This document should serve as a concise artifact that describes my style of work and leadership. It should serve as a quick way to get up to speed with what to expect as a new colleague or member of my team.
I am a strong believer in the merits of documenting, not just discussing, complex ideas for the purposes of clear and unambiguous communication. This document aims to provide an evergreen primary source of reference for my professional working style. The exercise of authoring and maintaining this document both helps me to introspect about myself as well as be transparent with those that would benefit from quickly understanding my motivations, strengths, quirks, and general style of work. The result for you reading this document and subsequently working with me should be less time spent having to figure me out as a colleague or leader and more time spent on solving interesting and difficult problems together.
I expect that this document should change and evolve with my capabilities and values as a leader and professional. Moreover, I expect that the content and change history of this document should remain fully transparent and public for anyone to look up and reference at-will. Any individual who has worked with me and finds an opportunity to improve the document should be able to contribute their own proposed edits in an opensource model.
The format of this document is a combined adaptation of the blog post by Miguel Carranza titled Working with Miguel and the Manager README by Oren Ellenbogen.
Who is This Document For?
- Members of my team directly reporting to me
- Members of my broader team not directly reporting to me
- My colleagues and coworkers
- Any leader who might want to use this as a reference for their own "Working With Me" document
My Mindset and Values
- I am a very driven and self-motivated professional whose primary passion is people leadership on teams working on software and software-adjacent projects. Nothing brings me more satisfaction than solving hard problems in collaboration with other motivated individuals. I derive more joy from the wins of the members of the team than I do anything directly attributed to myself.
- I try not to let titles or organizational hierarchies get in the way of professional relationships or impede the accurate flow of information and ideas. If I am throwing a title around, it's probably in service of removing a blocker or defending a position for my team.
- I always enter a new professional relationship with the assumption that you have the best intentions and will put forward your best work and true self. I am an inherently optimistic and trusting person. My trust usually begins as a bucket more than half full. It is easy to fill it up but it is just as easy to drain it. More trust equals more autonomy in our professional relationship.
- I believe that every member of my team should have an intent and responsibility to deliver at the highest level, both for the bottom line of the organization, and the culture of our team.
- I believe in a culture of constant learning, improvement, and innovation. Learning also comes with teaching, and I expect those at a certain level of experience and seniority on my team should be a source of learning for their teammates.
- I believe mistakes are ok and will usually be forgiven unless they are left without follow-up or action to prevent and learn from.
- I do not hold much value in personally being “right”. I would rather be wrong as a step to the right answer or solution. I will always change my mind on something given opposing data.
- I enjoy being surrounded by people that are smarter and more experienced than I. This means I have the most opportunity to learn from my time with them.
- I value giving and receiving immediate honest feedback. I'd rather hear about it or provide it 1 on 1 while the moment is fresh in our mental context than at a later, “designated” time.
My Role
My current role is one that is fully remote with the following focuses:
- Consistent, predictable, and efficient delivery of business value through software
- Development and organizational alignment with a set of core business strategies
- Support and professional development of my team
The majority of my work deals with supporting others with their delivery and a minority of my focus is on direct delivery of work products. I am commonly the middleman for the people leaders of individual contributors and senior leadership.
How We Will Work Together
This section is primarily for those directly reporting to me.
- Regular check-ins: I favor near daily interactions, especially with those directly reporting to me and while I'm working fully remotely. I like to keep a weekly cadence of more formal project check-ins with a meeting and corresponding shared artifact we will maintain together.
- 1 on 1s: I consider setting up 1 on 1s with my direct reports to be my responsibility so expect those invites to come from me. I aim for weekly, 1 hour meetings. I will generally bring a prepared agenda which I aim to share ahead of time via shared notes (see below). You will generally always have the floor first for your agenda so try to come prepared with what you'd like to discuss. Not every 1 on 1 will strictly be work related and I generally like to maintain an overall balance of serious and casual agendas for these.
- Shared notes and plans: I have a terrible memory due to my tendency to context switch a lot and have to rely on my own personal note-taking system to stay organized. I am a BIG fan of shared notes with direct reports for things like recurring meetings agendas or documenting ongoing, complex work threads. Slack Canvases are my current favorite for this, but I will adapt to whatever system you find most frictionless.
- Communication: I am most comfortable chatting over text DMs. My meeting time is generally fully booked, so outside of regular 1 on 1s, please try to get your comms to be over chat. We can always punch out to a meeting but if you're asking me “are you free to chat real quick” the answer 95% of the time will be “no.”
- Escalation: for immediate emergencies, favor speed over polish. If you're not sure if something is an emergency, always assume it is and let me know ASAP
- Team support: I am always open to joining and providing support in group chats, emails, and team meetings. If you invite or copy me, please make it clear if you want input or attendance, else I will assume these are being sent to me as informative FYIs.
My Communication Style
- I currently work fully fully remote. I've had to be very deliberate about the styles and modes of communications I employ to filter out noise and optimize the time I exchange information with my team.
- Most interactions I have will be over an asynchronous text medium like Slack or email. Get comfortable with typing a lot and clearly communicating via text if you want to keep in touch.
- I like to reserve face to face conversations for agendas that most benefit from them such as 1 on 1s, brainstorming, or complex decision making.
- If you send me a DM, the notification might get lost and I will forget to respond. Please do not hesitate to bump the relevant thread if you're feeling blocked or stuck due to my non-response. I will always appreciate the reminder.
- If you need to set up dedicated time with me, please consult my calendar availability first. If you're not able to find a suitable time, feel free to reach out and ask as my days can be back to back. I can usually shuffle things around as needed. Please include an agenda on the invite.
- If you copy me on an email, add me to a group chat, or include me on a meeting invite, please let me know what action you're expecting from me. If the inclusion is only informative or requires some input, action, or preparation from me.
- I like to think out loud. The basic act of communicating with you usually helps me work through problems and allows me to help you work through them better. The more you talk to me the more I'm going to be thinking about the things that can help you.
Things I Like
- A proactive mindset. I expect that every conversation about a problem should come with some next steps or options.
- Working out in the open. I love to see things that are “work in progress” on the path to a finalized state. You don't need to come to me with a fully baked plan or even a starting point. This helps you receive early feedback from your team and makes it easy for me to jump in if you need my direct support.
- Concise communication. Get to the point. Tell me what you need or what the point of the conversation we're having is up front.
Things I do Not Like
- Not doing your homework. My team members must take advantage of all resources available to them ahead of bringing a problem to me. If I could find the information you're asking for faster than you asking me the question, I will call you out on it.
- Not following up on things that you've been asked to do or have understood expectations for delivery. I may ask once for a status on something (see quirks below “I'm a very impatient person”) regardless of your proactivity. If I ask twice, you should ask yourself what you didn't follow-up on and address it quickly.
My Strengths
aka. where I can probably help you the best
- Team recognition: Have a team or individual that went above and beyond or reached a major milestone? Pull me into a standup, have me sign a formal recognition you authored, ask for suggestions for how to tell our people they did a good job and that we appreciate them for it.
- Networking: are you working on a hard problem that requires some cross-functional collaboration? I can help you either find the information, suggest some ways how to find it, or directly connect you with someone who can help.
- Brainstorming: feeling like you're drowning in ambiguity and don't know where to start? Schedule some time and let's just talk through it.
Being challenged: need something to push yourself out of your comfort zone and accelerate some personal growth? Just say the word. I'm generally thrilled to share something off my plate. But I will expect nothing but top effort on these. Don't come with this request lightly.
My Quirks and Growth Opportunities
aka. where I will probably need your help the most
- I can be a very verbose and wordy person. If I am ever unnecessarily dominating a conversation or talking around the point, please interrupt me or call me out on it
- I tend to overcommit myself. Sometimes this impacts only me and I bury myself in obligations outside of what you might need from me. Other times it might directly impact you. Either way, I'd like to hear the feedback if this happens.
- I have a pretty short attention span and am somewhat addicted to context switching. If you need my focused attention on something, it always helps to concisely set the context for me in a conversation and state what you need.
- I tend to be a people-pleaser and favor outcomes where all parties are happy. This can impede me from having direct and difficult conversations where there is a clear “winner” and “loser.”
- I'm a very impatient person. I am always looking for the shortest path to resolution or quickest set of words to the point. If a thought or question pops into my head, I will voice it, sometimes without consideration for your mental context or status simply due to my impatience.