/README

My leadership README/Human Operating Manual

What is this?

Taking six months or longer for you to understand me isn't going to work. It'll lead to misunderstandings and problems.

This README is a quick start, the fast track, to helping you understand me so that we can work together more effectively.

My Role

As a founding member of this business I still wear a lot of hats. Fortunately we've grown a lot so a lot of the hats have been passed on to someone else. Sadly, many with a lot less handover that would be ideal.

Right now I'm simply here to try and help support the business thru another phase of growth, particularly technical growth so that we can actually deliver what has and is being sold, and so that the business can continue doing so successfully. Ideally with even more success.

Part of that involves helping fix some of the cultural issues. This is another reason for this README.

My Leadership Philosophy

  1. I want to collaborate with people to build cool things.
  2. That means I don't want to manage people in the traditional sense, and I definitely do not want to have to tell anyone what to do all of the time.
  3. I believe in giving people the freedom to succeed, fail, and work things out along the way. This is where the best lessons come from.
  4. But I'll help you try to avoid failure if you ask for help.
  5. I value open, authentic relationships. What are those? Usually unclear until they have or are happening. But they don't involve gossip and idle pointless water cooler style conversations.
  6. In 2019 businesses can and should run in a digitally distributed fashion, regular physical presence and human to human time is important, but good leadership should not depend on a physical presence all of the time.

My answers to first 1:1 questions

What makes you grumpy?

Being interrupted while attempting to think thru a problem or getting something urgent done is the biggest issue that I'm aware of.

There's probably more triggers, I would actually appreciate more feedback on what they are.

How will I know when you’re grumpy?

I'll try and tell you, but sometimes I'm not yet aware of how grumpy I am, signs include:

  • total lack of humour
  • saying "What's up?" very fast.

How can I help you when you’re grumpy?

  1. Clearly articulate what you need and why. That's the best way to get me to forget I'm grumpy so that I simply help you.
  2. Tell me I'm being a grumpy asshole and that you need something from me.
  3. Offer me food or coffee. There's a good chance I'm simply hangry and/or tired (I get low blood caffeine, it's a real thing) and been too busy to solve that problem.

How do you like feedback? Slack/Teams, email, in person, etc?

Long story short: Digital - e.g. email/Slack/Teams/etc.

I see feedback as a gift and I know from experience it can be hard to provide. This is one of the reasons why I think a digital format is easiest for many people given that the pressure of talking to someone face to face is removed, and in theory you're free to simply write down what you like, which should include details about the issue, how you feel and why.

Providing digital feedback also offers the opportunity to think deeply about what you're providing. Face to face communication happens quickly and can be difficult for a lot of people. That includes me as I'm a very slow methodical thinker.

So, failing a digital medium, in person, provided you choose the right moment. See note above about being interrupted while busy and clearly articulating what you need and why.

"I really need to provide you some feedback about an issue that's looping around in my head, and that's going to stop me from being productive today if I don't get it off my chest." is totally acceptable.

I will accept feedback however it comes though, and value being challenged and held accountable so I can learn and grow. I have and will continue to make mistakes, and when I do, I promise to quickly correct and learn from them, and not double down defending a bad decision.

How do you like feedback - routine like in 1:1s, or as-it-happens?

As it happens. Provided it can be delivered well. That means doing so in a matter of fact kind of way, e.g. without emotion.

Failing that, save it for a 1:1 or more opportune moment.

How do you prefer to receive recognition? (public or private)

Privately. I have no fundamental need to be recognised, and people doing so in public actually kind of annoys me, particularly if it's a surprise.

What makes 1:1s the most valuable for you?

When I can get the overview of the wider challenges and objectives, and see that top level view of how my role can help.

What are your goals for this year? And for the next 3 months?

We have a lot of excellent opportunities right now, possibly too many, and ensuring those that fall to me are successful has top priority, as it will support hiring more people and pushing further into the spaces we actually want to be in.

In the next three months I'd like to stablise our managed services team and day-to-day operations, as well as formalise and refresh our processes and procedures for both our own internal operations as well as customer activities.

The remainder of the year will be focussed on growing our technical capabilities and automating processes that we identify as routine (boring) and easily automated (so that we don't have to do boring things).

What do you need from your manager?

In my situation, at this point, I don't have one beyond myself.

But I do have to manage myself, I manage myself by showing up, digitally if not physically, and trying to get things done in a prioritised order. I spend a lot of time reflecting on what happened and why, which leads to ideas to test improvements.

From your team?

  1. Turn up and contribute as best you possibly can.
  2. Make a decision when one needs to be made, take time to research and get advice before a decision needs to be made, but when it has to happen make one based on what you've got available to you.
  3. Take responsibility for both your mistakes and successes.
  4. Don't ever work from a default attitude of "that's not my responsiblity" when encountering a problem. It's probably someone elses but they may not be aware of it, make them aware, or raise the issue so someone can be assigned a task.
  5. Don't assume I have all the data, or that I have some magical ability to make the best decision, challenge me if you're confident I'm wrong or if I might be working with inaccurate information.

From your peers? (outside the team)

Trust, honesty and constructive feedback.

Information about how tasks/problems/projects/etc impact the company, so that I can prioritise them within the context of everything else we're doing.

What’s your favourite beer and/or baked good?

Deep Creek's "Mister Miyagi" Hazy IPA

Jumbo Almond Croissants, though they don't exist outside of Paris as best I can tell, so mostly they just haunt my dreams :-(

My Schedule

It's busy.

I'm almost always working in some way, so I'm almost always online, unless I'm trying to balance that out with outdoors and physical activity.

I don't believe in traditional office work and 9-5 hours for myself. In actual fact I find the typical way in which offices operate, or people expect them to operate, to be bothg frustrating and a hindrance to productivity.

This is one of the reasons you won't see me check in on Slack/Teams to tell you everyone where I am.

It's because I'm almost certainly online somewhere working. In fact Slack/Teams will tell if I'm online in some way or not...

So I may be in our office, or a customer office, or a cafe, or a coworking facility, or at my kitchen table.

Where I am doesn't really matter all that much, it should not impact your decision to communicate with me, you should simply communicate if you need to via the best medium available.

My location only matters to me with respect to my responsibilities (to be in a face face to face meeting etc) and my productivity. Noise and other distractions are productivity killers. Noise is another reason I find the average open plan office frustrating.

The above basically means: don't assume I'll turn up in the office so you can talk to me in person without scheduling something, because I probably won't.

I don't take sick days as I rarely get genuinely sick. I'll simply work thru it if it's mild, though I will try to avoid passing anything on to anyone else by avoiding office locations.

If I tell you I'm sick it's because I genuinely am. Do your best to let me recover if I have explicitly stated that I am trying to do so. It's basically an after hours communication situation during those times, which leads us to,

After-Hours Communication

Call me if it's critical you get a response/information/etc immediately.

Text me if you're not sure it's critical, but my input/response might be useful, I'll call you back if I can.

Do not delay in either case. Do not send email and expect a response of any kind, but do send email if you can include useful information that I can use once you have got my attention.

Personality Quirks

You don't look me in the eyes much, and even if you do you look away into the distance behind me. Why is that?

I'm probably on the spectrum, e.g. aspergers or something similar.

I find looking into other people's eyes very uncomfortable a lot of the time. And I find it difficult to think when I do.

It still confuses me why that's the case. Try not to take it personally.

Not saying much a lot of the time.

I'm very much an introvert who has learnt to cope with humans who are not introverts.

I don't actually need to talk to people in close physical proximity to me in order to feel comfortable.

I dislike having to participate in conversations about the weather and how we are (because the answer is good apparently).

This isn't because I don't like you, it's not because I'm judging you, and it's not because I'm not interested in who you are, it's just that I don't feel there's anything worth saying right now, and/or I don't want to participate in what's being said.

In particular, when I'm tired my capacity to talk is severely reduced, and I really don't want to have to say anything at all to anyone unless forced to.

TL;DR - I have limited capacity for conversation, so I avoid wasting what I do have, so that I can talk about something worth talking about later on.

Not saying "Good morning" or "How are you?" a lot of the time.

I've already kind of touched on it, but "good" is one of those annoying ambiguous words that drives me up the wall.

It feels lazy to me and while I still, unfortunately, wind up participating in these "good" exchanges I'm trying to rewrite my way of thinking and behaviour to avoid doing this.

Is it a good morning? Really, is it? Are you just good? Really? Or are you sad/depressed, excited, bored, etc. Or do you simply not know?

The odds are excellent that you're not actually just "good". It's mostly a case of you're not sure and nothing is bad enough to share, or it is bad enough but you're not willing to do so for some reason.

What should your criteria for a "good" day be today? Let's have a discussion about that first thing instead. And how the criteria can be achieved.

Interests

  1. Rock climbing / getting on top of tall things the hard way
  2. Cycling - on dirt with obstacles/jumps in preference
  3. Travel
  4. Technology
  5. Coffee (or, perhaps more accurately, caffeine)

Want to write on of these for yourself? Here are some resources,