DEV Community: Daniel Glasser

Dan @ Hudl — Manager Readme

Daniel Glasser — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 21:48:15 +0000

Dan @ Hudl — Manager Readme

Overview

This is an introduction to me as a manager. It’s meant to capture some of my management philosophy, style and values. The “readme” portion of this doc (below) is meant to be read from the perspective of one of my direct reports. This gives me and my team a shared understanding of how I see my role and something that they can hold me accountable to.

What is this all about?

This “readme” is meant to capture some of my values and thoughts to help provide an understanding of my role and the manager-report relationship from my point-of-view. I expect you to have your own views, goals, values and communication style that I hope to understand as we build on our relationship (inside and outside the one on one). Where we lack alignment, it’s my responsibility to understand those differences and adjust to your style as necessary.

Mission

Broadly, I want to make Hudl the best place for engineers to work. I enjoy working at the organizational level to support improvements in process and how we work. Personally, I want to make an impact on each reports’ career growth. I’m here to help you succeed.

Values

In order to do your best work, you should enjoy the work you do. Every day is a choice of how to spend your time, including where you work. Your work comprises a large percentage of your waking hours and I want that time to be personally meaningful.

I value having time away from work and seek to be “where my feet are”, present and focused when at work and the same when I’m at home.

I value transparency. It’s a primary reason I joined Hudl and something I appreciate from its founders today. Transparency is valuable when times are good but clear transparent communication is critical during times of uncertainty or crisis (like the COVID-19 pandemic).

I value continued learning. When I’ve experienced a lack of growth, over a period of time, it is a sign that I need to make some sort of transition.

I value working with a great team. “Great” to me means:

established trust
dependability
psychological safety
the ability to have conflict, disagree and commit
accomplishing more as a group than we can alone
serving a purpose that we each find personally important

I value diverse and inclusive teams and support retaining those teams through fair pay and promotion practices. With the knowledge that talent is equally distributed around the world but opportunity is not, I continuously seek to understand my biases and recognize my privilege.

I value your feedback. Feedback is a gift, an opportunity to grow and learn more.

Style

Management Style

I trust you and believe that you have the answer to your problem within you. For that reason, I will do a lot of listening and asking questions in one on ones to hear what you think. I’m also willing to listen if you want to vent or rant about anything — our 1:1 is a good venue for those conversations too.

caveat: If you want advice you might have to ask. Sometimes I’ll offer advice, but I’ll usually ask if that’s what you want first.

Assume Positive Intent

I aim to assume positive intent and want you to do the same with me and others you work with. This does not mean that you should avoid being candid, rather take a moment to inspect your perception of the situation is aligned with their intentions (e.g. “When you say X, I’m interpreting that as Y” and let them confirm or correct your view).

caveat: If you’re concerned about your safety or inequities in the workplace it’s not necessary or advised to make that assumption, please raise any of those concerns to me.

Transparency

As I mentioned before, I value transparency and will default to being transparent with you.

caveat: There may be times when I have information I can’t share so I may just not comment or suggest a better time to discuss

Feedback

Feedback is a gift. I value your feedback on how I can serve you and your goals better. I’m also committed to helping you grow. If there’s something I can do, or stop doing, that would work better for us then please let me know (in whatever format is most comfortable to you)

caveat: My default mode is ruinous empathy, but I know feedback done well requires both caring personally and challenging directly — that’s what I strive to do.

Growth

My career growth has been opportunistic, rather than goal-focused. The opportunities I’ve taken and the ones I’ve passed on were based on their consistency with my values. My career growth plan is not yours. I want you to grow in a way that’s comfortable for you. If you’re strongly motivated by specific goals or somewhere else on that spectrum let me know.

caveat: I’ve messed up on this before by not pushing people as much as they wanted me to. I’ve learned that I have to be more intentional with reports that are motivated in ways that I’m not.

Logistics

One on Ones

The frequency, duration and agenda should be driven by what you want from this meeting. By default I’ll start with 30 minutes weekly, but over time this can change based on your needs (e.g. hourly weekly or 45 minutes bi-weekly). This is your time to discuss your long and short-term interests, get feedback, talk about growth opportunities, ask clarifying questions and identify anything blocking you from performing your best.

Timeliness

I like to be punctual, I hope that you do too :)

caveat: I have been known to miss approvals. If you have an expense or other request that’s outstanding beyond a day, let me know as I probably just missed it.

Availability

Let’s talk about anything that’s on your mind at any time and with whatever medium is most comfortable for you.

caveat: I’m probably available most evenings and weekends, but likely won’t respond unless it’s urgent.

Vacation Policy

What does Hudl’s “unlimited vacation” mean? For me, it’s a convenience for the business to alleviate tracking and a convenience for the employee to provide flexibility. Use your best judgement. It’s not a free license with literally infinite time off, nor is it a “nice theory” where in reality you get no time off because the job never stops. I aim to take 4–5 weeks per year and want you to take the time that you need to refresh. My expectation is that you’ll take a minimum of 3–4 weeks.

Conclusion

Writing this document has been helpful for at least some of my direct reports to help build trust. It has served as a good conversation starter to clarify my values and those of my reports. I’d encourage other managers out there to give it a try, even if only as a self reflection exercise.

Engineering Manager Reading Guide

Daniel Glasser — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 15:26:33 +0000

This is a list of engineering management books, articles, and videos that I’ve found useful in my time as an Engineering Manager. I don’t intend to make a “definitive guide”, rather I hope it’s a useful reference for me and others when encountering some of the common challenges in management.

Image Source: Billion Photos | Shutterstock

Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler

The Five Conditions for Improvement by Roy Rappaport

Career Paths

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineers into Remarkable Managers by David Loftesness

Work at different management levels by Lara Hogan

The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier

On Being a Senior Engineer by John Allspaw

Engineering Management: The Pendulum or the Ladder by Charity Majors

Engagement & Retention

Shields Down by Michael Lopp (rands)

Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock

How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management from Harvard Business Review

Three Powerful Conversations Managers Must Have To Develop Their People by Russ Laraway

Leadership

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Good Strategy Bad Strategy and Richard Rumelt

How to be Strategic by Julie Zhuo

Management Craft/Other

An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson

Resilient Management by Lara Hogan

44 engineering management lessons by Slava Akhmechet

Average Manager vs. Great Manager by Julie Zhuo

Awesome Leading and Managing by Various Authors

Engineering Management from Leadership Library

8 Keys to Happiness at Work by Dan Glasser

8 Keys to Happiness at Work

Daniel Glasser — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:17:11 +0000

If your manager asks you to “Rate your happiness at work from 1 to 10” what comes to mind? What expectations do you have that either of you will effect positive change? I want to explore why these questions can be difficult to answer. I’ll also propose an alternative way to think about the underlying question: How can we ensure you feel valued and engaged?

Your manager is not responsible for your happiness. They are responsible for many things — your team’s effectiveness and outcomes, creating a healthy and inclusive environment, recognizing good performance and correcting poor performance, coaching, career development and providing context that connects purpose to the day-to-day… but not happiness.

So if happiness isn’t the right framing for the question of engagement how should we think about it? Not surprisingly, individuals value different aspects of their work. The framework I’m proposing is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Daniel Pink’s research from Drive and the wisdom of Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger.

The 8 Keys

I’ve captured a number of important factors of job satisfaction and engagement. These facets are:

Balance

Having work/life balance. You’re able to get a healthy amount of sleep and recharge.

Basics

Your basic financial needs are met. Your company’s future and your standing in the company isn’t at immediate risk.

Security

You have long-term financial security. Your savings rates are healthy. Your 401k is well-funded and/or stock incentive plans provide meaningful future growth.

Peers

You go to work with people that you enjoy. That means the environment is inclusive of you and others and toxic people are dealt with quickly and decisively.

Leadership

You work for people you respect and admire. The company strategy and values are transparent and behaviors are consistent with those values.

Recognition

You have room to grow your career and achieve promotions. You’re also recognized appropriately for the work you do.

Flow

You are met with the right challenges for your knowledge, skills and experience. You have autonomy in your work and are able to master relevant skills.

Purpose

You find meaning in the work you do and have belief in the product you are building.

8 Keys to “happiness”

Motivational Factors

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a framework for understanding human needs and the interplay between them. Basic physiological and safety needs (food, air, water, employment, health, shelter etc.) are at the foundation. Progressing up the pyramid are needs related to belonging, respect, recognition and becoming your best self.

Daniel Pink shares research in the book Drive and his Ted Talk on the same subject about intrinsic motivators. According to Pink, the research shows that after you have money off the table as a conversation — that is people feel compensated fairly in the market — the best motivators are all intrinsic. He talks in depth about three such motivators: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Charlie Munger has three rules for a successful career. His focus is on interpersonal relationships and a belief in the work you’re doing. His three rules are:

Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself
Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire
Work only with people you enjoy

Put it into Practice

Self-reflection time! With the various facets now defined it’s time to think about what is important to you and how fulfilled you feel in each area. The result of these ratings tell you where things are going well or poorly, areas of opportunity, and where the team has perhaps over-invested.

Step One

Rank each facet according to your own personal value judgement (the Importance axis). Rank them based on your current life stage, career stage and aspirations, other responsibilities outside of work and any other factors important to you. For each facet assign it a rating of:

Very Important
Important
Nice-to-have
Not Important

Upon your first reading it’s easy to say “they are all important”, but try to categorize them relative to each other given the factors above.

Step Two

For each facet determine to what degree your job is meeting your expectations relative to what you’d consider the market of available jobs (the Execution axis).

5 — This is better than I can expect elsewhere
4 — This is better than average
3 — This is adequate
2 — This is worse than average
1 — This is worse than I would reasonably expect anywhere else

Personal Assessment

For any areas that you rated as important or very important you’d ideally have a score of 3 or higher. Any areas that are scored 2 or lower may or may not be a factor in your employment decisions based on whether you value them or not. In any case, have a conversation with your manager about what your needs are and where they are and aren’t currently being met.

Manager Assessment

Managers can use this framework to identify team trends. For example, a hypothetical team might have a problem understanding why their work is important and in need of some new challenges (as indicated by relatively important but not well-executed Flow/blue and Purpose/purple scores):

Final Thoughts

Only you are responsible for your happiness. You must evaluate how well what you value is aligned with the work you do. You have the choice of where you spend your time working — do it somewhere that you feel engaged, valued and aligned with your company’s values.

DEV Community: Daniel Glasser

Dan @ Hudl — Manager Readme

Dan @ Hudl — Manager Readme

Overview

What is this all about?

Mission

Values

Style

Management Style

Assume Positive Intent

Transparency

Feedback

Growth

Logistics

One on Ones

Timeliness

Availability

Vacation Policy

Conclusion

Engineering Manager Reading Guide

The 1:1

Effective Communication

Performance

Career Paths

Engagement & Retention

Leadership

Management Craft/Other

8 Keys to Happiness at Work

The 8 Keys

Motivational Factors

Put it into Practice

Step One

Step Two

Personal Assessment

Manager Assessment

Final Thoughts