We all roll our eyes at the weird people who are so afraid of flying that they choose driving, despite the massively increased risk of injury and death. Data show that driving is approximately 190 times more fatal than commercial aviation per mile traveled.

But, in teamwork and delivery, many people let fear be the driver, and ignore actual risk. Here’s how it works:

You are an engineer on a software project. Your part is on track for delivery, but a colleague’s work is behind schedule, or completely opaque. This colleague has demonstrated defensiveness any time someone has poked them about their work in the past. They seem angry all the time and you’re worried they might quit and then the project would never ship.

Experiential metabolism refers to our innate capacity to process and incorporate experiences. The process of “incorporation” does not mean the same thing as “integration”.

Just as our bodies metabolize food into energy and building blocks, our minds must metabolize raw experiences—turning confusion into clarity, pain into wisdom, and overwhelming feelings into coherent narratives. This psychological process isn’t about suppressing or avoiding difficult emotions, but rather using the container of story to develop the capacity to hold our experiences long enough to make them our own (rather than someone else’s).

When I first became a manager, I was shocked at the change in reward cycles. I used to solve issues for people and get instant praise, and undeniable evidence that it was me that did the solving. As a manager, I’d coach a green employee for a year or two, nursing their strengths and nerfing their weaknesses, until one day they came into their own and left the nest. I’d poured a lot of effort into these people, done a lot of great work together, and then they just went on their way. I was left Travolta-ing…

This is my “manager origin story”. I wrote it in 2014 on Medium after I’d been a manager for a few years, during a periodic flare-up of anti-manager sentiment in the industry. (Medium itself was using a self-management system called “holacracy” until abandoning it in 2016.)

Managers as a group have been constantly under fire in the tech industry for my entire career. Zappos “got rid of their bosses” for a while. In 2001, Larry Page fired all of Google’s managers. And it’s no wonder. From Dilbert to “Office Space”, we all know the trope of the useless and conniving political player who’s managed to entrench himself into an otherwise well-meaning organization. He holds the keys to advancement, adds little value, makes other people miserable, seeks only more power.