Hi, I'm Abby, and I'm excited that we're working together! We're going to get to know each other organically, but I thought it would be helpful to document a little bit about me philosophically and how I manage.
Inspiration for this readme comes from:
I'm here to support and help you, as well as provide context for our work on the support team, and finally to advocate for you and our team in the company.
- People First: I think you're the most important part of what we do (you keep our customers happy and informed!), so I will always take the team's well-being into account in all of my decisions.
- Transparency: I will try to be as honest and provide as much clarity and context as possible when it comes to decisions that affect you and/or the team. I'll also be open and honest about where I'm struggling. Sharing context, goals, objectives, and in-progress work in public helps us all achieve a common goal.
- Empathy, No Ego: I borrowed this from Zapier. I'm your manager, yes, but I am here to work with you to make our support team better. Together, we'll work together to build and execute on great ideas.
- Empowerment: I care that everyone has the ability to make decisions and share their opinions. To that end, I try to listen more, speak less, and ask questions, to give you the space to come up with a decision, rather than telling you an answer.
Most importantly: I value work/life balance.
- Please, log off at 6pm. Go and take a walk if you need to disengage. If you need a break, please communicate with me and the team. Most of support works between about 9am (the earliest) to 6pm (at the latest), and unless there’s an emergency, I don’t expect to communicate with you outside of these hours with respect to your local time. I try not to respond to e-mails or Slack during off-hours and under no circumstances expect you to, unless it’s an emergency. More on this in
Communicationbelow.
- Managing our team is my top priority, so I will always make time for you when you need it.
- The best way to talk to me is Slack.
- I treat Slack very asynchronously. If I can't respond right away, I'll set a reminder and respond later.
- I keep my
do not disturbset up intentionally so that when I am out of the office, it is on. Feel free to drop messages in there while I am in DnD mode and I will respond in the morning. If it is urgent, feel free to break through the DnD wall.
- I check my email frequently and I will respond to them as soon as I can.
- If you need to talk to me about something for longer than five minutes, I would rather talk about it face to face. Please set something up on my calendar so we can video chat via Google Meet.
- When I am out of the office, I generally set up DnD in Slack for the whole duration of my absence. This is intentional so that you can break through the wall and get in touch of me if needed.
- I will not be checking my email (as stated above) during off-times, so if you really need something please text or Slack me!
- As the team and Clubhouse grows, so do my meetings and my calendar gets fuller and fuller; however, your time is valuable too. If you need to schedule something with me, just peep my Google Calendar and invite me. You don't have to ask. I’ll be there (my Google Calendar is 99.9% accurate excluding ad-hoc meetings). If there’s urgency and you can’t get a meeting with me for a while, send me a message on Slack or email and I’ll make time. You can also reschedule any meeting with me as long as I get a ping about it via Slack.
- I think 1:1 meetings are a very important part of our relationship and I do not cancel them (I will, however, move them if we need to) 1:1s are your time for feedback, guidance, context, venting, or anything you want to discuss.
- I use Get Lighthouse for our 1on1s. It makes it easy to take notes, brainstorm and bring agendas to meetings. You should come prepared with things you want to discuss. I may occasionally have things to cover as well, but your topics are the priority.
- I book 45 minutes every week for our 1:1s. We likely won't use the full time every time, but I have found it is very useful to have the full hour when we need it.
- If you need to move a 1:1, let me know and I will find another time that works.
- Basically stealing this from Matthew Newkirk, but it's so well-written, I can't improve it: In situations where anonymous feedback is suggested, you’ll probably hear me suggesting that you provide direct feedback, though anonymous feedback is better than none. I’m dedicated to giving you clear and timely feedback and hope that you’ll give me the same. I believe that feedback requires three attributes:
- Safety (you should feel safe to give and receive candid feedback)
- Effort (neither you nor I should feel defensive about the feedback)
- Benefit (giving/receiving feedback should have impact)
Please let me know if I’m doing poorly on any of these attributes. I’ll return the favor!
- Remember, I am here for you, and I'm looking forward to building a great working relationship!