Management Is Dead
People development is the new way forward. Not a fad — a foundation. The book is the playbook for managers who want to develop their people, not just manage them.
The thesis
The old management — taking charge, directing, controlling — has given way to developing: bringing out the possibilities in people and helping them grow.
Why we wrote it
We wrote the book we wish we’d had.
The book opens with a guy named Bob. Seasoned sales manager, perfect résumé, hit every quarterly number — and quietly torched the team underneath him. Bob is the pattern we kept seeing everywhere we looked.
Managers influence 70% of the variance in employee engagement. They drive 25% of total productivity. Nearly two in three employee exits trace back to them. Yet the average company offers about ten minutes of management training a year, and 60% of new managers fail within two years. The problem isn’t talent — it’s a complete absence of enablement.
After building a billion-dollar company together at Pushpay, we became obsessed with a better model. We call it the alliance: a real agreement between employer and employee about what the employee wants for themselves, what the company needs from them, and the path that gets to both. That’s the move from managing people to developing them — and the five foundations are how you actually do it.
What’s inside
The five foundations of people development.
A framework built from working with tens of thousands of leaders, and scaling a company from zero to a billion. These are the habits that separate managers who grow their people from managers who burn them out.
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01
Recognizing Unique Strengths
Skills live on a resume; strengths decide a career. Call out potential before people see it in themselves. Then build the skills around it.
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02
Personalized Growth Plans
An alliance, not an improvement plan: what your employee wants, what the company needs, and the path that gets to both.
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03
Setting Clear Goals
Name the stakes, invite the team into the problem, and offer a starting point. Clear goals turn pressure into creativity, not panic.
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04
1-on-1 Meetings
The operating system for every other foundation. Where alliances form, growth plans land, goals get followed up, and feedback actually happens.
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05
Giving Effective Feedback
Where clarity is absent, employees fill the void with something far worse than reality. Hard feedback is how you say: I believe in you enough to tell the truth.
Praise
What leaders are saying about the book.
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I wish I had this book when I was first leading a team many years ago. Whether you’re a new leader or a seasoned leader, Management Is Dead is your playbook to developing a high-performing team and growing your business.
Peter Wooster
Founder, Wooster Advisors
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Chris Heaslip and Matt Tresidder have written a practical, helpful, and transformative guide to leading people that is anchored in the real world. If you’re committed to seeing your team flourish, read this book.
Carey Nieuwhof
Podcaster and bestselling author of At Your Best
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As an athlete, coach, and now business leader, I know firsthand the importance of a healthy team. In Management Is Dead, Matt and Chris share engaging stories with actionable insight to help us become healthier leaders and build healthier teams.
Darren Woodson
3× Super Bowl Champ, 5× Pro Bowl · Partner, Cresa Dallas · Founder, CounterFind
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Culture is the bedrock of growing companies. Management Is Dead helps all leaders make the culture shift from management to coaching as we all work to get better at developing our people — our greatest asset.
Dan Steinman
Chief Evangelist at Gainsight
The new way forward.
Management is dead. People development is the new way forward.