🖤 Open Works #024 How to Design Your First Management Layer

Welcome to Open Works. Every edition we solve a ‘people and culture’ problem crowd-sourced from the Open Org Community of 420+ Startup and Scale-up People Leaders.

📚️ Recent Editions

If you’re new round here, not yet a subscriber or you straight up missed it, here are some of our recent editions.

🚥 Edition 19: Building a culture integration roadmap for your next merger – a tangible diagnostic, guided tour and framework to support you.

🎉 Edition 20: Everything we built in 2024 – our top open source resources for people leaders, downloaded 800k+.

🎯 Edition 16: Building my people strategy from scratch! SOS – a principle driven framework to building your startup’s people strategy.

💭 This Week’s People Problem

🖤 Our Take On How You Solve

🏃 TL;DR:

1. Clarify what you need – People Managers, Team Leads, Something else? Scope matters.

2. Decide build vs. buy – Promote internally or hire externally?

3. Define expectations – What does “good” look like for your first managers and what is their principle accountability?

4. Train & support – First-time managers need help, structure, and mentorship.

5. Align with leadership – Ensure managers reinforce the culture and strategy, not dilute it.

⚡️ The Problem

As you approach 50 people, the typical “flat” structure can start to break down.

• Founders/execs are stretched too thin. Everyone reports to them. Decisions slow down.

• High performers start burning out. No career path. No structure. No mentoring.

• Communication silos form. Teams work hard but pull in different directions.

The answer? A deliberate management layer. But done wrong, it can create more complexity, not less.

💡 So, What Does a Good First Management Layer Look Like?

It should be:

✅ Small & purpose-driven – Only create management roles where they add real value.
✅ Designed for scale – Roles that will still make sense at 100+ headcount.
✅ Culturally aligned – Reinforce what makes your company great, not introduce bureaucracy.
✅ Set up for success – First-time managers need training, coaching, and clarity and they have to want the job. #accidentalManagers = a risk you don’t need to take.

🧠 Approach to Building Your First Management Layer

1️⃣ Decide: Do You Need Managers or Leads?

Not all teams need “managers” in the traditional sense. Think about what your business actually needs. Consider:

• Player-coaches – Senior ICs with mentorship responsibilities.

• Team/Functional Leads – Focused on execution, goal alignment & team coordination, not performance management.

• People Managers – Responsible for career growth, feedback, and team success.

2️⃣ Build vs. Buy: Promote Internally or Hire Externally?

Each option has trade-offs:

🔐 Pro tip: Even if you hire externally, invest in up-skilling internal talent to grow into leadership roles.

3️⃣ Define: What Do You Expect From Your First Managers?

Be explicit about:

• What is their principle accountability - Team performance, creating an environment for teams to thrive, coaching/mentoring, regular performance clarity? If you are being ruthless the answer is probably not all of the above.

• What success looks like – Clear measures of success, consistent feedback, career conversations and clear personal development.

• How they lead – Values-based leadership and decision-making, not micromanagement.

• How they communicate – Transparency, alignment with leadership.

Define what they are:

Define what they are not:

📝 Write a “How We Manage, Here” Playbook – even if it’s just a one-pager.

4️⃣ Set Them Up For Success

🚀 First-time managers typically need:

• Training – Coaching conversations, feedback skills, goal setting.

• A support system – Peer groups, mentorship, 1:1s with leadership.

• Tools & frameworks – Clear processes for hiring, performance and pay reviews, and team planning.

💡 Pro tip: A great first hire in People Ops is someone who can build a lightweight but effective manager enablement system.

5️⃣ Align With Leadership & Culture

Your first managers will set the tone for your org’s future leadership.

👎 Bad management = politics + bureaucracy + frustration.
👍 Good management = clarity + accountability.

💡 Define principles early. If you don’t, they’ll form organically—and not always in the way you want. Some great examples in the resources section below. 

📌 Next Steps

1. Define what good “management” means at your company.

2. Identify if you need managers, leads, or player-coaches.

3. Decide who to promote vs. where to hire externally.

4. Support first-time managers with training & mentorship.

5. Align leadership on what great management looks like.

📚️ Good resources relating to this problem…

🔥 Great Manager Playbook - LifeLabs

📖 Managers Playbook - Clearbit

📖 Manager Guide - Checkly

📖 Manager Handbook – PostHog

💰️ Building a people manager community of practice from scratch – Open Org

📔 The Managers Path – Camille Fournier

📔 Scaling People – Claire Hughes Johnson (Ex-COO, Stripe)

🤓 Want to Get Your Current “People Problem” Featured?

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🖤 John & Adam

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With 🧊 & 🔥 

John & Adam

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