My Readme 2022
aka How to George
What is this? Inspired by other leaders in design and engineering, I revisit my very own readme every year. I share it out, hoping it inspires others to write one for themselves and their team.
Welcome
Welcome to the team. My mission as a leader is to create the conditions for great work to get done. I want you to be able to do your best work most days and be proud of it. I say most days because, let’s be real, not all days can always be our best. I do this by getting to know what drives everyone on my team and inspiring them. Then, I work to provide context and set a vision for our path forward while attracting, retaining, and growing world-class talent to the team (that’s you).
It’s going to take a fair amount of time to get your bearings and figure this out. I appreciate that you’ll want to start showing your value and contributing right away, but I ask you to take the time and meet everyone. I was excited to join LinkedIn to learn how much its values aligned with my own. One I’d call out here is that ‘relationships matter.’ We invest so much of ourselves and our lives at work that it is crucial to invest in the people you work with and really get to know them.
One of the working relationships we need to define is ours. The following is a user guide for me and how I work. It attempts to capture what you can expect working with me: how I like to work, my guiding principles, and some of my, uh, quirks. My intent with this document is to accelerate our working relationship. But it’s not meant as a replacement for actually getting to know each other.
Work Mode
There are no hard and fast rules for work hours when I expect you to be working. You don’t need to ask permission to go to the doctor, take care of errands during the day, and so forth. We’re adults, and I’m sure you got this. Our roles are highly collaborative, so presence and availability are essential at times. Use your judgment about weighing priorities on your presence or absence during the day and informing your peers and me that you’ll be out for a bit.
Meetings
My definition of a meeting includes an agenda or intended purpose or goal, the appropriate people invited, and someone leading the meeting along to get to the goal of the meeting. I strive to be on time for each meeting I attend. Back-to-back meetings can make this a challenge at times. You’ll notice I try my best to be there on time or within the first five minutes.
I’m big on being present and giving your full attention to a meeting. If you come in and open your laptop or go dark throughout most of a virtual meeting, you’re not winning any points with me. When this gets to a certain level of people not paying attention, I’ll end up calling it out. I realize there are exceptions to this, but please keep this to a minimum. If you really need to get something done, let me know and excuse yourself. But I expect you to prioritize and give your colleagues your full attention and time as we all should.
Healthy Work/Life Balance
I do my best to practice a healthy work/life balance in which I shut my brain off from thinking about work at night and on weekends. I do work a little bit on the weekends from time to time. I do this by choice. I don’t expect you to work on weekends. I might email you outside of usual working times in your time zone, but it can always wait until your regular working schedule unless it says URGENT. I try my best to take time off. You should, too. I do some of my best thinking when I disconnect from work.
My Guiding Principles
People first. Happy, informed, and productive teams build amazing things. Ideological diversity is key to an effective team. All perspectives are relevant and make ideas better. Therefore, I bias my decisions towards building and investing in productive, diverse, happy teams.
Leadership comes from everywhere. While managers are an essential part of a scaling organization, I don’t think they own the market on leadership. So I seek out other ways and opportunities for non-managers to lead effectively in our teams.
Invest in tools and processes. When well understood and appropriately used, a tool or process can help us do our work better, faster, and more effectively. That said, I will be the first to admit they are just tools — a means to an end. It’s how people reach for the right tools and hone their craft with them. And when I see large or small inefficiencies in the systems we use, I’ll often raise them and like to fix them with your help.
It is important to me that humans are treated fairly. I believe most people are trying to do the right thing, but unconscious bias leads them astray. I work hard to understand and address my biases because I appreciate their ability to create inequity. Please let me know if you ever feel mistreated or misrepresented by me or anyone on the team.
Learn from our mistakes. It’s more important to learn from our mistakes than beat ourselves up about something that happened. You’ll often hear me referring to adopting a growth mindset — this is part of that. Always be looking for opportunities to gain experience and grow along the way. I’m more interested in discovering why something happened and what we can do next time than where to lay blame. Repeated mistakes are the ones to avoid.
Little things can mean a lot. I believe quality assurance is everyone’s responsibility, and there are bugs to be fixed everywhere — all the time. So if you see something, say something. Or better yet, do something about it. (I also believe that the children are our future.) You’ll also find that I’m big on the words and formatting we use in our designs. Words can mean a lot, especially when sharing with billions of people in an experience. So I think it’s essential to get this right. In contrast, I don’t put as much importance on the words we use in a chat. It’s more about our intent supported by the trust and candor we’ve developed.
Assume positive intent. This approach has worked out well for me over my career and in life in general. (I certainly didn’t start this way.) Keep in mind that I may not have all the context or understand your perspective. We’re all juggling many different things at once, so I may ask for more details, or you might recognize that I could use more context. Let’s get there together.
Quirks and Errata
OK, now a bit more about me and some of my quirks. I continue to discover these about myself and work to keep them in check. So, while this document is more about me and my expectations, I’d love to learn more about what makes you tick and how you operate best. So, think of this as the start of those conversations.
Leadership style. My leadership style is about inspiring and instigating, affording you the agency and autonomy to make it happen your way. Remember to act like an owner. Nevertheless, I work hard to make myself available to everyone on my team, so if you need my help, support, or advice on anything, please let me know, and I’ll find the time. I’m known to be kind, compassionate, and laid back, but don’t mistake that for not being engaged, enthusiastic, or opinionated.
Deep thoughts. I like to get a ton of context before forming a strong opinion (often loosely held). I tend to focus on what may seem insignificant aspects of what you’re asking me for feedback on (copy or font of a presentation vs. the overall content). I continue to work on this, but I know I’m internally struggling to have you reconsider the font, copy, etc. I care a lot about inclusive design, accessibility, content design, and our brand. Don’t be surprised if I go deep with you on the copy or micro-interactions and how to improve it.
Inbox 47. We all get a ton of emails. I try to keep my email in check (and Slack, for that matter). But as the saying goes, sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. (Also, I know a bunch of weird expressions and tend to mess them up.) Email, Slack, Teams, and LinkedIn messenger can all be vying for my attention. I love a short and sweet email with what I can do to help (bullet points are great too). On the other end of the spectrum, long, threaded emails I’m brought into are my kryptonite.
Continuous improvement. I’m continuously looking for how we can make things better. Although you’ll find I have an established format for many of the meetings and processes, I’m open to trying new things and changing them up. So, meetings or parts of the meeting may get changed. Feel free to offer up ideas.
Feedback is a gift. I also maintain that open, honest, and constructive feedback is crucial for being our best selves. I firmly believe that feedback is at the core of building trust and respect in a team. So, I’ll give you direct feedback and expect the same from you.
Personal triggers and dislikes. People who gossip a ton or state opinions or biases as facts are triggers for me. People who lead with “Facebook, Instagram, Company X do it like this” trigger me. As far as dislikes, I’m adamantly averse to cilantro, goat cheese, and corduroy (it’s a long story). I’m also not big on seafood.
Let’s have fun. I’m a big believer in humor and having some fun. My sense of humor is dry, witty, and silly at times. I like nerding out on all things creative, technical, inspiring, or bringing us joy. So I’m often up for a chat about movies, TV, books, video games, tech, creative tools, type, branding, design, dogs, you name it. I also think it’s essential to do some fun offsites together (virtual or otherwise). We try for a fun outing every few months.
Steal This Document
This document is a living, breathing thing and likely incomplete (and still too long). I update it frequently and would appreciate your feedback. I have had the privilege to work with some fantastic managers throughout my career. This document draws from various sources from which I’ve borrowed or was encouraged to steal. Most of it was inspired by three leaders: Michael Lopp, Julie Zhuo, and the late, great August de Los Reyes, who gave me his version of this document on the first day I joined his team. August encouraged me, as I now encourage you, to steal this document.
I revisit this document every year and share it back out to remind us how we work together.
Thanks for reading and making it to the end.
— George
