The Soul of Technical Management: Why Goals Trump Process

After transferring to a new department, the author reflects on a question posed three years earlier by a now-deceased leader: "What is the most important thing in management?" At the time the answer was vague, covering communication, task, or team management — each feeling partial. The new environment triggered a deeper realization.

First Insight: Goals Are the Core

The author argues that the single most important element in management is goals . This simple principle is easily overlooked. In architecture evolution, without goals there is no gap analysis, no development roadmap, no concrete initiatives, and therefore no executable tasks. In team management, a leader without goals cannot plan resource allocation, leaving the team to "slip on banana peels" — drifting aimlessly.

To see this, one must step outside "management" and ask what management serves. The answer: business development. For technical staff, technical management exists to support business growth through technology — whether delivering projects or cutting costs. The logical chain is:

Business development → Technical goals → Work planning → Task execution

Without this chain, planning management, execution management, and communication management are "rootless trees and sourceless water." The author notes that the management system described in the book 知行 (Knowledge and Action) is thorough, yet it fails to elevate goals to the highest level — a critical omission.

If "management is to not manage," the flywheel starts with goals. Goals are the core; everything else is peripheral. Only with goals do direction, planning, and concrete tasks emerge.

Second Insight: Switch Roles to Discover Goals

Business goals are not always obvious. Leaders may struggle to define them. Beyond business goals (profit, organizational survival), there are architecture goals (e.g., upgrading the tech stack, full containerization) and domain-expansion goals (integrating domains, broadening authority).

Drawing on NLP self-role cognition theory — "who you believe you are determines your actions" — the author suggests switching identity roles to clarify purpose. Goals are merely quantifiable pathways to that purpose. For example, if your purpose is promotion, your goals should align with the expectations of the next level.

Conclusion

Without goals, work is just busywork. For managers, clear goals dictate how to deploy human resources, what to discard, and where to focus investment. Every daily conflict and trade-off can be measured against a single yardstick: does it help achieve the goal?