# Chris Kelly's Manager Readme

**Director of Engineering at Zenput**

# Motivation for this document

Writing a manager readme is self-serving (see: [I hate manager READMEs](https://medium.com/@skamille/i-hate-manager-readmes-20a0dd9a70d0)). It is helpful for me to get this all in one place, and it's helpful for me to use to talk about the craft of management with other people, but it's not going to be helpful for everyone that works for me.  That said, I'd want to work for someone with a README and some of you might. I  got things wrong, please point them out. This is and will stay a work in progress.

I'm an engineer at heart, and I've made the switch to managing people because, even though the feedback loops are a lot longer, it's hard and rewarding. I approach managing as an engineering problem, and I value being systematic and methodological in managing because I believe it leads to the best outcomes.  The goal of this document is to enable us to be in sync on my approach (likely with some further conversation), so that we can ensure I'm maximizing your ability to deliver with as little pain and overhead as possible.

# About Me

Husband, Dad, Mountain Biker, recovering todo list addict. Instigator and Problem Solver. Organizer of ALL the things. Always early.

# My Job

I'm here to maximize the output of our team, correctly balancing the short-term with the long term.  This means ensuring we have machines in place to do two things:

- Build our world-class engineering organization by attracting, hiring, retaining, and developing, word-class people (you!)
- Consistently and predictably build and operate the software our business needs to be successful.

A level deeper, this means things like:

- Minimize the feedback loop that meaningfully connects us with our customer.
- Protect our team from anything hurting its effectiveness.
- Ensure we're getting to the best ideas, from a diverse set of possibilities and thoughtful collaboration.

I've done my job perfectly if I can roll my chair out the door, out of the office, down the street, and everything keeps going well in my absence. In practice, getting away for a long vacation every now and then is probably as good as I'll be able to pull this off because it's hard and constantly changing.

If I've done my job poorly either of the two bullet points above will clearly be unmet. Some other symptoms are: I have to be in every meeting and every conversation, I'm a gate in every process, I'm booked 24x7, I'm unable to make progress on things that we know need progress, or we're otherwise not doing things that "we know we should be doing."

Realistically, if you are happy and have plenty of meaningful work to do, and the team is committing to and delivering on business goals at a reasonable pace, we are in good shape.

# My Principles

I'm fortunate to have experienced Ray Dalio's culture of [Principles](https://www.principles.com/) ([an excerpt](https://inside.bwater.com/publications/principles_excerpt)) in person, and someday I'll finish getting mine down on paper. These are the building blocks of my approach and decision making framework, and are all things that I think are important. If you/I can't tie one of my decisions/actions to something here, there is something to figure out! First up are some of Ray's that particularly resonate with me (italics are mine):

- Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2
- Operate by principles that are so clearly laid out that their logic can easily be assessed and you and others can see if you walk the talk.  
  - _Have Priorities, you need to know what is important to you so that you can focus on the right things._

- Systemize your decision making.
  - _If you're not measuring, you're not engineering._
  - _Rely on a system, not your brain. This frees up your brain for the things it is best at._
  - _Cadence and routine should be applied to anything they can be, freeing up bandwidth for creative processes._

- Embrace Reality and Deal with It
- Think about what you want out of life and make your work a path to getting it 
  - _Ray would have your work and your passion be the same, I want to make sure that I'm doing a great job at work in a way that works with the other things that are important to me._
  - _Work Smart, not Hard. "Putting in the time" generally only makes sense when you're increasing your leverage, not when you're clicking on the same cookie._
  - _We exist to pursue Leisure, not to fill our time with work. Leisure needs to be a priority. _

- Hold yourself accountable and your people accountable, and appreciate them for holding you accountable.
  - _Say what you are going to do_
  - _Do the things you said you were going to do_

- Speak up, own it, or get out.

    - _Let me know what you need_  

- Recognize that knowing what someone (including you) is like will tell you what you can expect from them.
- Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same.
  - _Do what needs to be done_
  - _You and your team own it. (It's on me to get the right people on the team)_

And a few of my own (and from other places):

- _Embrace the awkward pause/silence. It's better to develop a complete thought and explain it well than jump to the first thing that comes out of your mouth._
- _Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining or testing it will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live_
  - _"Smart" is bad. If you're doing something in code that is particularly clever, second guess yourself._

- _Embrace and build opinionated software_
- _Be Lazy_
- _Focus on core competencies_
- _All meetings should be high 5s\*_
  - _Standups, spring planning, etc_
  - _Collaborating and problem solving will go longer!_

- _No Heroics\*_
  - _Occasionally heroics will be required, but if we're in any way relying on heroics for things that should be everyday things, we've failed horribly._

# My Expectations For You

- We are in sync on your expectations, written and verbally. No performance review is a surprise for anyone.
- You have a set of commitments, and you deliver on them.
- You act like an owner. You're thinking "What is best for the business?" and "What would CK do?" and doing that or speaking up.
- You are curious, and you balance this with getting the things done that need to get done.
- You're intentionally working towards being a multiplier ([https://thewisemangroup.com/books/multipliers/](https://thewisemangroup.com/books/multipliers/)) 
- As a software engineer, you're intentionally working to level up to be at least a Senior Software Engineer and hitting many of the things here: [https://medium.com/@shahata/the-10x-engineer-4ac82fdd406](https://medium.com/@shahata/the-10x-engineer-4ac82fdd406)
- You bring well-thought-out problems and good decisions to conversations. The best outcome of you bringing something to me is for me to validate your process and your outcome, not for me to make a decision for you. 
- You let me know what you need

# 1:1s

These are for you, and we'll initially do them for 30 minutes once a week until it makes sense to change that.  I want to build a meaningful relationship with you, and I'm the person best equipped to help out with anything that is standing in your way at work.  

I'm looking for you to bring an agenda of things that you want to talk about, and occasionally I'll have a few things to add to the list. If you're unsure what you want to talk about, the internet has a huge pile of great things that answer "What should I ask my manager in a 1:1". 

# Inboxes and Calendars

Managing my inboxes is my responsibility, and I'm committed to triaging well. My email inbox is my focus, and I practice inbox zero so if you email me, I will act on it appropriately.  Slack chats are another inbox and while Slack is great for public and private discussions, things can get lost.  Send me an email, ping me on Slack if something is urgent.

My calendar is your calendar, and reflects truth. Snag time with me whenever you need it, ping me if you can't find a time that works and I'll move things around for you.

Your calendar is your calendar. I'll respect it when you have something booked (including if its a 3h block of focus time! Do this!), and if I'm looking for you, I'll look there first. If I need something from you, and I can't find you, and your calendar indicates that you should be around, we'll have to talk about this.

I won't, whenever possible, book recurring meetings outside of 10am-4pm local time for you. I'll also try and get us to a "no meetings day" one day a week, but it's going to take a little while.

# Feedback

Feedback is a gift, and it's the only way we are going to get to the best outcomes. Everyone, myself included, needs to call out problems so that we can work together to make them better, and call out the great things that people do so that we can celebrate our wins together.

I'll try to make sure I know the most effective way to deliver feedback to you, and I'll give you as much feedback as I can. If you're not getting enough, give me that feedback. 

# Personality quirks

- I can loose track of things because I have tools to take care of this for me. This is intentional, but has some bad side effects. E.g. If you ask me a question and I need to look something up, including someones name that I just had a conversation with, it doesn't mean something is not important to me.
- Almost without fail, I play devil’s advocate. Tell me why we should do something? I’ll push back. Tell me why we shouldn’t? I’ll push back. I almost always have an opinion about which way is the right way, but I sometimes won’t say which one is mine unless you ask specifically what I think. Me pushing back on something isn't an indicator that I think you're wrong.
- “On-time” to me is early.  I don’t expect anyone else to be early, but there’s a good chance you’ll find me on a call 5-10 minutes before it starts. People I’ve worked with in the past have said “If you’re on time for a meeting with Chris and he’s not there, you’re probably in the wrong room”. If you're late (or you're not wrapping things up in the time you said you would), you are wasting other people's time. 
- I default to listening, but I'll always have an opinion if you ask me.  If you don't know where to start, ask me about anything software/tech, riding bikes, Type II Fun, travel, and food/nutrition. 
- I prefer to have a complete set of information before making decisions, and I know it's impossible to have a complete set of information.
- I’m not competitive, I don’t like flattery, and I’d rather be the ‘man behind the curtain’ than in the spotlight.  If we get to talking about mountain biking, you may be suspicious about this, but I value eating a sandwich at the top of a mountain with an amazing view more than my “personal best” or anyone else’s, and I value the effort/planning/work that goes into getting to the mountain and to the top.
- I generally test as an INTJ and I believe this is pretty spot on. If you search for good/bad qualities of an INTJ, they’re by-and-large me. (High C on my DISC, and even higher C in adaptive mode)
- I’m an engineer at heart, and I get a lot of value from figuring something out and making it work.  The timelines for doing things at organization scale are a lot slower than debugging some code, and I look for ways to get small wins along the way to maintain my sanity. 
- I deeply value being understood far more than I value being right, so if you think I’m disagreeing with you, I’m more likely trying to ensure that we have all the facts and the best outcome. 
- I default to systematizing things to solve problems, but I do not value process for process’s sake. If I’m suggesting something that sounds systematic or wasteful, ask me why because I’m probably under communicating that part.
- Bikes