BHG's User Manual - v 1.0
Purpose of this document
A handful of leaders I’ve worked with over the years have published “Users Manuals” for working with them. I’ve always thought that was useful, and so here’s my current draft of the “Users Manual” for working with me. It should be noted that any document like this comes from the perspective of the author. This is how I see myself, but you’ll see below that I am motivated to learn and improve. If something in this document seems incongruent with your experiences with me, I welcome feedback, that’s how I can improve. This is a living document.
A Brief History
I’ve loved computer science since I was 12 years old, when personal computers were just becoming practical. I cut my teeth on TRS-80s, Apple IIs, and the VIC-20. I started my own company in 8th grade selling a software package I wrote to manage a catalog of software programs found on floppy disks for the Commodore-64. I got my first “real job” while I was a CS student at UW, working as an IT tech at Asymetrix in 1989. I worked up from that to an SDE, EM, VPE, CTO, and CEO. I admit, I don’t care much for titles, and so it was easy to go from CEO to back being an SDE. What I care about is learning, doing, and working with smart people on hard problems.
I’ve only ever worked at startups, never any of the “biggies”. Most of the startups I’ve worked at have come and gone. I’ve been lucky enough to have been part of a startup that grew from 20 when I joined to over 1,500 as a public company. I love startup life.
I love learning new things.
I am always curious about how things work, including people.
I love knowing the details, it’s not possible to give me too much detail, this is how I form my understanding of things, and how I make decisions.
I strive to be around people who are smarter than me, so I can learn from them, and be part of the winning team. I believe in playing hard, I don’t do “working hard” — but I’m lucky because the things I’ve chosen to do as a career feel like play to me. This means people often think I’m working hard.
I am very aware of how lucky (and privileged) I’ve been in my life. Everything I’ve achieved has only been made possible because of my privilege, and being in the right place at the right time.
My goal as a leader
I see myself as a servant leader. I fundamentally believe that my job is to help make you and every member of the team more successful and effective. I want to help you all be as successful as possible. I see this taking many forms, but mostly I say this to let you all know that I want you to leverage me to achieve your goals, and to make you more effective as a team member. Make me aware of the challenges you’re facing, and let me collaborate with you to solve them. No problem is too big or too small. I will mop the floor, or empty the trash, if that’s what is needed for us to succeed as a team.
To be clear, this does not mean I will always deliver exactly what you ask for. Sometimes you may want something that’s not practical or appropriate, and in those cases I will strive to be direct with you about why your request is not possible, and I will work with you to find an alternative path.
In my experience, especially as it relates to engineers, one of the most powerful tools for driving efficiency is visibility. You may hear me say I prefer the word visibility over transparency, because transparency implies removing barriers between the viewer and the thing being observed; where visibility implies using any number of tools to increase the clarity of what is being observed (a microscope, a telescope, and a periscope all improve visibility). Increasing visibility goes both directions: I will always strive to give you the most visibility into our strategy, the market, our outlook; and I ask that you strive to give visibility into your progress, your needs, and your challenges.
Me as a manager
You might hear me say “managers got to manage”. I believe that. I’ve been lucky to have worked for some great managers in my career, I’ve tried to learn from them as much as I can.
My default is to manage you the way I’d prefer to be managed: give a clear set of goals, the freedom to exercise creativity in achieving those goals, and continuous feedback that you’re heading in the right direction and your work is valued, with strategic course correction when necessary.
As a “manager” I lean into the idea of “trust but verify”. This coupled with my thirst to understand how things work, and desire for details, means that when things don’t make sense to me, I will often ask for more details. You might hear me describe this as “setting a breakpoint in the debugger”. Don’t confuse this with micro-managing, this is me seeking to understand.
Please don’t be alarmed or feel judged if I’m asking for more details, and “drilling down”, it’s not a reflection on you, it is how I understand. I am also very aware that your time is valuable, and so I will do everything I can to not waste it. I am always willing to do my homework, read up on artifacts to better understand the details, feel free to point me in that direction when I ask for details. I love a good real time dashboard. Having clear visibility into your status is a great way to keep me informed so we can optimize our interactions.
That being said, I’m very flexible, I am very open to working with anyone to find the unique style of interaction that makes us most successful.
Tools I prefer to manage my work
Slack - This is my default tool. It most closely matches how my brain stores and processes information. It allows me to sort things on topics, where people are topics. If I slack you, I almost NEVER expect you to respond immediately. I will try to explicitly include a “[not urgent]” disclaimer to remind you of this. I am using slack not out of urgency, but because it helps me keep my conversations organized. If I do need to use slack for an urgent matter, I will be explicit that I need a reply. If I’m not explicit about urgency, you can assume I am not expecting any immediate action.
Shared Meeting Agenda & Notes/1:1 Prep - I recently had a chance to use a tool called Lattice which allowed me and my team members to prepare for 1:1s with shared editable agendas and notes. I think this type of tool is one of the tools I love the most for helping me as a manager and a leader. Like slack, having agenda and notes organized by people and meetings, allows me to keep a record of our conversations in a manner that most closely resembles my brain. I love this tool for 1:1s, for organizing the agenda, and have asynchronous pre and post reads for 1:1s. When I set up recurring 1:1s with team members, I will use a tool like this and encourage team members to use it: to add agenda items to the agenda, and even use the “shared notes” section to send me a pre-read. I will do this for you as well. I regularly check my lattice for upcoming 1:1s several days in advance, and I love having an asynchronous chance to think about the agenda, read your thoughts ahead of time, and leave my own notes for when we meet synchronously.
Email - I will admit, I’m bad at keeping up with email. As I mentioned above, email just doesn’t map onto how my brain stores and processes information. I’ve declared email-bankruptcy several times in my life. I do use the “star” feature of google to organize emails that I need to come back to. If you send me an email, and I don’t reply, I am sorry, hit me up on slack and I’ll find it and get back with you. This is one area I am personally trying to improve on.
Note taking - When I’m talking to someone about a topic, I try to take notes real time in some electronic format. I’ve developed this approach over the years as a way of augmenting my memory, but also as a way to be a better listener. If you’re chatting with me about a topic, I will almost always be taking notes. This is one reason I love Lattice for 1:1s.
The core values that resonate most with me are
- Bias for action - In all things in my life I am action oriented, I need to be doing something. I can’t stop moving. Since I’ve lived my whole career in the startup life, I’ve often been in situations where “waiting for more info” is the wrong answer.
- Integrity - This is huge for me. My default is to be direct and honest with people, and I assume everyone is being direct and honest with me. There’s no greater failure in my book than dishonesty. But don’t confuse discretion with dishonesty. There are times when information must be kept confidential, and when that happens, I will always strive to disclose information as soon as it’s practical and appropriate.
- Since I thrive on working with teams on hard problems, we will often be confronted with things we don’t understand, and we will inevitably make choices that are wrong. I’d much rather someone acknowledge failure or admit they don’t know something, than to hide their mistake or misrepresent their expertise. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I try to be as fearless as possible about admitting them publicly. I also make mistakes that I am unaware of, and I really appreciate when someone calls me out on a mistake, so that I can admit my mistake and learn from it.
- Courage - I’ve learned over the years that my brain doesn’t process stress and pain the way many people process those things. One side effect of this is that I’ve been told I don’t seem to be afraid of failing. I don’t really think of this as courage, because making a bold statement, or admitting I don’t know something, doesn’t feel like bravery, it just feels like the default. But I recognize that for many people this looks like courage. So I’ll embrace that. This definitely gets me in trouble, I make mistakes, I fail, I offend people. And I do feel those failures, and I do want to avoid repeating them, especially when those failures hurt other people. When I fail, I try to admit it, and learn from those failures. I’m not afraid to take more risks and fail again, because I see each risk I take as a chance to improve.
- Constant Improvement - I am always trying to improve. I am always trying to learn new things. I really appreciate feedback from people on how I can improve. I am a kinesthetic and visual learner, so I often have to learn new things or improve things by DOING. This probably relates to my bias for action. You can help me by always being willing to give me feedback, especially when I fail. While I am human, and I might feel defensive about it, I prefer to get critical feedback, so I can focus on improving.
My personality type
Almost 20 years ago, I had the good fortune to have a manager who had all of his VPs go to an executive coach. This was a great experience for me, I learned a great deal about myself, and I believe it was a turning point in my career to become a much better teammate to my peers, my managers, and the teams I lead. The main thing I learned from that experience was my Myers-Briggs personality type, and how that impacted my way of thinking and working. But more importantly, it taught me to better understand other people, and this unlocked a tool for me that I try to apply in my everyday interactions.
I am an ISTP. This description pretty much nails my strengths and weaknesses. Some of the key attributes of an ISTP that you will often see in my daily interactions:
I love data and details, the more the better. Experiencing things is my preferred way of understanding what is true about the world. Even though I am an introvert, I am very vocal and interactive in my gathering of data. I can be very talkative when I’m trying to learn something new. This may seem counter-intuitive, but if you’ve read about MTBI types, you’ll see this is common for many introverts. I need down time, or alone time, to make decisions. I’m aware of this now, and so you will often hear me say “I need to think about that” or “I reserve the right to change my mind on this after I go think about this more”.
I am always seeking truth, and always open to changing my mind when new facts present themselves. I realize this can be surprising to some, and even feel unsettling, I will always work with the team to minimize randomization. But don’t be surprised if I reject ideas “just because we’ve always done it that way”.
If someone disagrees with me, my instinct is to want to drill down to understand what they see that I don’t see. I am often like a dog with a bone, and I have a hard time letting go when this happens. Sometimes this has backfired on me, and I’ve mistakenly made people feel like I’m badgering them to get them to agree with me. I’ve tried to tone this down, but if you find me pressing you to explain your line of reasoning, know that this is where it comes from, I believe you’ve probably reached your conclusion because you have some knowledge I lack, and I want to learn and understand.
I love tools. These can be physical tools, like gadgets, or they can be systems for measuring, tracking, and planning. This is one reason I love the Myers Briggs Type Indicator so much: it’s a tool that helps me better understand myself and other people.
I am always up for a crazy idea. That being said I love tools and systems, so although I’m always out adventuring, I consider myself pretty risk averse, I’m planful and deliberate in how I approach risks.
The following slogans are always on the ready:
- “That sounds like a horrible idea, what time?”
- “I’m down to clown.”
- “Stoke meter: high!”