
“Manager READMEs” from some tech companies - thmslee
https://hackernoon.com/12-manager-readmes-from-silicon-valleys-top-tech-companies-26588a660afe
======
rdiddly
These should be taken as the hypothesis statement at the start of an
experiment, that will or won't be borne out by what actually happens. Show,
don't tell. One reason: People can be wrong about themselves. Or they can,
with varying degrees of either idealism or self-dishonesty, present a rosy
view that amounts to little more than a sales pitch for themselves. If it's
true, you'll find out soon enough. If it's not, you'll find out soon enough.
Therefore these documents have little value and should be kept to the minimum
length needed to discuss practical things like email expectations and overall
goals - things everybody has to agree on.

~~~
chrbarrol
Too many teams I have worked in have way too little personal on-boarding in my
opinion. At least with these presentations I know how the manager "wants" to
present him/herself, if this turns out to be false, as you say, I'll know soon
enough.

On the other hand there are managers that do not introduce themselves enough
to new employees which forces you to effectively learn by trial and error how
you should interact with them.

My point is I would appreciate an idealist sales pitch about a new manager
more than just an unplanned, informal conversation.

~~~
rdiddly
It definitely does provide a sort of head-start on reaching that
understanding, so in that sense it's valuable.

------
daniel_iversen
There seems to be a fair amount of skepticism about this method, but I think
it’s a great system - and it can with great success be extended to everyone
else in the company too - not just managers. At Dropbox, a lot of employees
have (and we’re all encouraged to have) a “Working with me” document that
describes your personality and work style, how you like to get and receive
feedback, your career goals, your schedule and communication preferences etc..
it helps people work with each other in a more compatible, effective and
empathetic way. But there’s definitely a level of vulnerability and trust that
is needed to make it work, however it’s a powerful tool if you have a good
culture to support it. Just my 5 cents.

~~~
numbers
Were the "working with me" documents started by employees or was that
something someone pitched/asked for from management? I'd like to do like that.
Even as an individual contributor, there are times where I find myself
describing my working style or communication style to new teammates.

------
silveroriole
Interesting that many seem to prefer weekly 1:1s. That seems far too much to
me. I would absolutely dread having to spend so much time on that with my
manager or my managees and I can’t imagine there are substantial benefits to
it (does anyone REALLY have meaningful thoughts about their job/career path
EVERY WEEK?)

~~~
ggambetta
Whenever I've managed people, I've made a point of scheduling weekly 1:1s; did
that even with 12 or so reports, and it did take a significant chunk of time,
but it was IMO one of the most important things, if not the most important
thing, I could do for them as a manager (and also the one I enjoyed the most
about the role).

As other commenters have said, the 1:1 time is the report's time. It's a chunk
of time in which I'm entirely and exclusively available to them. I have a set
of standard questions I can default to, mostly trying to understand how
they're feeling, and open-ended enough that they can talk about whatever they
want. Some are done in 5 minutes with a progress report, some take close to an
hour in which they sometimes share personal stuff; it's all good from my POV,
happy employees are productive employees.

It's absolutely not just about their job/career path. You wouldn't believe
what a MASSIVE difference it makes for people just to be heard and have your
undivided attention.

~~~
josephwegner
I am about 6mo into a job with weekly 1:1s, and am coming from a job that did
them every other week. I am always excited for my weekly 1:1.

As a disclaimer, my boss scheduled a weekly 30min 1:1 when I started, but with
the caveat that we could make it less often if I found it not useful. He just
preferred weekly during the "settling in" phase.

Almost without fail, our 1:1s go over time, totaling between 45min and 1hr. I
can't imagine how my boss finds the time, but I so appreciate that he does.

I keep a pinned slack message in our DM, of priority-ordered things to
discuss. Often these are things like:

\- Something went wrong this week. How did I do? How could I have performed
better?

\- I noticed something unhealthy with our team, how can we fix it?

\- You did something that surprised me as a manager, what was your thought
process (this is sometimes critical feedback, sometimes curiousity)

\- Is this thing I want to do a good idea?

\- Debrief on progress (or lack thereof) on a predefined goal.

\- Help me with this stupid HR/Expense report thing

And the list always ends with:

\- leave space for <BOSS> to discuss things he wants

This is easily the most valuable growth time of my week. I appreciate my IC
time to do an excellent job, but the 1:1s help me pick my head up and think
about bigger things.

~~~
GordonS
> As a disclaimer, my boss scheduled a weekly 30min 1:1 when I started, but
> with the caveat that we could make it less often if I found it not useful

I always preferred managers like this, who are not totally dogmatic about
things like weekly meetings - instead doing what works best for each
individual.

------
munchor
>We work for 9.5 to 10 hours a day. Some people start early (7AM) some later
(9:45AM), and go home accordingly.[1]

This is from the "Expectations" section of one of the linked "READMEs"
(Forter's). Does anyone else this is a very aggressive expectation?

[1]:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sx5ssYb_xMrmwPpyjD5xP7Rv...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sx5ssYb_xMrmwPpyjD5xP7RvQ7cHweDYlRGn2SXztKw/edit#)

~~~
shubidubi
Forter is an Israeli company, unfortunately 10 hours/day is now a norm in
Israel.

~~~
fizx
From my month in Israel working at a startup, it seems like long lunches and
smoke breaks are also a norm. Maybe they compensate?

------
bitL
The best company I've ever worked for had no managers (beside owners). They
made it to $1B, loved by HN crowd, their products used by many of you, and
nobody ever wanted to manage anything there. People just discussed stuff and
decided to do whatever looked super interesting. One team there had actually a
person that was behaving like a manager, and that product completely flopped
on the market.

~~~
cwyers
If you mean Valve... there's a guaranteed low-effort revenue stream, the Steam
client has been awfully stagnant (and the parts that are client-only, like
your games library, are the most stagnant of all -- Steam has slowly added
tools to help curate the store, but none of those things like tags have made
their way to the library, and if you've ever binged at a few Steam Sales and
bought some Humble Bundles boy could you use such tools). And a lot of the
people responsible for the most beloved projects have left[1][2], and they've
had a bonfire of consumer goodwill over the lack of a Half-Life 3 or Half-Life
2 Episode 3. Their last game release was in 2013 with Dota 2, unless you want
to count letting Nexon release some free-to-play games using their branding
and a VR demo.

What I'm saying is, maybe they could use some managers?

1) [https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-
writ...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-writer-htc-
vive-departure/) 2) [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-
valve-fo...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-valve-for-
airtight)

~~~
latexr
> the Steam client has been awfully stagnant

I’ll say. Every time I open it the only thing I can focus on are the
close/minimise/maximise buttons that are still on the pre-Yosemite style.

------
ivraatiems
I feel strongly that the kind of people who identify the need to create a
document like this are probably not the people who most need such a document
written about them.

That is, in order to feel it necessary to write something like this, you must
be a manager who prioritizes answering the question "what can I do to maximize
the happiness and productivity of my direct reports," over "what can I do to
ensure my own personal success, regardless of anyone else." Such a person is
already going to do the right things, and is much less likely to be hard to
work with.

The people who really need these kinds of documents written about them are the
ones who are actually difficult to work with - but for many very good reasons,
that won't happen.

~~~
elliottcarlson
I think the publication of these are offering others the opportunity to be
introspective of their management styles. While the document I wrote isn't
necessarily covering anything I don't already tell and re-affirm to my direct
reports, it was a great exercise in thinking through my management style and
what it means to me. I hope that the more popular these things become, further
conversations can happen in the community to figure out how to help those
managers that might need that help, and help organizations identify potential
problem areas in their org structures.

------
fergie
A lot of these README’s seem a bit samey. Is this a trend that was stared
somewhere? Was there some dude middle-managers all look up to who suggested an
example README that was used to provide inspration?

~~~
diminoten
It's less about writing the same README, I think, and more about there being
an industry consensus on what a "good" manager says and does.

~~~
fergie
Is there any verification that these are the good managers? (genuine question)

~~~
diminoten
Oh no, I didn't mean to suggest these folks are or are not actually "good"
managers, just that what they've all got here is congruent with my current
understanding of what the literature tells us a "good" manager says and does.

I'm not trying to say any of it is accurate either, just pointing out the
consistency being likely due to a shared set of sources rather than copying
one another outright.

------
RexM
How about an employee README?

> This is how I prefer to be managed...

~~~
bitL
Employee_README.md:

I don't need a manager. Just tell me what you want and I'll make it for you
without anyone messing up with my productivity. Thank you!

~~~
jedberg
If I tell you what I want you won't be engaged or excited. Also, I may not
tell you the right thing -- it may not play to all your strengths or what you
are interested in right now.

If I tell you what the company goals are and our teams goals, and then ask you
how you can use your unique talents to help us achieve those goals, you'll be
much more engaged in the work, and also have a greater understanding of how
your work fits into the rest of what your team and your company is doing.

Context, not control.

~~~
bitL
I firmly believe cooperative talented people can self-manage and drive vision
better than any top-down authority. I can understand it won't work with people
that go to work just for money though.

~~~
diminoten
My boss has told me more than once that his goal is to get the people under
him to fill the role he's currently filling as our direct manager. This is,
according to him, the only way he can move upward. He currently does a
decently large amount of work for us as a team, but he's trying to shift that
work onto us, because as you're pointing out here, cooperative and talented
people can indeed self-manage.

The problem he encounters is when that doesn't work out because no group is
perfect, and frankly we're probably not ready to manage ourselves quite yet.

But I think you're onto something here, and I also think every one of the
managers who wrote READMEs in this submission would agree with you. From a
logistical standpoint, _someone_ has to attend all those meetings with other
teams, with the leaders of the company to hear what they're thinking and
translate it for the rest of the engineers, and make sure the boring stuff
like vacation time, sick leave, etc. are being looked after.

It's not really about being in charge/calling shots, it's about taking a group
of talented and smart people, and making sure they're getting the info they
need to keep build cool stuff.

~~~
mmt
> It's not really about being in charge/calling shots

I believe, admittedly based only on personal experience and anecdotal
evidence, that this attitude is shared by a vanishingly small minority of
managers, at least in practice.

Even the manager you mentioned referenced "the only way he can move upward"
which implies even _he_ ultimately wants to be in charge or call the shots in
some hierarchical system, or am I reading too much into it?

------
rsingla
This is phenomenal. Not only do I find some of the concepts mentioned in each
README to be useful in my own work, but I also want to work for all of these
managers!

~~~
daxfohl
All managers are people too. You just have to break through and you'll get to
things like this.

------
hitekker
I wish the author balanced his praise with some criticism.

Right now, this article is positively fawning.

~~~
brennanm
My bad. These were just my notes... Feel free to respond on medium with yours

------
20171026
This is excellent and exactly the motivation I need to keep hustling to stay
independent.

------
thomas
Reads like managers dictating how they are and how things are going to be.

Employee number whatever: Here are your new instructions, deal with it.

~~~
geofft
One of the READMEs specifically promised that the manager believes their paid
job is to adapt to their reports' style, so, no.

~~~
FireBeyond
And one spent a good third talking about how you should feel about
termination, the risks thereof, and what you should do about it.

~~~
geofft
I reread them all but couldn't see it, sorry - which one was this?

(I mean, that sounds like a good thing. Firing people who aren't good for the
team is an important responsibility of any manager who doesn't want the rest
of their team to quit, so I would ideally want to know that my manager has at
least thought about it a little.)

~~~
FireBeyond
Welcome to Netflix and Me (
[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1TPSwdqDqVfWG9anfiOjG...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1TPSwdqDqVfWG9anfiOjGUjk0k6zQDij5xPvatPg7NFE/edit#slide=id.g3086af6854_0_150)
), including slides like "Are you afraid of being fired yet?"

~~~
geofft
Oh, that's the old version of [http://bit.ly/roy-slack-
readme](http://bit.ly/roy-slack-readme) , which no longer has it (and I
skipped reading the old version because I read the new one, thanks!).

My understanding is that Netflix intends to have an unusually high-firing
culture (cf. their culture deck, "The unusual part is that we give adequate
performers a generous severance package"), so if I'm at Netflix I absolutely
want my manager to be up-front about how they interpret that and what signs I
have that I'm an adequate performer and not a top one. By signing onto Netflix
I _am_ afraid of being fired, but that reflects on the company and not on the
manager. (And the answers this manager gave are good: statistics about firing
and an explicit statement that it won't take you by surprise.) You'll note
that the firing talk is gone from the current version, and the
green/yellow/red performance stuff (which is generically useful) stays.

~~~
CrankyFool
(Hi, I'm Roy Rapoport -- the author of both slide decks).

Referring to the Netflix version of the slide deck as "the old version" of the
Slack version of the slide deck is inaccurate. I'm in a somewhat unusual
position amongst the people whose READMEs were quoted, because I got to write
one from both sides of the fence: As the established person welcoming a new
member to the team (Netflix), and as someone joining a new organization
(Slack). READMEs, for me, then end up looking very different.

It's also worth noting, as geofft notes, that Slack's culture and Netflix's
culture are very very different, so the concerns of people within them would
be different (and should be addressed differently). The concern that you might
be fired was pervasive for new people at Netflix, and I sought to alleviate
it; it's not a commonly-held concern at Slack.

------
apple4ever
This is a great idea. I’m going make one of my own for my employees. Lots of
great ideas in these.

------
piccolbo
If you know how to read through the lines, these documents are pure gold.
Bosses who say "work under/for me"? Stay away, egomaniacs. You always work for
an organization, not an egomaniac. My job is to "give you context"? Weasel
words alert. Fake freedom. The best is this one: "1\. you should do what you
think is right 2. I can fire you"

------
zippo
I wonder how many direct reports these managers have. Does anyone have
insight? I believe 1on1 is good from my experience in companies where there is
a lot of change and a lot going on the #1 feedback I get is people want more
information, more 1on1, more team time. With roughly 40 direct reports 1on1 is
nearly impossible with the other demands.

~~~
elliottcarlson
At one time I had multiple teams with 16 direct reports - at that point it was
very hard to have a weekly cadence for 1:1's with everyone, as that would've
been 8 hours a week. My solution to this was to start with bi-weekly 1:1's,
having 8 people scheduled one week, the other 8 the following week. Then each
week I had office hours scheduled - this was time dedicated to the team to be
able to book my time and was not allowed to be booked for any other meetings -
this way people who wanted to meet on an off week could. The second step was
determine who could (and wanted) to step up in to management roles -
ultimately, this lead to promoting two managers under me, and moving their
direct reports to being a monthly skip level 1:1, reducing my overall bi-
weekly 1:1's across my part of the org.

------
blattimwind
"It’s on github! Super cool."

------
kostarelo
They all look very similar to me. I would love to see a gist with points from
all of them.

------
tomcooks
Pretending managerial shit is delicious won't make _corporate culture_ any
more palatable.

Blah.

~~~
dasil003
If you don't like "managerial shit", then all the more reason you are
dependent on having a very good manager for your own sanity.

