Imagine you’re a new boss who’s taking over leadership of an existing team. If you’ve ever been in this position, you might have seen how the team’s psychological safety takes a hit. Suddenly there’s a stranger in charge who does and expects different things. How do you introduce yourself? How do you get everybody on the same page? Your team can’t do their best work when they don’t know you and frankly don’t trust you. Fear kills creativity.

This is the position I found myself in back in 2017, shortly after starting a new Director of Data Warehousing role. As luck would have it, I had recently stumbled across Michael Lopp’s site on engineering leadership. His piece “How to Rands” struck me as a great thing to share with your team and a great learning exercise. I decided to adapt it to my situation. So with all due credit for the inspiration and no apologies for the copying, here’s “How to Gordon.”

Gordon (Manager Edition)

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you report to me, Gordon. I’m writing this to help us get off to a solid start and/or deepen our existing relationship. Think of this as a user’s manual. You’ll gain insight into how I work—and how I hope we’ll work together. I’m glad you’re here.

There are four basic areas I’ll discuss:

• Principles (aka Stuff I Care About)
• Stuff That Really Bugs Me
• Organization
• Junk Drawer

Principles (aka Stuff I Care About)

Recognition

Great relationships start with recognition. This goes beyond acknowledging a good job. It means seeing each other as human beings. We all have strengths and weaknesses, needs and biases. The better we see each other, the better we can play to our strengths. The Zulu word Sawubona resonates with me. It translates to “I see you,” but “I recognize you as a person” would be more the spirit. Or in the words of Desmond Tutu, “…a person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.”

Coaching over Directing

I actively resist using my authority. Each time I do, I feel like I’ve failed a little bit. My father says, “You hit when you don’t have the patience to yell. You yell when you don’t have the patience to talk. How much patience do you have?” I feel like giving orders is akin to yelling. It’s better for both of us if I can convey the need and work with you to find an effective solution. I’ll use a lot of questions to do so. You’ll probably find this frustrating at times. Just let me know. It’s okay.

Knowing the Business Problem

Engineers build solutions. They’re really good at it. However, they’re not always good at building the right solution. If the solutions you build don’t address the business problem, then that’s a waste of both effort and opportunity. You’ll hear me say, “What’s the business problem?” probably five times a day. If you don’t know the answer to that question, it should be your #1 priority to find out.

Deliberateness

This is possibly my favorite principle: always have a reason for doing whatever it is you’re doing. This goes further than “knowing the business problem.” It’s almost a philosophy in itself. It involves actively choosing what you spend your time on and committing to thoughtful solutions. It’s the opposite of being passive and/or doing things just because they seem cool. It’s exercising choice as opposed to just reacting. Sometimes it involves choosing not to do something. For example, choosing not to tune your code without a clear benefit.

Safety

Safety is incredibly important in unblocking people so they can do their best work. It’s difficult to be a creative risk-taker if you think your ideas won’t be respected or your mistakes won’t be tolerated. If you’re familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you know that safety is foundational to creativity. Company cultures, processes and communication channels are designed to work in concert to provide a safe environment for collaboration and professional growth. If at any time you don’t feel safe speaking up or taking risks, please let me know. If I’m the problem, please speak with my manager.

Communication

I believe that efficient, considerate communication is the gift that keeps on giving. Such communication can take many forms: actively listening in meetings, keeping your listener in mind when talking, making thoughtful pull request comments, tracking documentation… Basically, any time you have an idea that a human being (even your future self!) could benefit from, it’s worth making your communication Clear, Concise, Contextual and Correct. Oh, and I really like when people keep their stories/cards/tickets up to date. And I love seeing plans.

Quality + Execution = Outstanding Performance

There was a time when I believed that delivering outstanding results meant knowing more, being smarter and working harder. But you can’t know everything, there is always someone smarter, and working harder frequently means making more silly mistakes. I remember the summer when I worked 16 to 20 hours a day, every day. The whole team did. Thing is, we probably would have gotten more done, more quickly, if we didn’t constantly have to fix all the mistakes we made at 2 a.m. Never again.

These days, I believe that excellence comes from tightly controlling scope, being really deliberate, making sure everything you produce is high quality, and avoiding the silly mistakes that come from being hasty in your actions or judgment. Some people call that professionalism.

Fundamentals Over Facts

If you ask me to teach you how to cook, I’m going to start with eggs. I’ll ask you a couple of questions and cook you something I think you will like. I’ll explain my technique, give you a dozen eggs and ask you to give it a shot, maybe turning on the exhaust hood first. Then I’ll step back and let you make some mistakes. What I am not going to do is give you a bunch of recipes. You can google that yourself. To me, learning to cook is all about understanding your ingredients and combining them with techniques to get the outcomes you want. Then you can create your own recipes.

I think the same holds true for technology and business. Why waste time teaching trivia that folks can just look up themselves? Instead, teach something fundamental that folks can build off of for years to come.

This approach explains my fondness for reductionism. I see things in systems and believe there is a grammar for describing those systems. When we understand that grammar, those dimensions that provide shape, we can make more impact with less effort.

With Power Comes Responsibility

I’m going with Spider-Man on this one.

Stuff That Really Bugs Me

Most of the things that bother me are the opposite of the Stuff I Care About. Here’s a non-comprehensive list.

●Putting technology ahead of the business problem.
●Putting yourself ahead of the team.
●Letting something slide because it’s the status quo.
●Cynicism.
●Arrogance.
●Not recognizing other people’s work.
●Covering for yourself. If you feel the need to do this, we’re doing something wrong. Please bring this up with me.
●Talking behind people’s backs, even if it’s just griping. Please trust people enough to give them constructive feedback. Feedback is a gift.
●Coasting. I want to learn every day, and I want to work with people who feel the same. I welcome any opportunities to partner on getting better/stronger/faster.
●Wasting other people’s efforts. That’s akin to not seeing them.

Organization

Communication, communication, and more communication. If we’re going to have a great relationship, we’re going to need to communicate. That means real conveyance of information with different intended purposes. This is how I like to structure that.

1:1

We’ll have a regular 1:1, hopefully weekly. I’m not going to say this is your meeting. It’s not. It’s our meeting. We’ll both get out of it what we put into it.

Our 1:1s will focus on the following topics:

●Challenges, issues or problems you need help with
●Positive and constructive feedback, in both directions
●Career advancement
●Ways to help the company be more successful
●Anything else of substance you want to talk about

Slack

We have a private Slack channel for the two of us. Use it anytime you need my attention when I’m not in earshot. I’ll try to respond ASAP. This is also a great place to gather topics for our 1:1s and share useful articles or links. If I post something, please read it and share your thoughts—including if you disagree with it.

Weekly Wins

I like to use 15five as a lightweight reporting system. The idea is that you spend 15 minutes writing a report and I spend five minutes reviewing it. The exact numbers are not important. What is important is this is another channel for valuable feedback. I’m not looking for a list of statuses. Rather, I want to hear about what you’re proud of, what you’re finding challenging, and who helped you. There are standard questions that repeat weekly. I sometimes add a question to explore new topics. Timely reports are great.

Squads

I think of our team as a squad. It’s a group of individuals coming together to accomplish a mission. When squads can deliver on their own, it’s a thing of beauty. One of my jobs is to get the team there. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink argues that great squads have Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. I actually prefer reordering those to Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. Partly because it’s hard to trust a team with autonomy when they haven’t achieved the requisite skills. But also because it spells MAP.

Working Hours

The notion of working hours is different than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and I really don’t like rules. I much prefer principles. Here’s my thinking: Your working hours should be the ideal intersection of benefit for you and for your team. Be there for your team, get your work done and take care of yourself. Occasionally stretch to meet the goal. Make time to get flu shots and see the dentist. Never let your health suffer because of work.

I work evenings and weekends sometimes. That’s my choice because it suits my needs. You should make your own choices. I don’t expect you to work weekends.

Working Remotely

Hello, remote work! I’ve been doing remote work in one form or another since 1995. My biggest tip is to understand it’s not an add-on to working in the office but rather its own thing. Except that all the basic principles still apply.

• Teams accomplish more than individuals.
• Communication is key.
• Be generous: unblock others before you unblock yourself.

Office space was originally an investment in the idea that people could get more done in person than they could remotely. But 2020 revealed that this investment doesn’t always pay off. We’ve gotten better at working remotely, and as long as we keep the principles of team first in mind, we’ll keep getting better.

Work from wherever you want as long as it doesn’t hurt your team.

Vacation

Some companies have allocated vacation, and others have unlimited. Frankly, it makes no difference to me. I take vacation. You should, too. If you don’t, I will bug you to. Please give your team a heads-up when you’re going to be away so we don’t call you on the slopes.

The Concierge

Presumably, if you and I are on the same team, we’re building data products that have users and need to be maintained. I’ve had great success with a role I call the Concierge. The Concierge’s mission is twofold: Firstly, they unblock our users when they run into problems—the Concierge is the first person they turn to. Secondly, the Concierge protects the rest of the team from interruption so they can focus on building new features. Being the Concierge may entail some early morning hours and/or weekend time. The goal is no weekend time, and the Concierge should introduce work items to help prevent that. Think of this role as a combination scrum master/engineer on call working to delight users.

Junk Drawer

I’m a shy extrovert

I love collaborating on and solving problems together. There are few things I enjoy more than brainstorming ideas on a whiteboard. I enjoy giving presentations and sharing my ideas. But I’m actually rather shy and can fade into the background if I’m not feeling comfortable.

I have a lot of ideas

Some are good, some are bad, and most are ones I’ve had before and am still chewing on. I can’t turn them off. This doesn’t mean that I espouse a mad scientist viewpoint where we try any crazy thing that comes to mind. I’m always sizing up the ROI on ideas. What it does mean is that I love exploring new thoughts with people and hearing their ideas as well. See the above point about being an extrovert.

I talk a lot

And I don’t always listen enough. I’m working on it. However, I try really hard to add value whenever I open my mouth. You be the judge.

I love coffee

Dark and roasty but not too bitter. And I’m hyper. Those things might go together.

I use a lot of metaphors and similes

And I don’t really know the difference. I make a lot of comparisons between delighting customers with data and delighting customers with a new roof or a delicious meal. I grew up in a restaurant family and was both a roofer and a caterer. Feel free to ask me about it…if I haven’t already told you.

I’m friendly

Intentionally so. Not to say that I’m insincere. However, I make an effort to be friendly because I think it helps make me easier to work with—and it makes me happy.

Afterword (February 17th, 2021)

It’s been a few years since I finished my original “How to Gordon” draft. Rereading and updating it, I’m happy to say I recognize the guy who wrote this. I note a bit of growth, but I’m reminded of things I still need to work on, too.

I know this “user’s manual” is not complete. How could it be? But it’s given my team a leg up on understanding how I work. It’s helped set expectations, improve communication, and build trust. My teams and I have learned about each other, and I’ve learned about myself. In other words, it was well worth writing. If you’re managing people or will be soon, why not give it a try?