I'm looking forward to getting to know you!
It’s going to take a solid six weeks to figure this place out. I understand the importance of first impressions, and I know you want to get a check in the win column, but this is a complex place full of equally complex humans. Take your time, meet people, go to meetings, write things down, and ask all the questions – especially about those baffling acronyms and emoji.
One of the working relationships we need to define is ours. The following is a user guide for me and how I work. This document is not intended to replace or override the relationship we will build as we work together. Its intention is to give you an idea of how I work, think, and lead.
TL;DR: I am here to make sure our team is successful, happy, and working on the things that are most important to help our customers, improve our product, and improve our business.
I am here to make sure...
- you are both successful and happy: I want you to improve your technical skills, grow your career, enjoy your work, and believe in both our team's and our company's mission.
- our team is successful and pointed in the right direction moving together as One Team.
- our team is getting what we need from other teams, and that other teams are getting what they need from us.
PS - I write some code too!
These are in approximate order of importance. If you are not successful and happy, our team is not successful (nor happy).
Restorative | Strategic | Relator | Learner | Analytical
If you have feedback for me, please give it. It could be something you liked and would like to see more of, something you thought I could do better, something you thought I totally screwed up, or something that doesn't fit in any of these categories. Even if you think it might not be the case, I do want to hear it. And if you think I don't want to hear it, I'd love to hear why you feel that way.
If you can give me this feedback over Zoom or in person, that's my preference. If you're only comfortable kicking off a discussion with an email or a Slack message, I would rather you do that than not bring it up at all.
If you're not comfortable giving me some feedback yourself, I'd love for you to give it to someone above me in the management chain so they can anonymously relay it to me.
Similarly, if you have feedback for a team member or colleague, I encourage you to give it to them directly; if you're not comfortable doing so, let's chat and I can either get the feedback to them or we can figure out a way to deliver it that makes you comfortable.
I will put thirty minutes on your calendar each week for a one-on-one. If you need more time, adjust the meeting to fit your needs. I will likely schedule our first one-on-one for an hour just to be sure we have time to go over the team mission and other introductory things; don't feel the need to prepare for it.
One-on-ones are your time. I will probably have some things to discuss with you, but this is first and foremost your opportunity to let me know how you're doing, what you need, what you wish could be different, how you feel about our team and your teammates, what your career goals are, etc. These are for the conversations you might not necessarily have with me when we're sitting at our virtual desks or amongst coworkers. If you'd like to give me a brief status update on things you're working on or that you're stuck on, that is fine with me, but those are generally better-suited to a quick chat while I'm at my desk, an @ on an Asana task, a Slack message, or a separate meeting.
I encourage you to use the company's 1:1 document template to help guide our conversations.
I will give you feedback on how you're doing continuously, including in our one-on-ones. If I'm worried about your performance, I will let you know. My goal is for you to never be unsure about how you're performing (and how I think you're performing). If you ever feel unsure about either of these things, please let me know.
I am a remote employee working from Cincinnati, OH in the Eastern timezone. I generally consider my work hours to be 9a to 5p, though this varies somewhat depending on meetings. If I am not available during these hours for some reason, I will mark it in my Slack status (and on my calendar if I am out for a day or more).
- Slack me or email me. Even if you want a Zoom meeting, just message me to let me know you want to talk and I'll make time. If you would rather talk about something over email or message, that's fine too.
- Throw something on my calendar. If I am scheduled for something else I can't reschedule and you invite me to a meeting, I may chat with you and reschedule. If you see that I've blocked off the day or time block as "do not schedule", that does not apply to you — it's more to discourage folks from scheduling non-urgent meetings that day that could be scheduled otherwise. If you need to talk, schedule over this as much as you need.
This document is meant to focus on how I work and what to expect from me. We will discuss expectations I have of you and the rest of the team soon after we begin working together, and I will link you to an internal onboarding document with some company-specific onboarding information.