Hello and welcome to the team. I am thrilled you are here at One Click, I very much look forward to getting to know you and working together for, hopefully, a very long time.
This document applies only to me, and in no way should be considered to apply to any other individual, team or leader.
This document is a compilation of my thoughts and thoughts I've stolen from other READMEs that put it so well I wouldn't dare rewrite it.
This readme exists for three reasons: 1.) help me identify and refine my thoughts and values, 2.) help you understand me better to aid us working together, 3.) setting high-level expectations.
But it is not a substitution for actually talking and getting to know to one another.
It’s going to take a solid quarter to figure this place out; One Click is a complicated company full of equally complex humans. Take your time, meet everyone, go to every meeting, write things down, and ask all the questions – especially about all those baffling acronyms and emoji.
One of the working relationships we need to define is ours. The following is a user guide for me, about me and how I work. It captures what you can expect out of the average week working with me, how I like to work, and some of my quirks. I recommend and hope you make one too, but I do not require it.
I am a father and a husband first. Family and personal health always come first for everyone on this team.
My team comes first; the company comes second. I have a responsibility to the company, but without a well operating and highly functional team full of talent, I am unable to live up to them.
I am not an authoritarian nor wish to micromanage anyone; it's not a good use of either one of our's time. I believe that managers work for their direct reports and in general, I want to provide you with slightly-more-challenging work than you feel capable.
I’m fairly open about everything, from the latest embarrassing story involving mine or my kids' habits to whatever we watched on Netflix this past weekend. I don’t expect everyone to be as open, but I do expect that when problems arise you talk to me as soon as you can. I need that level of immediacy and transparency on issues to help move us all forward.
I will never throw anyone under the bus and expect the same from you. Outside of our department, our wins will always be yours, and our failures will always be mine.
I often use humor as a coping mechanism to break the ice, to cut the tension, to end an awkward moment or to relax a situation. If this bothers you, let me know.
If I have my headphones on it typically means I am working in the zone, unless it's an urgent issue I'd appreciate it if it could Slack me first so that I may disengage at the soonest logical point. If it's important interrupt me 100% of the time. If you have your headphones on (or whatever other signals that you are in the zone you wish me to use), I'll do my best not to interrupt you.
BTW, I don't take a lunch most days, my wife calls me the food camel but I tend to graze throughout the day. Your lunch schedule is up to you.
That everything is good. I work under the assumption that everything is going well, including your workload, your approaching deadlines, where we stand, your relationships with other individuals on the team, etc. Unless you tell me otherwise, my faith in you tells me that everything is fine. Never underestimate how little I know about a topic.
You’re very good at your job. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. If it feels like I’m questioning you it’s because I’m either: a) trying to gather context, or b) trying to be a sounding board and rubber duck.
I’m not good at your job. You know best. I’ll work to provide the necessary context and ask questions to help you vet your ideas.
You'll do what you say you'll do. Without exception unless you tell me otherwise.
You’ll let me know if you can’t do your job. One of my primary responsibilities is ensuring that you are set up for success. My job is to remove roadblocks, occasionally things slip through the cracks, and I won’t know I’m letting you down unless you tell me.
You feel safe debating with me. I find that ideas improve by being examined from all angles. If it sounds like I’m disagreeing, I’m most likely just playing devil’s advocate or just wanting to dive a little deeper. This does rely on us being able to have a safe debate.
You tried first. I want you to ask for help. I love it when you ask for help. But if you do, I'll assume you tried your hardest before you did. If you didn't, I will be frustrated.
I expect project work, support tickets, individual requests, office visits, etc. to take precedent over Objectives & Goals. I expect this will lead to conflicts; this is okay; I expect to talk about these in our 1:1s. OGs are not set in stone and can always be adjusted (for a good reason), some weeks OGs will win, some weeks the fray will win. Telling me you're having trouble with OGs in the first month of a quarter is perfectly acceptable, telling me you're having trouble with OGs two weeks before they are due isn't. Talking about obstacles and other issues as they arise will be critical as we build trust in one another.
We’ll have a 1:1 every week for at least 30 minutes unless there is an outage or Armageddon project. This meeting focuses on topics of substance, not updates.... unless you want to talk about updates; it is solely for your benefit. I expect you to drive this meeting after we've gone through your agenda, I will likely have a few questions per week. Private meeting room, coffee in the cafe, head out for a walk, let me know what works best for you, where and how you'll be most comfortable.
Bringing an issue or problem to this meeting is not a sign of weakness or failure; having an issue and not utilizing every resource (me in this context) is. If you miss our 1:1 due to a conflict on your end it is your responsibility to schedule a makeup, likewise, if I have a conflict, I will reschedule.
We’ll have a department meeting that includes huddle, weekly team retrospective, sprint planning and code review every week for 60-90 minutes no matter what.
Very few things are more important than talking to you if you want to talk to me. If you need to talk, let’s talk. Heard a rumor? Need clarification on something? Blocked? I’d love to hear about it as soon as possible. Come by my desk, stop me in the hall, shoot me a Slack message, we don’t need to wait for our next scheduled 1:1. Feel free to put something in my calendar; don’t feel like you need to ask first. Is my calendar full? Send me a message, and I’ll very likely be able to move something around.
You can text me 24 hours a day.
I work a bit at night and on the weekends. This is my choice. I do not expect the same from you. I might Slack or email you things, but unless a text or phone call accompany it, it can always wait until work begins for you on the next working day.
I respect both the ability to respond immediately and the need to thoughtfully reflect and get back to me, for the later I expect an immediate (within the time expectation outlined below) response that states an estimated time of the thoughtful one.
Email: I expect you to read and reply to emails at least once a day, I also expect you to not check it outside of business hours.
Slack: I expect you to read and reply to messages within a few hours, I also expect you to not check it outside of business hours (there are exceptions, if you fall into this category, you will know it).
Text: I expect you to read and reply within 30 minutes, sooner if you want to avoid a phone call.
Phone call: I expect you to answer or reply (phone or text) ASAP.
That said the maintenance of inboxes (email, Slack, etc.) is not what you’re here to do. Attention is a valuable resource, and I'd prefer you use your's elsewhere.
Asking why. Nothing is sacred, and we don’t do anything “because we’ve always done it that way.”
Self-reflection. Self-reflection is an essential part of growth. You’ll miss opportunities without it.
Action. I believe starting is the best way to begin learning and make progress. This is not always the correct strategy.
Awesomeness of small things. I believe in the compounding awesomeness of continually fixing little things.
Setting expectations. Setting expectations at the beginning of a meeting/project/initiative/objective are vital to its success and your stress level. Err on over communicating.
We can do anything. The answer to every question (with enough time, money and priority.)
Being scrappy. It's never not a startup here.
Automation. Automate everything possible, if you do it more than twice automate it.
Building to fail. Assume everything will fail at least some of the time.
Doing it right. Doing it right will almost always trump doing it fast, except when it doesn't. If you need a second opinion on whether the scope of a project should increase to do it right, ask.
Initiative. If you see a problem and no one else is working to fix it, you just volunteered.
Motivation. We are all adults here, and I don't track your time, pay attention to when you come and go nor ask you if you need something to do but in return, I'll expect and assume your working on what you should and will be frustrated if you're not.
Foresight. Don't forget to look up from the weeds of the day-to-day craziness to see what's coming next week.
Empowerment/Ownership. For you, that means you are in control of your destiny, and I'm just here to help you get there. For the company, that means I have your back 100% of the time; if you need to make a decision and you can't find me, I'll always back your play (tho we may discuss alternative solutions in private later).
Not knowing what "exceptional work" is.
Having an ego.
Doing work without understanding "Why are we doing it & why now."
Wasting time. (Do not read that as R+D or failures are a waste.)
Not investing time to improve your skills, both professional and directly related to your role.
I have little tolerance for indifference and pessimism, even tho I joke about them.
My definition of a meeting includes an agenda and/or intended purpose, the appropriate amount of productive attendees, and a responsible party running the meeting to a schedule. If it’s not clear to me why I am in a meeting, I will ask for clarification on my attendance.
If you send me meeting materials a reasonable amount of time before a meeting, I will read it before the meeting and will have my questions at the ready. If I haven’t read them, I will tell you.
If a meeting completes its intended purpose before it’s scheduled to end, let’s give the time back to everyone. If it’s clear the intended goal won’t be achieved in the allotted time, let’s stop the meeting before time is up and determine how to finish the meeting later.
I firmly believe that feedback is at the core of building trust and respect in a team. Know this, both personally and professionally, both intellectually and experientially, I want you to be happy and fulfilled.
There is a huge difference between me telling you that you can do better and me telling you we have a performance problem. If I'm worried about your performance, I will let you know. If you worry that I'm concerned about your performance, please let me know. I can be blunt at times, but I say what I mean, I'm not smart enough for sub-context.
The sooner we learn how to disagree with each other efficiently, the sooner we’ll trust and respect each other more. Ideas don’t get better with compliance.
If you have feedback for me, I will expect this feedback also to be as immediate as possible. I am here to help you succeed, but I can’t do that if I’m not aware of areas I’m failing you in.
You can ask me anything and the vast majority of the time I’ll tell you what I can. Very infrequently, I won’t be able to, but I’m committed to never lie to you.
Sometimes it takes me time to process news and at the time you'll think I've taken this news negatively, trust me, I haven't, sometimes it takes me time to processes new (particularly surprising) information. I will follow up once I've had time to decompress.
I am an introvert. And that means that prolonged exposure to humans is exhausting for me. Weird, huh? Meetings with three of us are perfect, three to eight are ok, and more than eight you will find that I am strangely quiet. Do not confuse my quiet with a lack of engagement.
I'm opinionated, stubborn and wrong a lot. This does not mean they are correct or you should blindly believe them. Please disprove me so that I can learn with you. I will also admit when I am wrong.
When I ask you to do something that feels poorly defined you should ask me for both clarification and a call on importance. I might still be brainstorming. These questions can save everyone a lot of time.
I will use my vacation time and so should you. I can't overstate the importance of not being here.
Email subject lines should be overly descriptive of the content to follow, this helps me to prioritize on the fly.
I'm a good listener, except when I'm not. If I'm not listening, I mean really listening, tell me, I will.
Ask assertive versus tell assertive. When you need to ask me to do something, ask me. I respond incredibly well to ask assertiveness (“Dale, can you help with X?”). I respond poorly to being told what to do (“Dale, do X.”) I have been this way since I was a kid and I probably need therapy.
Be clear up front. When you ask "do you have 5 minutes?", please provide the topic you'd like to discuss; otherwise, I'll think "do you have 5 minutes for me to tell you I'm thinking of quitting" we're biased for bad news I'm no different.
I am a shipbuilder. I love to build great things but have no desire to captain the boat.
I can be hyperbolic. I argue with passion, but it’s almost always because I am excited about the topic.
I also swear a lot. Sorry. 🤬
P.S. If you're really sick take the day off; if you're somewhat ill work from home. It's for the betterment of yourself and the department. Whatever you have, I guarantee, those that sit close to you don't want it, cause I know I don't want it nor do I want to take it home. I mean this.
This document is a living breathing thing and likely incomplete. I update it frequently and would appreciate your feedback and welcome pull requests.