# Lindsay Cooper's Manager Readme

**Senior Engineering Manager at Replicant**

# Motivation

This document is intended to introduce my&nbsp;management style, philosophy, and expectations. The intended audience&nbsp;is anyone who reports to me.&nbsp;Please treat it as a reference and promise on how I will conduct myself as a manager, and what I expect from you.&nbsp;I urge you to hold me accountable to my promises, and to call out anything that might be missing or in need of a change&nbsp;in this document. Without your guidance, I will not improve as a manager.

# My role

I’m here to help and support you, to set context for what you’re working on, and to advocate for you and the team with the rest of the company. More specifically:

1. I am here to make sure you are both successful and happy. I want you to improve your technical skills, grow your career, enjoy your work, and believe in both our company's and our team's mission.
2. I am here to make sure our team is successful and pointed in the right direction. I am here to ensure our team is getting what it needs from other teams, and that other teams are getting what they need from us.&nbsp;I want the team&nbsp;to be&nbsp;aligned and work together to&nbsp;push in the same direction as the overall business.&nbsp;
3. I am here to get into the weeds with your technical challenges. I want to pair with you when you feel frustrated or stuck. I am here to write code too. I want your constructive feedback on the code that I commit.

I will do my best to hold and create&nbsp;safe spaces for you. I will get&nbsp;to know you as a person and connect to whatever degree feels best for you. I will celebrate your successes.  
  
My hope is that my communication is&nbsp;clear, kind, and honest. I promise not to leave you guessing what I _really_ think. If it’s not clear, let me know so I can fix it. I promise to reply promptly to you, or let you know when you can expect a reply, when you reach out.

# My Expectations

My ideal work-life balance includes the ability for me to fully put work down when I am not "on the clock." That means that I usually won't respond to work related inquiries when I'm not working.&nbsp;I promise to always provide you a way to get in touch with me in an emergency or urgent situation: If you call my cell phone, I promise to pickup or call you back ASAP.&nbsp;I promise to ask you what work-life balance looks like for you, and do my best to respect your answer.

Assuming that you are performing the duties of your role successfully, when you do your work doesn't matter to me.&nbsp;My expectation is that you will communicate your work schedule with me and your teammates. I expect that you will be available for regularly scheduled team & 1:1 meetings. I will do my best to accommodate the different schedules on the team. When that isn't possible, I'll defer to "regular business hours."

# 1:1 Meetings

I promise to&nbsp;_at minimum_ provide you with 1 hour a week of my uninterrupted attention to use as it is helpful to you. Urgent matters shouldn't wait for this meeting. I will start each meeting with the question:&nbsp;_What would you like to talk about?&nbsp;_

Here are some meeting agenda&nbsp;ideas:

- Something&nbsp;[awkward](https://medium.com/@mrabkin/the-art-of-the-awkward-1-1-f4e1dcbd1c5c)
- Set a&nbsp;goal or ask for help with an existing goal
- Strategize about your&nbsp;career path
- Do a&nbsp;pair programming session
- Ask for or give&nbsp;feedback
- Talk about&nbsp;our team or&nbsp;teammate(s)
- Dream about what you wish could be different
- Check-in on&nbsp;_How are you? What's going well? What's bugging you?_&nbsp;(Note: These don’t need to be about work)

If you'd like to give me a brief status update on things you're working on, that is fine with me, but those are generally better-suited to a chat via Slack.&nbsp;You have the freedom to change the time and&nbsp;cadence of this meeting however works for you. Here are a few example changes:

- Cancel this week
- Meet tomorrow morning instead
- Only meet for 5 minutes
- Delay 5 minutes so you can make a cup of coffee
- Use the phone so you can walk the dog while we talk
- Switch the meeting cadence to every other week

When I have feedback or questions&nbsp;for you,&nbsp;I’ll use this meeting, but your agenda will generally take priority.&nbsp;

I want our 1:1 to be a safe place; if this isn’t the case please tell my boss.

# Feedback

When giving feedback I will use the following framework:

1. I will ask:&nbsp;Are you open to receive feedback right now?
  1. When the answer is&nbsp;_no_, we will&nbsp;find a time that works for both of us to discuss

2. I will describe what happened and&nbsp;ask:&nbsp;Do we agree on what happened?
  1. When the answer is _no_, we will discuss until there is&nbsp;a mutual understanding of what happened

3. I will offer a suggestion for&nbsp; **how** &nbsp;to&nbsp;change  

  1. When you disagree, we will brainstorm other ideas for how to change

4. I will offer an explanation on&nbsp; **why** it matters&nbsp;
  1. When you disagree, we will&nbsp;discuss the impact of what happened from both of our perspectives

Without an answer of _yes_ to the first 2 questions, feedback doesn't make sense to give.

My goal is to provide you with consistent and specific positive feedback, and (when applicable) timely and private&nbsp;constructive feedback. At a minimum, I will meet with you on a quarterly basis to&nbsp;assess progress and set / adapt your goals. You are in charge of figuring out where you want to grow. I am available to help you&nbsp;brainstorm, set goals, and stay accountable&nbsp;around&nbsp;opportunities to grow.

When you have feedback for me, please give it. It could be something you liked and would like to see more of, something you thought I could do better, something you thought I totally screwed up, or something that doesn't fit in any of these categories. Even if you think it might not be the case, I&nbsp;_do_&nbsp;want to hear it. And if you think I don't want to hear it, I'd love feedback on why you feel that way!&nbsp;If you're not comfortable giving me this feedback yourself, I'd love for you to give it to someone above me in the management chain so they can anonymously relay it to me and I can work on it.

My preferred method of feedback is in-person or face-to-face on a video call. My preferred timing of feedback is a few hours to a few days after what happened. In the heat of the moment, I am not always as good of a listener as I'd like to be around feedback. If you can't accommodate these preferences, please still give me the feedback -&nbsp;I would rather hear how I can improve than anything else.&nbsp;I promise to ask you about your preferred feedback method and timing and do my best to use your answers when giving you feedback.

# Personality quirks

- I'm a big believer in the campsite&nbsp;rule:&nbsp;Leave it better than when you found it. There is always a tension between time and quality. Whenever I can keep a deadline,&nbsp;I will bias towards improving what's there.
- When I get stressed or feel misunderstood, I may use a mean/biting tone. Please call me out on it when you feel this is happening and I will address it. My intention is never to put down or belittle.
- I care about my words and endeavor to choose them carefully. I take this too far sometimes, especially in written form.&nbsp;
- I like to write documentation. This is partially out of necessity because I don't&nbsp;have a great memory. I care about the quality of documentation, but when in doubt writing anything down is better than writing nothing down.
- It's hard for me when people misspell my name. No worries if you have never seen my name written before, but if you send me a DM saying "Hi Lindsey" when the correct spelling of my name is in your sights, I&nbsp;will feel annoyed.