# Simon Turvey's Manager Readme

**Senior Engineering Director at Tessian**

# Motivation for this document

Welcome to my user guide to working with me! I'm offering this because I believe that the faster we get to know each other and how we work, the better and stronger our relationship will be, and the more we’ll accomplish together. This is a living document that will change as I learn more about myself and how we can best support each other.

# My role

I see my role as:

- Reducing: _complexity_, _uncertainty,_ and _ambiguity;_ and
- Increasing: [_autonomy_, _mastery,_ and](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1786891700)_[purpose](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1786891700)._  

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.

In addition, I'll be working on specific cross-department initiatives. Some of these I'll have been handed by by my manager; some I'll kick-off pro-actively. Part of my role is to look at how elements of these may offer development opportunities for you and delegate actions accordingly.

# What do I value most?

I value curiosity, experimentation, ownership and proactivity. What do these look like?

- Curiosity: keeping an open mind. [Seeking to understand why things are the way they are before challenging](https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/). Leaning into problems before jumping into "solutioneering".
- Experimentation: everything is an experiment; failure is ok. However, some failure modes have the potential for a level of negative impact that we'd dearly love to avoid. Experimentation is no excuse for recklessness and I expect people to be responsible (though not necessarily formal) with their risk assessment.
- Ownership: asking yourself, "what can I personally do here?", rather than waiting to be told. Ownership also means seeing things through to the end, both individually and as a team. It's not ok to leave things unfinished; it's totally ok to revisit the team's collective understanding of what finished looks like.
- Proactivity: seeking forgiveness rather than permission and challenging the _status quo_ (this is not in conflict with Curiosity above!)._ _If a decision is reversible, have the confidence to take it quickly; if it's irreversible, take your time.

# My Expectations

I like to block time on my calendar for things I need to get done - even if they're a bit mundane. This helps me stop procrastinating on stuff that's less fun! That can mean my calendar looks a bit busy. Don't worry, if you can't find a free slot, just pop it in anywhere and I'll counter if it's not suitable. A natural  consequence of this might be that you realise an email would work just as well as a meeting; that's great, I like to be able to digest things in written form.

I don't have Slack on my phone. If you need to get hold of me out-of-hours then feel free to call or text/WhatsApp me.  I promise I won't Slack you out-of-hours unless there's a true emergency.

I expect you to give me feedback on how I am doing. In-person is best but online tools (Lattice, Slack, etc.) are perfectly fine. If you're not comfortable giving that feedback to me directly then please give it to my manager to give to me.

# 1:1s

I love 1:1s. They're your time for us to discover together how you can grow to be your best self in work and for me to help you get there. I'm not inclined to discuss technical work in these sessions unless you believe it's truly the thing that will deliver you the most value.

We'll take stock every few 1:1s to make sure that they're still working for both of us and whether we need to iterate the approach.

If you're a manager yourself, you can also expect me to hold occasional skip-level 1:1s with your own direct reports so I can get a feel for what's happening "on the ground". 

# Personality quirks

I like to talk about ideas and I sometimes float stuff just to see what people think about it. This can cause listeners to think: "Simon wants/is going to do X". This can appear to be either giving implied direction, or worse, later, a failure on my part to deliver on something I said I would. It's on me to be unambiguous and if you sense me failing in this regard then please call me on it.

I tend towards optimism and have a high risk threshold. You can help me balance this out by providing candid and reasoned pushback. Together we'll make better decisions that way.