Representing the Business

The other day, someone asked me why we even need managers. What do they actually do? I think it’s a fair question, and honestly, people get it wrong a lot. You can throw usual fluff to this question. Managers make sure things get done, keep people on track, and handle logistics. Obviously, that’s part of it. But you know yourself, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in many ways, as the realities of the role often extend far beyond these basics.

It’s kind of like asking why a football team needs a coach. Technically, the players could just get on the field and play. But no team actually does that. Why? A coach calls the plays, studies the opponent, and pulls players when the plan isn’t working to win the match. A manager does the business equivalent: sets priorities, yanks blockers, and tweaks strategy on the fly. But there’s an interesting bit to all of these. Every one of those moves is read as company policy; to the team, the manager is the business.

You are the Business

Being the face of the business? That means a ton of things. For starters, you’re making the calls. And from your team’s perspective, you are the company. What you say – and sometimes what you don’t say – becomes the unwritten law, a responsibility that is crucial for new managers to understand. I’m constantly reminded of stuff I said offhand. People take that shit seriously, even if you were just joking. Like when I made a crack about someone’s “nice desserts” and they thought I was policing their snacks. Seriously. Your team sees you, and they see the business. The higher you climb, the fuzzier that line gets, but the core remains: you embody the company. This can also make management a lonely place, a reality often not discussed.

But it’s not just desserts or layoff memos. Finance slaps a travel freeze on the quarter? You’re the one cancelling conference tickets and explaining why we need to choose Zoom calls over San francisco this year. You own the rollout, the complaints, and the deadline. Data retention changes so you need to understand what needs to be saved as your existing Slack channels can’t go in time indefinitely. Every corporate tweak such as expenses, perks, tooling, compliance comes to you first, and you translate it into work the team can stomach, a process that often involves bridging ideals and the practical realities of implementation.

Then, you have the fire drills. Prod goes down in the middle of the night. Executives want answers immediately. You’re the buffer. You calm the engineers, craft the status update, and face customers without throwing anyone under the bus. Same when the company jumps on a new fancy thing, you break the news and sort the priorities, navigating the inherent dynamics within and between teams..

Bottom line: whether it’s killing snacks, freezing budgets, pushing new toolchains, or talking the crew through a 3 a.m. outage, you are the filter between corporate whims and real work. If you can frame it clearly, then voila. Otherwise, you create confusion and lose extra cycles. That’s the real weight of representing the business, which often requires understanding and navigating different perceptions and perspectives. You are the vital layer between corporate decisions and the people doing the actual work.

Your Business Mandate

Okay, let’s talk about the actual work. As the manager, you’re the one who has to ensure the tech your team builds isn’t just cool, but that it actually matters to the business. This is part of your job description as the business’s representative. I know many managers starting off don’t get that part and that’s okay. You need to gradually make this happen. If a feature or project doesn’t clearly drive a core business metric such as increasing revenue, keeping users from leaving, or reducing costs/risk, you need to question its existence. I’m pretty sure many projects have that sort of value but you need to show it. That’s a skill, not magic. 

Building tech for the sake of tech? That’s a hobby project for a weekend, not something the company pays for. Many companies had freedom to do it in the past. Ask around. Not any more. Every piece of work needs a direct line to a tangible business outcome. If you can’t articulate the value, the business shouldn’t be investing in it, and you shouldn’t let your team build it. Full stop. And don’t even get me started on endless “rewrites”. I heard it a million times, “this time it’ll be better.” Nine times out of ten, it just introduces new problems on top of the old ones. Represent the business reality: chasing perfection over delivering value is a losing game.

Part of representing the business means breaking down the walls inside it. Engineers speak design and coding. Sales speaks deals and pipelines. Marketing speaks campaigns and leads. Finance speaks budgets and euros. Your job, as the business’s proxy, is to ensure these different languages and priorities connect. Force the conversations. Get the people who build the tech talking directly to the people who sell it, support it, and pay for it. Agile Manifesto says it well, “Individuals and interactions over process and tools”. Having that tough, honest discussion about what “success” really means for everyone saves immense pain later. Align the understanding of value across the silos, and you ship the right thing, saving time and pain. That’s what the business needs.

Setting goals is another key way you represent the business’s priorities. “Improve performance” almost means nothing. It’s lazy management. The business doesn’t operate on vague intentions; it operates on numbers and outcomes,requiring clear and measurable targets, especially when addressing performance. Think for a second. Company doesn’t report quarterly earnings like we earned good enough and we will grow a bit. It needs to show real outcomes. Your goals need to reflect that reality. “Reduce critical production incidents by 25% this quarter” or “Increase the sign-up conversion rate on the new flow by 5 percentage points”.  These are goals the business understands and cares about. Give your team objectives tied directly to these business results. Make them measurable, make them challenging. That kind of clarity from you, as the business’s voice, focuses the team’s energy on what actually contributes to the company’s success. You translate business priorities into actionable goals.

And sometimes the inevitable happens. The market shifts, a competitor launches, leadership changes direction, and the roadmap gets nuked on a Friday afternoon. How you handle it is representing the business. Do you hide? Or do you step up and provide clarity? Be a reliable source of information. Explain the change directly. State what’s still true amidst the chaos and when more information will be available. Your ability to communicate the business reality, even when it’s messy, builds trust. Fumbling it, or trying to spin it, breeds cynicism and stops the team cold. That’s the raw truth of representing the business in how you manage the work.

Management is About Impact

So, scrap the notion that being a manager is just administrative overhead. It’s not. It’s about being the critical link between the complex, often messy reality of the business and the team building the product. You’re the face of the shop. It’s as simple as that. Take the big-picture chatter and turn it into work that ships, make sure the code pays the rent, clear the clutter between teams, and speak up when things get messy. Whatever you say or let slide pretty much sets the tone.

Keep it real, keep the business goal in sight, and talk straight. That’s the gig. Be real, be direct, and always keep the big picture. The business at the forefront. That’s the core of it. That’s the manager’s job.