The "Working With Me" document

I have a document called "Working With Mark" that I share with new folks when they join the team. I thought I would share the section called "My Management System" in hopes that it is helpful and/or sparks some good discussion. Here goes:

I am very hands off. My default assumption is that you and I have agreed to priorities, you know what to work on, know how to prioritize your workload, and will execute with excellence and timeliness.

If you’re in a situation where any of those things aren’t true, bringing that to my attention is never viewed negatively by me. It’s a big part of my job to make priorities clear, resource you, and get blockers out of your way, especially if I’m one of them.

If you ever feel I’m not being hands off, please give me that feedback directly. More on feedback later.

I’m always happy to be invited into the details if you want me. Brainstorming / problem solving is fun for me.

I highly value communication and it helps me remain hands off. Regularly radiating your priorities to both me and the team keeps us aligned and keeps me out of your hair.

I will do my best to facilitate this through regular 1:1s, our Priority Board, the Strategic Projects Trello board, and Slack updates as warranted.

Manage your business with extreme ownership of the result & extreme openness to how you get there. In other words, asking for input or help from the team does not dilute your ownership of an outcome. Flipping it: owning an outcome does not mean you have to be the sole source of input.

The best time to communicate a potential problem or challenge is immediately. I would much rather spend time learning about what turned out to be a non-issue than lose valuable reaction time by hoping the situation gets better before we communicate it.

I strongly encourage regular check-ins with your teammates or members of other teams with whom you interface regularly. Working in the same room is not the same. Take a walk or get a coffee and talk about what you’re working on and how you can help each other.

I highly value feedback, and welcome it. Really. There are a million ways in which I can improve, and feedback is a critical part of me getting there. Thank you in advance for helping me with blind spots or stubborn areas.

I will do my best to give you regular feedback. If I slip on this, it doesn’t mean I’m mad at you, it means I’m busy or I’ve forgotten. Feel free to request feedback if I’ve failed here.

Having a to-do list frees up mental bandwidth. I don’t care what system you use, but having one is valuable.

That's it. I consider this a work in progress and will continue to update it for my team as I and we learn together.