The beginnings of a user guide for me, especially for direct reports.
- I believe in deep work -- that people need long stretches of uninterrupted time in order to do great work. As such, I do not expect you to immediately respond to Slack messages, emails and other pings. I, in fact, encourage you to set up your notification preferences so that you are not interrupted in real-time. At the same time, we also operate as a team and part of that is to support and unblock each other, so you can't ignore communication entirely. Therefore, you should check on messages at least every two hours during normal times. There are some times when there's a need for you to be more responsive, such as when you're on-call or when there's a deploy going out. You are expected to have a sense of when those times are.
- I believe in focusing on things in sequence rather than in parallel. Get one thing done, then get another thing done, etc. I understand that isn't always realistic, and I veer from it myself. Yet this is something I will keep coming back to and I expect you to make your own effort to do this.
- I believe in the power of writing to think...
- As mentioned, I will sometimes try to disconnect for a couple hours at a time. If you really need me urgently, you can page me. While I will get angry about this if it's repeatedly abused, I am much less likely to get angry about this than you think, and I'll warn you first if I feel you're misusing it.
- When I ask you to commit to doing something and you do not do it, and I have to ask you again. Answering my statement of "Please do X" or "Can you do X" with a "yes" or with a nonverbal look of acceptance means I am no longer thinking of it and expect you to follow up without reminder. It is absolutely okay to say "I can't do that" or "I'm not sure I'll be able to do that when you need it". Then we can talk about whether it makes sense to change the date, reorder priorities so you can, or change the person. I don't expect you to accept endlessly piled up work, but I can't support you with that if you don't speak up.
- Audience- and context-inappropriate conversation in meetings. For example, it's fine to go into deep technical detail during a mob programming session, but inappropriate to do that in an all-team staff meeting that includes less-technical folks. The most common examples of this are being in a meeting with a large number of people and getting into detail on something that is irrelevant to many of the people present. Everyone's time is valuable. Detailed discussion is fine, but needs to be done afterward in a smaller group.
- I expect people to pay attention to their calendars and be prompt for meetings.
- I tend toward being conflict-averse, and am reluctant to deliver feedback that could cause bad feelings. However, I recognize how important it is to share that feedback. I will try to deliver it in a prompt and constructive way.