My Read Me 2021

What is this? Inspired by other leaders I've been fortunate enough to meet in my life, I started my own read me document for my team last year. This year, I thought I’d share it out to others in hopes they might be inspired to write one for themselves and their team.

George.README (aka How to George)

Hi, welcome to the team. I’m so glad you’re a part of the team.

My mission as a leader is to create the conditions for great work to get done. I want you to be able to do your best work most days* and be proud of it. I do this by getting to know what drives everyone on my team and inspiring them. I work to provide context and set a vision for our path forward while attracting, retaining, and growing world-class talent to the team (that’s you).

It’s going to take a fair amount of time to get your bearings and figure this out. I appreciate that you’ll want to start showing your value and contributing, but I ask you to take the time and meet everyone. One reason I was excited to join LinkedIn was learning how much its values aligned with my own. One I’d call out here is that ‘relationships matter.’ We invest so much of ourselves and our lives at work that it is crucial to invest in the people you work with and really get to know them. 

One of the working relationships we need to define is ours. The following is a user guide for me and how I work. It captures what you can expect out of the average week working with me: how I like to work, my north star principles, and some of my, uh, nuance. My intent with this document is to accelerate our working relationship. But it’s not meant as a replacement for actually getting to know each other.

* I say most days because let’s be real, not all days can always be our best.

Our Average Week

We’ll have a 1:1 every week for at least 30 minutes except during our time off or other mitigating factors that take either of us away for the week. This meeting discusses topics of substance, not updates. We’ll have a private document for the two of us to capture future topics for our 1:1s as well as to provide a handy historical record of what we’ve discussed. When you or I think of a topic, we can drop it in the document. I’m also good with just discussing topics with our laptops closed or even taking a walk outside together when possible. 

As for your work hours, there are no hard and fast rules when I expect you to be at the office. You don’t need to ask permission to go to the doctor, take care of errands during the day, and so forth. We’re adults, and I’m sure you got this. Our roles are highly collaborative, so presence and availability are essential at times. Use your judgment about weighing priorities on your presence or absence during the day and informing your peers and me that you’ll be out for a bit. 

We’ll have a team meeting with your peers every week for an hour. Unlike 1:1s, we have a shared document that captures agenda topics, announcements, and recognition for the entire team.

You are welcome to Slack or LinkedIn Message me during work/commute times (8 AM - 6 PM Pacific). I do my best to respond to these, but keep in mind that I’m often in meetings—sometimes back-to-back. I like to be fully present in meetings (more on this below), so it might be a while before I can get back to you.

I do my best to practice a healthy work/life balance in which I shut my brain off from thinking about work at night and on weekends. I do work a little bit on the weekends from time to time. I do this by choice. I don’t expect you’re going to work on the weekend. I might email you outside of usual working times, but it can always wait until the morning unless it says URGENT.

I try my best to take time off. You should, too. I do some of my best thinking when I disconnect from work.

North Star Principles

Humans first. I believe that happy, informed, and productive humans build amazing things. Ideological diversity is key to an effective team. All perspectives are relevant, and we need all these leaders, but my bias is towards building productive humans.

Leadership comes from everywhere. While managers are an essential part of a scaling organization, I don’t think they have a monopoly on leadership. I work hard to build other constructs and opportunities in our teams for non-managers to lead effectively.

Invest in tools and processes. When well understood and appropriately used, a tool or process can help us do our work better, faster, and more effectively. That said, I will be the first to admit they are just tools—a means to an end. It’s the people who reach for the right tools and hone their craft with them. And when I see large or small inefficiencies in systems, I’ll often raise them and like to fix them with your help.

It is important to me that humans are treated fairly. I believe most humans are trying to do the right thing, but unconscious bias leads them astray. I work hard to understand and address my own biases because I appreciate their ability to create inequity. Please let me know if you ever feel you’re being mistreated by me or anyone on the team.

Learn from our mistakes. I believe it's more important to learn from our mistakes than to beat ourselves up from something happening. You'll often hear me referring to adopting a growth mindset—this is part of that. Always be looking for opportunities to learn and grow along the way. I'm more interested in finding out why something happened and what we can do next time than where to lay blame. Repeated mistakes are the ones to avoid.

Little things can mean a lot. I believe quality assurance is everyone’s responsibility, and there are bugs to be fixed everywhere—all the time. If you see something, say something. Or better yet, do something about it. (I also believe that the children are our future.) You'll also find that I'm big on the words and formatting we use in our designs. Words can mean a lot, especially when sharing with billions of people in an experience. I think it's essential to get this right. In contrast, I don't put as much importance on the words we use in a chat. It's more about our intent then.

Assume positive intent for all involved. This approach has worked out well for me over my career and in life in general. (I certainly didn't start out this way.) I may not have all the context or quite understand your point of view. We're all juggling many different things at once, so I may ask for more details, or you might recognize that I could use more context. Let's get there together.

Meeting Protocol

My definition of a meeting includes an agenda or intended purpose, the appropriate number of productive attendees, and a responsible party running the meeting to a schedule. I strive to be on time for each meeting I’m attending. Back-to-back meetings, elevators, and traveling across campus can make this a challenge. You’ll notice I try my best to be there on time or within the first five minutes.

I'm big on being present and giving your full attention to a meeting. If you come in and open your laptop or are on your phone for most of the meeting, you’re probably not winning any points with me. When this gets to a certain level of people not paying attention, I'll end up calling it out. I realize there are exceptions to this, but please keep this to a minimum. If you really need to get something done, then let me know and excuse yourself. But I expect you to prioritize and give your colleagues your full attention and time as we all should.

Nuance and Errata

OK, now a bit more about me and some of my quirks. I continue to discover these about myself and try to keep them in check. While this document is more about me and my expectations, I’d love to learn more about what makes you tick and how you best operate. Think of this as the start of those conversations.

How I lead. My leadership style is about inspiring and instigating, affording you the agency and autonomy to make it happen your way. Remember to act like an owner. Nevertheless, I work hard to make myself available to everyone on my team, so if you need my help, support, or advice on anything, please let me know, and I'll find us the time. I'm known to be kind, compassionate, and laid back, but don't mistake that for not being engaged, passionate, or opinionated.

Deep thoughts. I like to get a ton of context before forming a strong opinion that's often loosely held. If I'm staring at you, I'm probably buried deep in thought, and I'm really just staring through you. I tend to focus on what may seem to be insignificant aspects to what you're asking me for feedback on (copy or font of a presentation vs. the overall content). I continue to work on this, but I know I'm internally struggling to have you fix the font, copy, etc. I care a lot about inclusive design, accessibility, content design, and our brand. Don't be surprised if I go deep with you on the copy or micro-interactions and how we can make it better.

Inbox 47. We all get a ton of emails. I try to keep my email in check (and Slack, for that matter). But as the saying goes sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. (Also, I know a lot of weird expressions and tend to mess them up.) Email, Slack, and LinkedIn messenger can all be vying for my attention. I love a short and sweet email with what I can do to help (bullet points are great too). On the other side of things, long, threaded emails I'm brought into are my kryptonite. 

Continuous improvement. I’m continuously looking for how we can make things better. Although you’ll find I have an established format for many of the meetings and processes, I’m open to trying new things and changing it up. So, meetings or parts of the meeting may get changed. Feel free to offer up ideas.

Feedback is a gift. I also maintain that open, honest, and constructive feedback is crucial for us to be our best selves. I firmly believe that feedback is at the core of building trust and respect in a team. So, I'll give you direct feedback and expect the same from you.

Let’s have fun. I’m a big believer in humor and having some fun. My sense of humor is dry, witty, and silly at times. I like nerding out on all things creative, so I'm often up for a chat about movies, TV, books, video games, tech, creative tools, type, branding, design, dogs, you name it. I also think it's important to do some fun offsites together. We try for a fun outing every few months.

Barely social networking. I have a Twitter account (@gpenston) but more of a lurker. I’m only active here and there at times. I tend not to invite those on my team to Facebook or Instagram because it can be weird getting one from a manager, but if you send me an invitation, I’ll most likely accept it. As for Instagram and Facebook, I’m not big on these two, either. I like seeing how much more awesome your life is on Instagram, though, so I’ll be sure to throw a few likes your way. 

Triggers. Humans who gossip are a trigger for me. Humans stating opinions or biases as facts are a trigger for me. Humans who lead with “Facebook, Instagram, Company X do it like this” are a trigger for me. I’m adamantly averse to cilantro, goat cheese, and corduroy (it’s a long story). I’m also not big on seafood.

Steal This Document

This document is a living, breathing thing and likely incomplete (and too long). I update it frequently and would appreciate your feedback. I have had the privilege to work with some fantastic managers throughout my career. This document draws from a variety of sources from which I’ve borrowed or was encouraged to steal. Most of it comes from three leaders who have had the most significant influence on me: Michael Lopp, Julie Zhuo, and the late, great August de Los Reyes, who gave me his version of this document on the first day I joined his team. August encouraged me, as I now encourage you to steal this document.

I revisit this document every year and share it back out in January to remind us how we work together.

Thanks for reading and making it to the end. 

—George

// Updated 01.18.21