Here on the Review, we're always on the hunt for the hazy, often misunderstood areas that permeate life at a startup. Whether it's finding product/market fit, or navigating the messy emotions that come with the ups and downs, we get especially fired up when we hone in on a topic that's top-of-mind for lots of folks, but lacks a clear path forward.

Tactical advice for managers — from first-timers to seasoned vets — is a theme we've returned to plenty of times, and there's always a hungry appetite. But when the perspective shifts to those who are being managed, the list of concrete strategies to lean on shrinks significantly, as talk instead instead turns to an amorphous category called "managing up."

It's a term that encompasses everything from developing rapport and trust with a brand-new manager, to conflict management when you're butting heads, and getting approval on your next big idea. To more clearly sketch out the do's and don'ts for managing up, we've spent the past few weeks reaching out to some of the sharpest folks we know for their best tips.

The Tactical Guide to Managing Up: 30 Tips from the Smartest People We Know

Startup leaders and Review favorites like Julie Zhuo, Lenny Rachitsky, Nikhyl Singhal, Matt Wallaert, and many more chimed in with their best advice. The responses we got back were top-notch, opening up a vault of knowledge that's rarely unlocked.

Some tips focus on templates for communicating most effectively and consistently, while other experienced managers opened up about what they wish more direct reports would do. All of the submissions include valuable insights into why they find this particular tactic worth trying out.

We hope this collection is a rich starting point as you put together your own managing up playbook. Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing!

-The Review editors

Here's a sneak peek at the tips:

- Make sure you and your manager have the same answers to these two key questions: 1) What is success for me personally? 2) What is success for my manager’s team?

- When I have a manger who’s more hands off, I share with them my team’s wins and challenges, with a focus specifically on the latter when I need their support. I rely on the ratio of spending 15% of time on wins, 85% of time on the challenges.

- Don’t save up a big topic until you feel you have all the answers — anything worthwhile takes time to build. An old manager of mine had a ‘rule of seven dippings,’ which essentially means that anything sufficiently complex or abstract takes multiple exposures (in his case, seven) in order for someone to internalize the concept.

- It's important to explicitly ask your manager if you are aligned. Asking this question helps to draw formal lines in the sand that give you and your team the confidence to execute.

- Sometimes managers ‘just know’ that one direction is the right direction. I find that disagreeing with them point by point is often a terrible idea. It’s much better to help them explore their own idea by asking questions, such as, ‘What information would tell us that this is actually the wrong idea to pursue?’ In other words, work with them to make the idea falsifiable.

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Resources worth sharing: 

• Tomasz Tunguz borrows an important reminder from Steve Kerr: It's supposed to be hard.
• How to tell an employee they're not meeting expectations.
• Unusual Ventures' guide to picking the right seed-stage design partners.
• Add these 10 resources for improving your product strategy skills to your reading list.
• This thread full of must-watch videos and talks for designers.

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