# Jeremy Freeman's Manager Readme

**Chief Technology Officer at Caring.com**

# Motivation for this document

To make me easier to work with by explaining how I operate and behave.

# My role

**My role is to lead high-performing technology teams to deliver sustainable business wins**

# **My style**

I prefer to extend trust than to meddle, and I don't want to try and fix things that are not broken. My preference is to assign problems, not solutions. For particularly important things, or where I have reason to be concerned, I may want to review the plan before executing. I spent the vast majority of my time giving advice, not orders. 

When I learn of apparent issues, I will typically investigate until I understand what's going on, and I will involve myself in the situation until I believe it will succeed without further intervention from me.  I always endeavor for such involvement to be as limited as it can responsibly be. Nevertheless, during extended challenges, this can lead to me being more personally involved and more directive in matters than I prefer to be. I won't be any more comfortable with that than you'll be.

# What do I value most?

- **Information**. It's very hard for me to keep on top of everything. Sharing information with me at the right level is an enormous help. "The right level" is enough information that I am making the right decisions and am prepared to talk about things important / exceptional enough that I'm likely to be asked about it (and probably not much more information than that). I sufficiently value information that I will try to protect confidential information and its sources as much as I can possibly get away with.
- **Integrity. ** I don't have any patience for people acting in bad faith, whether lying, carelessness, cheating, etc. Neither should you.
- **Pragmatism. ** We shouldn't be over-engineering, but neither should we be under-engineering. A great sense of the tradeoffs and making the right one for the business is important.
- **Initiative. ** At any given time, there are surely a number of things we could be doing to improve. Identifying impactful opportunities for improvement and producing fixes without stepping on toes is one of my favorite qualities in leaders.
- **Organizational Ambition. ** It can be easy to let your personal ambition override your ambition for the organization, but the people who are most successful in my teams are the ones who put the organizational goals first.

# My Expectations

- I want a heads up about bad news as soon as you know it. If you think there's a good chance I may hear about something sideways, I would really appreciate knowing about it from you first. I will be understanding.  
- When people take on work, I expect they will either 1) Do it 2) come back and let me know there's an issue. 
- I am on Slack all the time. I do not expect people to be on Slack all the time. I do, however, expect that people are reachable whenever it's not expressly inconvenient to be. This does not always mean responsive -- there's nothing wrong with seeing messages and deferring response til working hours most of the time as long as you answer when it counts.
- Let me know when you believe I'm making mistakes. I may not agree with you but I will hear you out and be grateful for the feedback. If I'm wrong, I'm going to find out eventually when things don't go how I hope, I'd much rather learn of my folly from you before it's too late!
- I care about people, a lot. I don't want you to miss important moments with your friends and family, nor to have a poor work/life balance. I do have high standards and expect a high level of effort from everyone, but I will be as flexible as humanly possible to make sure it's done in a way that works for you.
- I'm going to be as transparent with you as I can afford to be, because I believe context helps you make decisions. This may mean you'll sometimes know things you "shouldn't." I expect the utmost discretion. If you don't know whether something's OK to share, please ask. Please don't lose my trust. 

# 1:1s

Your 1-on-1s are first and foremost for you. I may want to talk about things, but the most important thing is covering the things you need covered, so please do take charge and steer the conversation as needed. I can find more time for us if I need it.

# Personality quirks

- **I have a tendency to take on too many things. Sometimes things can get lost in the sea of work to be done. My feelings will not be hurt if you chase me on things -- I feel bad being a bottleneck and know you're trying to do your job. **
- I have a dry sense of humor. Sometimes, when people are getting to know me, they can be unsure whether I'm serious about things. I'm probably joking.
- Sometimes I look away when I'm listening to someone. It's a way to make sure I'm not getting distracted by whatever's going on on my computer.

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