flow state
For individual contributors it’s possible to achieve that zen-like state of flow where time flies by as you just enjoy completing your work. For creators, this might be writing a blog post or designing an image; for marketing ops folks, it may be designing workflows, setting up automation, or auditing a system.

Hitting this state as a manager is nearly impossible with a need for managing team members, triaging requests, and communicating across multiple channels. The dream of turning off Slack and checking out of email seems like a distant one when you’re in management. Managers face continuous waves of interruptions that drown any chances of deep work.

But for individual contributors, this heightened state of focus isn’t the ideal, it’s the norm.

Time management
As a manager, your calendar is a wall of one-on-ones, team meetings, strategy meetings with leadership, and ad-hoc-have-to-meet-now meetings. If this sounds like hell, well, this is a taste of a manager’s life. Entire books have been written about making meetings less hellish, such as one of our favorites “Death by Meeting“.

While it’s commendable to make th