Working for…me
As I’ve been reading management books and articles and basically trying to improve on what I do, I thought it might be helpful for me to share what I think you should know about working for me. As with any policy or thought, it probably isn’t black and white — meaning these guidelines might not apply in 100% of all situations. I do, however, think anything written below stands true nearly all the time.These are no particular order.
Guidelines
1. You don’t reschedule your vacation. Inevitably, you will want to take time off and it will be a bad time. That’s fine. As long as it was planned ahead of time, you take that time. Turns out, it rarely a good time for people to take vacation, however taking a holiday recharges you and is the best thing for you, which means it’s good for the team. So, please take your planned time. Emergencies happen, other people can field them. That’s why we have a team.
2. We don’t miss 1:1 meetings. A 1:1 is our chance to connect and learn from each other. I will reschedule them, and move them around. I will almost never cancel it completely. They can be short, they can be long. These meetings are your time. If you bring an agenda, my agenda can wait or we can schedule more time. You come first. I use 1:1 meetings for feedback, task input, prioritization, career guidance, getting to know you, letting you vent, or even pairing on a problem. Either way, that time is very important to me.
3. I put transparency above everything else. Maybe this is because at heart, I am an open source hippy. Maybe, it’s because I just hate not knowing what’s going on. I expect you to work in public. I expect people to be able to find out about what you’re working on, how it’s going, what’s difficult about it, what’s great about it and when you think the next achievement will happen with it. In a distributed team, we have to measure results. If we can’t see the results, it’s difficult to measure. If you’re wondering if you’re communicating too much about something, it’s simple: you’re not.
4. Location doesn’t matter. I work hundreds of miles from our closest teammate. I work about 2,000 miles from our main office. If I can work from where I want, you can too. If you want to get an AirBNB on the coast and work from there, go for it. If you want to stay home for two weeks, do it. If you want to fly to NYC visit family and work a shifted schedule, do it. Location is not important. If you’re not getting your work done, one of the first privileges to go would be location freedom. Some people recommend strict working hours for remote workers. I find this to be pretty dumb. Sometimes, I start my day later because I take my kid to preschool. Other days, I work very late because my family is over at my in-laws. Flexibility to me is important. If the work is getting done, the rest is background.
5. Don’t say “It’s not my job.” This is basically a trigger phrase that sends me into a fit of rage. On my team, our job is to ship software. You know what doesn’t fall into that category of work? I don’t either. If you’re being asked to something, do it, or own that request until you can find somebody who is a better fit to do it. We play many roles, and some of those do seem rather out of bounds. That’s ok. I don’t want to wake up and do the same thing everyday. Treat odd requests as something different and to look forward to. Also, I get just as angry if another team has people who say this. It’s just not helpful.
Update: 2020 July — a new employee read this and had some excellent feedback for this portion of the article. There can be cases where “not my job” work gets shuffled to the same person over and over again, particularly if a person is from an underrepresented background. The example provided was a woman always taking notes in a meeting. Having read this, she is thinking “I can’t say it’s not my job.” This is a great point. The goal of this section is to say that you must own a problem until you can find somebody else to own it — and that’s primarily about helping people outside the team get their work done. If there are team dynamics in play that push work to the same folks over and over again that should be (and will be) addressed. Don’t say it’s not my job is supposed to be about helping not about pushing work off and knowing somebody will not push back.
6. Your time matters. I love that we have passionate people who often don’t mind putting in extra time to get things done. Now and then, that is great. Don’t let it become normal. Burnout is a real thing. If four people on the team are working 2 hours more a day than a normal day, that’s the equivalent of another person on the team. If you do that for a while, the perceived normal capacity has raised without additional help, or compensation. Work hard. Work extra when you think it’s important. It’s not important to put in extra time all the time.
7. I am a very firm believer that you are promoted because of what you have done, not what you will do, could do, or are about to do. That means generally, you’ll need to be operating at the next level and sustain that level for a while before being promoted. There are other factors for promotion consideration as well. There is a time-factor there as well. You’ll need to be in a role long enough to make decisions and see consequences of those decisions. At higher levels, those cycles time are generally much greater. Some other examples are: accomplishments in current role, remaining room for growth and learning in the current role, and agreement from other members of management. That being said, it is far more effective to focus on doing great work than spending lots of time attempting to convince others that you do great work.
Wrap up
I’m sure there are other principles I’ll think about and codify over time, but I wanted to start with what something and get it written down. If you ever find me not adhering to these idea, call me out. I deserve it.
