I am a work in progress - so is this document. It’s meant to be documentation on me.
This is not a substitute for actually getting to know one another. I really just want to help you understand me better and help us work together effectively so I can help you get your job done.
I also want to make sure I have set expectations and creating a baseline for your expectations of me so the document is kind of long.
If you know me and think there is something missing here, I accept pull requests. :-)
My work system heavily influences my communication preferences.
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Slack is good for quick notifications or to draw my attention. I don’t like long conversations over slack, and I will probably move those conversations to zoom or a huddle. I also do not accept tasks or to-do items over slack. Please send me an email if you need me to do something. Slack huddle is not my favorite, though I will use it for quick conversations.
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Email is where I process my to-do items. I read emails once. If I can complete the item in less than 5 minutes, I will probably take care of it right away. Otherwise, the email will get forwarded to my work system and I will prioritize the item with the rest of the items on my backlog. I promise you don’t really want to end up on the backlog. To game my system, keep your emails short and requests straight forward. If you don’t hear from me, it is possible your email got eaten by one of my automated rules, so it is ok to bug me.
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Video Conference or in person is my favorite way to communicate. I will always turn on my video unless I am impaired at the moment. Your non-verbal communication (body language) is important to me so that I can understand if I am communicating effectively. My request is that you turn it on when talking with me.
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Text Message is fine if there is an emergency or you really need my attention. My cell phone number is on my slack status.
I love to meet with people. If you need to talk, we don’t have to wait until our next meeting or one-on-one (1:1) meeting. Please schedule some time. If you can’t find time, reach out to me and we will find a time. My calendar is like Tetris - we can make it fit. I am also available for emergencies on the weekend, and I have extended hours from 7am - 8pm on weekdays.
Our 1:1 time is very important for me so that I can support you. I use automation for my 1:1s. If you leverage my 1:1 form, we will get better use of our time together. As an executive, I can get distracted. The information in the form helps keeps us on track. I want to focus on how you are doing, your career development, and the team strategy (e.g., working “on the business” vs. “in the business”). I also like company feedback. Some of the best improvements in our organization come from this form.
Since I love to meet with people, I am in a lot of meetings. I would prefer to protect one day of the week so that I can focus. That day is “Focus Friday”. The goal is to maximize efficiency by creating a designated meeting-free day for focused work. I would prefer you not to schedule meetings with me on Friday. The exceptions are:
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Customer, prospect, partner, interviews, and other external meetings.
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Urgent one-off internal meetings (We should aim to minimize them as much as possible and defer to asynchronous work where we can.)
Also, I might decline to come to your meeting. If you would like me to take part, here are some guidelines:
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Please consider the goal or outcome of the meeting before we decide to meet.
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Please consider if we could deliver this information through email.
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If you need a decision, make sure the decision-makers are present and they know they need to make a decision.
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Ensure every meeting has an agenda and is available for everyone to edit if necessary.
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Attach or link to a “pre-read” from the meeting. We can shorten meetings by avoiding presentations and instead focusing on discussing the content / Q&A. Please make sure you allow enough time for participants to ingest the material. Less than 24 hours is probably not sufficient for any pre-read.
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For brainstorming meetings, make thoughtful proposals before the meeting, create a starting point, and/or determine a brainstorming framework as a foundation. This will help eliminate early meeting awkwardness and wasted time.
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Please think through how you can achieve your meeting in half the time. Can we keep a meeting under 20 minutes?
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Don’t rely on blanket invites but invite the right people to the meeting. If you have structured your agenda, you should know who to invite. Parkinson’s law of triviality argues that groups of people often give disproportionate weight to pointless discussions, so try inviting fewer than 8 people.
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After the meeting, distribute notes, decisions & actions to capture what we discussed. If the meeting is recurring, the notes, decisions & actions will speed up the efficiency of the next meeting.
If you are attending a meeting that I scheduled:
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Read the “pre-read” and be ready to ask questions and engage in discussion.
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Try to be on time so we can start meetings promptly. If we all schedule breaks between meetings, we will have time to transition between meetings.
Three more things I would request:
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Make sure your calendar availability is up to date so we don’t double book meetings.
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Add a 5-minute break at the end of a 30-minute meeting and a 10-minute break at the end of a 60-minute meeting.
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Ask me before scheduling over another meeting.
Currently, I have thirteen responsibilities in this organization. My plan is to reduce that significantly. However, right now, I am spread thin. I tend to focus on whatever task that will drive the most mission impact and create enterprise value. I also tend to focus on fixing root cause, longer term, strategic items. However, some of my responsibilities require that I drop what I am doing to respond to an incident. Therefore, you want to stay off my backlog.
You are the captain of your own career. You know best how you’d like to grow and in what areas. I would love to help you and encourage you to discuss that with me. I also love to provide opinion and provide feedback, and I will do my best to provide growth and learning opportunities, but it is up to you to seize them. I will help you understand the various career tracks. I will also support your goals and priorities. Let me know how I can support you.
If you are an executive or plan to be one day, let me borrow from Dave Girouard, who is the CEO of Upstart. Here are the expectations for senior leaders:
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We have high confidence that your function will consistently execute well.
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You have the skills, commitment, and leadership necessary to lead your team for the company we aim to be in three years.
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You’re chronically discontent with where the company and your department are today. We don’t spend a lot of time challenging you to do more or to do better—you’re the challenger. We are at the receiving end of aggressive plans from you to do more, to take your department—and, in fact, the entire company—to the next level.
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You exercise great judgment and wisdom for what’s critical to our business.
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You have a paranoia and sense of urgency matching the CEO.
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We trust you to meet one-on-one with our most critical constituencies on the most difficult topics.
As you progress in your career, we recognize there is a tradeoff. More is expected. More freedom exists to direct and execute on our mission.
I believe that providing rich feedback is an essential part of a leader’s job. I also care tremendously about you personally (more than I let on). As a result, I tend to be direct because the best feedback is radically candid. My intention is that I want to help you thrive. I like to be precise about what is needed and what doesn’t work. I also might be wrong. Let’s discuss that. I hope that we can build a trusting relationship over time. I recognize trust comes from consistency of acting in good faith and spending time with you. Regardless of what happens in the job, I want to know that you have value. I hope to provide information that is helpful for you to do your job well because I deeply care about you and your success.
My default leading style is a delegating style. I will ask for priorities and goals. I will expect to be notified if results fall short and what will be done to fulfill commitments. Given any situation, I may adopt a different style as the situation warrants (e.g., if I sense the company or someone's career may be damaged, a safety issue, during onboarding, you are entering a new role / I am your new manager, or I detect something is amiss.)
I love to diagnose issues if you invite me to do so. I can also provide business context since I am involved in many areas of the business. Finally, I can help provide perspective on how to interpret things when they go wrong (or go well.) I like hard problems, so feel free to share.
Take initiative. Do your own research. Check your work for errors. Solve problems without involving me. Follow the process. Make suggestions on improvements and follow through on the improvements. Run experiments.
- I am reserved, introspective, and independent and I like to have private time.
- I am a skeptic, though at the start, you have 100% of my trust.
- I am detail oriented.
- I am task, operationally, and system oriented as opposed to being social oriented.
- I am driven to achieve corporate and personal goals.
- I like to follow the rules and would like you to do so as well.
- I am future oriented and like to think through things before making a decision. Sometimes the long pause during a conversation is me processing.
- I don’t like emergencies, procrastination, and last-minute requests.
- I like things to be done well with high quality.
- I can be intense and take things seriously.
- I like to build things and favor creative endeavors.
- I don’t like to repeat myself.
- I prefer facts over sweeping/dramatic statements. The terms “all”, “always”, “never”, and “every”, are rarely accurate”. I also will challenge a false dichotomy (e.g. Ricky Bobby - "If You Ain't First, Yer Last!") (Credit: Rob Dozier)
Shield:
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