Manager Book Appendix

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A hodgepodge of additional resources for the manager book.

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Leadership Principles by Company

Google’s Project Oxygen

Google is a very data driven, willing to challenge the status quo company. One of their ideas was getting rid of managers all together, and that was a failure. Given then conclusion managers were necessary, they formed Project Oxygen, a data driven approach to understanding the attributes of successful managers. Here is there list of management attributes:

  1. Is a good coach
  2. Empowers team and does not micromanage
  3. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being
  4. Is productive and results-oriented
  5. Is a good communicator - listens and shares information
  6. Supports career development and discusses performance
  7. Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
  8. Has key technical skills to help advise the team
  9. Collaborates across the company
  10. Is a strong decision maker

Facebook’s principles

Move Fast helps us to build and learn faster than anyone else. This means acting with urgency and not waiting until next week to do something you could do today. At our scale, this also means continuously working to increase the velocity of our highest priority initiatives by methodically removing barriers that get in the way. It’s about moving fast together – in one direction as a company, not just as individuals.

Focus on Long-Term Impact emphasizes long-term thinking and encourages us to extend the timeline for the impact we have, rather than optimizing for near-term wins. We should take on the challenges that will be the most impactful, even if the full results won’t be seen for years.

Build Awesome Things pushes us to ship things that are not just good, but also awe-inspiring. We’ve already built products that are useful to billions of people, but in our next chapter we’ll focus more on inspiring people as well. This quality bar should apply to everything we do.

Live in the Future guides us to build the future of distributed work that we want, where opportunity isn’t limited by geography. This means operating as a distributed-first company and being the early adopters of the future products we’re building to help people feel present together no matter where they are.

Be Direct and Respect Your Colleagues is about creating a culture where we are straightforward and willing to have hard conversations with each other. At the same time, we are also respectful and when we share feedback we recognize that many of the world’s leading experts work here.

Meta, Metamates, Me is about being good stewards of our company and mission. It’s about the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates. It’s about taking care of our company and each other.

Amazon’s leadership principles

All of Amazon’s leadership principles (LPs) are superb, and while they apply to everyone, they probably have a twist for managers (which I’m still figuring out).

If you’re not from Amazon the LPs can be overwhelming, and are worthy of a separate post. To help remember the principles, I think of 3 buckets: 1) Grow yourself and your team 2) Get it Done 3) Be the owner.

You’ll also notice the principles are deliberately not ranked, and have tension between them (e.g. Insist on High Standards vs Bias For Action) as they’re all important and require high judgement to balance between. Alright there is definitely a post coming on this topic

Grow yourself and the team:

Learn and Be Curious - Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best - Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

Insist on the Highest Standards - Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Dive Deep - Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Earn Trust - Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit - Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Get It Done:

Deliver Results - Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Invent and Simplify - Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here”. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Bias for Action - Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Frugality - Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.

Be the owner:

Ownership Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”.

Customer Obsession Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Think Big - Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Are Right, A Lot - Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to dis confirm their beliefs.

Grammerly

  • Ethical (Earn Trust; Vocally Self Critical) - Be honorable and earn trust by doing the right thing even when no one is watching, every time.

  • Adaptable (Invent and Simplify) - Embrace change to evolve and succeed, with a positive, problem-solving attitude.
  • Grit - (Deliver Results/Bias For Action) Achieve with passion and perseverance for goals, by doing whatever it takes to get the job done, whenever it’s necessary.
  • Empathy (Earn Trust) - Treat others as they want to be treated to work well together, by actively listening to put yourself in their shoes and then responding accordingly.
  • Remarkable (Learn and Be Curious) - Always be learning to develop quickly and be exceptional yet humble, by continually seeking out mentors and learning opportunities.

Zillow

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/zillow-built-culture-around-6-core-values-empower-employees/

  • Act with integrity
  • Move Fast, THink Big
  • Own it
  • Zillow is a team sport
  • Turn on the lights
  • Winning is fun

Misc Topics

A few Igorisms

  1. I come across as confident, that’s just a personality flaw. Please don’t confuse my confidence with my conviction, and push back.
  2. Don’t worry about “over” influencing me. I’m learning context, and will ref-count and circle back as I get more data.
  3. My goal is to do nothing. If I’m doing anything you should do, want to do, or want to learn to do - lets make it happen.
  4. I’m super transparent

  5. Platforms;

    • If you build it they will not come.
    • If its a platform you’ll have lots of opportunities to iterate before you’re done.
    • Built every iteration with a committed partner
    • Launch the first iteration ASAP with minimal flexibility - you’ll learn a tonne
    • Build the second iteration so it’s cheaper to build the 3rd.
    • Build the third by providing flexibility in those must frequently changed dimensions
    • Build the next iteration for a small set of users
    • Rinse Repeat
  6. We are a team - we want to help each other.
    • If someone needed help would you give it to them? So do the same

Rules of software as an IC

  1. No duplicate code - Fix it once!
  2. Trust tests not experts - Bring data not someones faulty memory
  3. Log bug then whine - Whining is fine, but bring it forward

My Kryptonite

  • Bad Memory/Not seeing details - I need your help sticking to details, catching stuff
  • Organization - I have the least process ever (except for Facebook)
  • UX - I’m inexperienced at UI - I need to get better, but a place I need to lean on others
  • Dramatizing - It’s emotionally engaging and helps knock us into high trust mode, but it can cause people to be defensive

Laws to remember

  • Goodhart’s Law - A metric can be used to measure reality, or to flog people, but not both (humans optimize to be rewarded). See story about pythons in India.
  • Conway’s Law - Software will ship to match an org chart (humans optimize for communication cost). See K-Pass compiler.
  • Parkinson’s Law - Work (or money) will expand to fill the time available.
  • Peter Principle - People will rise till they become incompetent
  • Parkinson’s Law of Triviality - (Bike Shedding) Members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. A nuclear power plant funding committee focus most time on how to paint the bike shed since it’s easy, and they feel they are providing value
  • Yak Shaving - Not a law but a great term for when you go down the rabbit hole going several steps away from the task at hand (a common cause for the delay in Parkinson’s Law)

How you need to communicate differently

From Ian Tien:

When you’re promoted, you have more power and less dexterity.

You have to be more careful about what you say and how you say it, because the risk of misinterpretation can materially increase.

With each promotion, imagine putting on an additional pair of gloves. So managers get driving gloves, directors get ski gloves, VP/C-Suite get boxing gloves, and a CEO gets cheer-leading pom-poms.

This represents the increased complexity of communication in your new role, because you have more power.

When you’re in meetings, in channels, or on email, you need to think about how everyone around you will process what you say as a manager/director/exec.

The most dangerous thing you can do is the “ah shucks, I’m the same person I always was…” because that’s not how the organization will view you, and you can create all sorts of unintended consequences.

You have more power. Be responsible with it.

Analogies to be fleshed out

Piniata

The need for maturity and alignment

A project is car with a EM, PM and TL

The need for variable engagement

Magic Tricks vs Balloon Animals (Effort vs Impact)

An engineering team as the parts of the car

PM - Navigator and long term radar EM - Shock absorbers, mid term radar, swerve system Specific team members for engine, seat belts, etc

New hire perspective is like landing a plane

  • When joining high altitude can see the city
  • Once landed, all you can see is the air port and a few streets

Other Resources

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