Hi, I’m Eric Musso
This is my personal user guide for me and how I work. My intent is to accelerate our working relationship with this document. It captures what you can expect out of the average week working with me, how I like to work, my guiding principles, and some of my personal characteristics.
This will not be laying out any plans for the organization and its products.
Important: This is NOT meant as a replacement for actually getting to know each other.
Depending on your schedule, some people start early, some later and go home accordingly. You can work from home when you need quiet time, just let the team know and stay engaged. You should manage your own time, not me. I take advantage of this perk quite often.
We’ll have a 1:1 every week (or bi-weekly) for at least 30 minutes. This meeting discusses topics of substance, not status updates on projects (more info later).
You can message me anytime you need. I’ll respond as quickly as I can.
I sometimes work on the weekends/nights. This is my personal choice. I do not expect that you are going to work on the weekend. I might message you things, but unless its urgent, it can always wait until work begins for you on Monday.
I take vacations. You should, too! Disconnect from work and let your mind and body recharge.
Humans First. I believe that happy, informed, and productive humans build great products. I'm biased towards building productive humans, others will maximize the business, the technology, or any other number of important aspects. All perspectives are relevant.
Leadership comes from everywhere. I believe managers are an essential part of a scaling organization, I don’t believe they have a monopoly on leadership, and I will work hard to establish opportunities in our teams for everyone to effectively lead.
Empathy. Empathizing doesn’t mean you have to feel the same thing, think the same way, make the other person feel better, or fix the situation so everyone is happy. Demonstrating empathy means you listen, acknowledge, and accept feelings and points of view as legitimate. Empathy is fundamentally about respect. Having empathy for your co-workers will help us build strong teams.
Critical thinking. We don’t do anything “because we’ve always done it that way”. If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
Self reflection. Self reflection is an important part of growth. You’ll miss opportunities without it. Take a step back from life and get perspective.
I value transparency about what’s happened, what’s happening, and what’s going to happen.
I value learning, and know that training up on a tech stack may not always be the fastest route to production.
I value your time and don’t want you to do any process that is neither beneficial to you nor required by a policy, etc.
You are responsible for yourself. Knowing yourself is step one. Step two is going after what you want.
At minimum…
- Set up teams for success and autonomy.
- Collect and share context from across product/domain lines.
- Attract, retain and grow high performing individuals and teams.
- Foster a culture of creativity, innovation and collaboration.
- looking at the environment and trying to continuously improve it.
- Write some code too! I’m a developer and love to be involved. As a manager, I don’t stop coding or learning.
If I do something that negatively impacts my ability to retain you, do me a huge favor and let me know about it, as soon as possible!
If I do something that feels more like telling you how to do your job than setting context, do me a huge favor and let me know about it, as soon as possible!
You’re 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: Trying to gather context OR trying to be a sounding board.
I’m not good at your job. You know best. I’ll work to provide necessary context and ask questions to help you vet your ideas but I won’t override you.
You’ll let me know if you can’t do your job. One of my main responsibilities is ensuring that you’re set up for success. Occasionally things slip through the cracks and I won’t know I’m letting you down.
You feel safe with disagreements and debate. 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. This does rely on us being able to have a safe debate.
If I describe my ideal for our team and each person on it, it is that we:
- take control and responsibility for, our own destiny
- have each other’s back
- hold each other accountable
- expect excellence in ourselves and each other
- highlight the positive
- always ask “why?”
- constantly learn
- laugh together
You’re here because of your experience and your skills and I don’t want to override either of those. I’m here to help you succeed but not dictate how you should act.
Disagreeing with my input does not indicate anything is wrong.
You’ll still need to get consensus and input from your teammates.
I fully support a remote culture. There are days I will choose to work remotely and days that I will be in the office. I would expect you all like to do the same. I would like us to make sure we create a healthy remote culture that works for everyone.
Rules to live by:
- Always expect positive intent. Tone can be lost over chat so assume your colleague is coming from a positive place.
- Keep important information accessible for everyone. Overcommunicate if you need to.
- Embrace asynchronous communication.
- Expect structure with meetings and processes to support a remote team.
- All remote team members are equal.
These meetings are designed to give you a dedicated time and place to ask anything and everything.
- Hopefully we talk about things you wouldn’t otherwise bring up in a group setting.
- I want our 1:1 to be a safe place; if this isn’t the case please tell my boss.
- We will go through your agenda first and if time permits I will always have some questions. First and foremost these meetings are for you.
- Urgent matters should not wait for a 1:1.
I want to provide you with slightly-more-challenging work than you feel capable. I strongly believe in the Growth Mindset.
It is fine to not understand a particular task. I can help by providing context.
It is not OK to believe that you will never be able to understand it.
Creating a culture of continuous feedback is important to me. It helps us all improve our relationships and achieve more success.
The feedback that should be given is…
- Given with the intent of helping the other person grow.
- Aimed at behavior, not the person. “You are stupid” is not feedback, it is an attack on the person.
- Actionable and explicit as to what improved behavior looks like.
- Given as quickly as possible. Timely feedback provides a tighter loop to reorient behavior.
I have a family. A wife, 2 kids and a solid set of noise cancelling headphones. I often arrive at work around 9am-ish and occasionally have to leave early to pick up my kids from school. I am a WNY native and I love living in Buffalo. I’ve left a few times, but have found my way back. Buffalo is unique and has a lot to offer and I’m excited to keep growing the tech community here.
I am an introvert and that means that extended time with other humans is exhausting. Some times I'm quiet, but do not confuse my quiet with lack of engagement.
Work/Life Balance is important to me. I don’t expect to communicate with you outside business hours with respect to your local time. Under no circumstances do I expect you to respond to instant messages or emails off hours, unless it’s a high alert emergency.
This document is a living breathing thing and likely incomplete.