# Ron Gross's Manager Readme

**VP R&D at Titan**

# Motivation for this document

**I'd like to understand myself better as a manager, and help the people I manage, peers and my manager to improve their personal and professional relationships with me. **

**If you have any questions or have a suggestion, please reach out at ron.gross@gmail.com - pull requests welcome!**

# My role

**My role is to ensure that [Titan](https://www.gettitan.io/) delivers on the product roadmap most efficiently, and to grow the people that I manage.**

**I still need to think about defining my KPIs.**  

# What do I value most?

What I need in order to love working with someone, is first and foremost complete honesty. It's ok not to tell me everything / right away, but if you tell me things that are wrong (e.g. "I'm happy at my work" when you aren't), this will make it difficult for me to work with you.

I subscribe to Nonviolent Communication and mindfulness as my go-to tools for preventing and handling conflicts.

# My Expectations

**If you want to talk about something, either grab me whenever I'm free, or put something on my calendar.**

**If you made a mistake, the best way to talk about it is just straight up. I'm usually not very judgemental, and will try to help you avoid repeating it in the future. If you want, you/we can do a [5 whys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys) analysis to understand the root cause.**

**I consider a feature or task "done" when the first user gets real value from it.**

**I expect people to generally be at work on 10am-6pm, read and reply to emails about once or twice every work day, and to usually reply to text messages or Slack mentions within a few hours. I also tend to send emails, texts, and sometimes call at odd hours. I try to choose the channel I communicate at according to priority in order to minimize distracting them. However, I think it's the responsibility of the recipient not to be available at times they want to protect (e.g. put their phones on Do Not Disturb when they go to sleep).**

**I'm a big believer in [No Broken Windows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory). If you see a code smell, something fishy with our process, a person who might be toxic to our work environment, or anything that just shouldn't be there - please fix it, or find someone who can.**

# 1:1s

**I currently have bi-weekly 1:1 meetings with each person I manage, and with my manager. I use [Lighthouse](https://getlighthouse.com/) for that.**

**You should lead the 1:1, not me - I'm there to assist you with things you care about. The focus of these meetings can be tactical (what happened last sprint) or strategic (where you want to be 1 year from now) - your call. I think focusing on relationships and growth is better than using this time to talk about tech or specific features.**

# Personality quirks

My kryptonites are:

1. [my bipolar disorder](https://medium.com/@ripper234/hello-bipolar-world-f2ff797175f3), that makes my moods swing over time, from hypomania to depression. You can help by trying to be aware of my mood and allow me this range.
2. my ego, sometimes causing me to think that I know the best answer to a situation.

Also:

- I'm outgoing and an extravert. Often my first urge is posting about things, or being direct, where sometimes a more subtle approach can have some benefits.
- I'm an optimization and productivity freak. I love optimizing my life and workflows.

# Where to focus on your first 90 days?

After you start working under me, I expect you to first undergo our existing onboarding process, and improve it! If every new team member improves our onboarding process by 5%, it will be very easy to new employees to feel welcome and get productive _fast_.

I expect you to start pushing code after about a week or so, and always keep an eye out for pain points in our process. Also I would like to get personal feedback from you on how I can improve as a manager, and the team can improve overall.

After 30 days on the job you should start to feel comfortable with the team and tech stack.

After 90 days I expect you to have some sense of your own KPIs - find measurable performance indicators that you can measure yourself by as you complete each quarter.