My manager "README" file for 2019 at Fuze
Setting expectations with your team and co-workers is a critical step in building productive, long-term relationships with each of them. This can be a difficult process even when you are all fortunate enough to be working in the same office or building, but what about when your organization is geographically distributed across multiple countries and time zones?
Fuze is a heavily distributed company and my product team alone is scattered across four countries and six different time zones. I'm constantly searching for new ways to improve transparency, set expectations, and increase collaboration between our product managers. I read this great article over at SoapboxHQ, "How to Set Expectations With Your Team", that describes the concept of a manager "readme" file, and was inspired by the concept and some of the follow-up stories I read about managers building their own.
I took a stab at building my own readme file and have been testing it with the two new product managers that we hired in November. The feedback has been extremely positive and they each gave me some more items to include. I've posted the entire deck below and would love to hear any feedback on it, or ways that you think you could use this in your organization.
Happy New Year!
Link: Michael Affronti README (Google Slides)
This was originally posted on my blog on Wednesday, January 2, 2019.
Director | Kaizen | Operations Excellence | Digital Transformation | Pursuit Aerospace | Speaker | Non-Profit
6 年Michael Affronti this is a great, candid summary! I can easily see the value and openness this provides to your team. I especially liked the comments regarding your calendar and the fact that you chose to work odd hours but do not expect your team to do the same. There is so much power in flexibility.
Senior Global Product Support Leader, Career Coach and Mentor.
6 年Great article Michael. Thanks for giving me some new ideas.
this is great Michael - I've talked about? the approach you have to adopt? with clients, colleagues and family? as part of the cultural shift? when you? embrace? adaptable working? - this is really useful in setting? those expectations? -? not suggesting for a minute I'd use? a deck for the kids of course ... they much prefer a vlog :)??
International Speaker | Consultant
6 年Really like this concept- ESPECIALLY the “Communication” slide. We so rarely set clear expectations of how we operate and communicate. The idea of placing a personal SLA on reviewing documents and clearly calling out that you need an @mention to signal that your team needs you to weigh in on could feel like nuances to managing and working together but are truly groundwork for trust and success. They are SO important. I really like this for all new-hires to ensure that every is on the same page. Thanks so much for sharing, Michael! ?
Sr. Director Channels - Americas @ Content Guru | Cloud Communications
6 年Excellent concept - Appreciate the sharing of your approach.