Discovering Managing with Ashish Dixit

The last episode of Season 4 is a hero’s journey story! Ashish Dixit (@tundal45 on Twitter) shares how he found himself managing a team of volunteers (and realized this was happening through failure), how he approached this experience, and what he learned through an accidental discovery of “oops I’m managing?”. Whether your first management days are fresh or far in the past, I hope you enjoy this humble and charming storytime.

Ask And Offer Culture with KWu

Ever heard these sentiments in your workplace?

• “That was so unprofessional!”
• “Why are they being so rude? They’re always so pushy.”
• “Don’t they care about..?”
• “Why won’t they just tell me if they can’t meet that deadline?”
• “I’m so overwhelmed but everyone just keeps piling on more work.”

Different default assumptions around communications can lead to painful miscommunications and hurt feelings. “Ask and Offer Culture” (or as Ask-ers like to call it, “Guess culture”) is one way to describe these differences. KWu (@kwugirl on Twitter) is a regular speaker on the topic, and shares her extensive knowledge in Episode 28.

Show references:

• https://kwugirl.blogspot.com/2015/05/

Technical Leading with Edwin Mak

How do you give technical feedback and direction without inflicting unwanted help? or change direction without introducing bad feelings?

In Episode 27, Edwin Mak (@edwinthinks on Twitter) shares how to be an effective tech lead. We talk about how to ask the right questions from the right mindset to elicit questions, what to listen for in your conversations, how to recover from failure, and more.

Show references:

• https://diaperbase.org/
• https://rubyforgood.org/
• http://www.lingolive.com/

Unexpected Onboarding with Ale Paredes

In Episode 26, Ale Paredes (@ale7714 on Twitter / ale7714 on LinkedIn / Latinas In Tech NYC) shares her team’s experience as they find themselves not just unexpectedly remote during a pandemic, but also unexpectedly onboarding while unexpectedly remote during a pandemic.

We talk about the role of documentation, 1-1s, and social touches in onboarding and team management.

Communicating Ideas with Sergio Rabiela

How do you communicate high-level or complex ideas to your team?

How do you know if your ideas are getting across?

When is repeating yourself too repetitive?

In Episode 25, Sergio Rabiela (@spacechurro on Twitter) shares advice on communicating high-level ideas to your team.

Show references:

• Marco Rogers on 1-1s
• Claire Lew on how ICs can prepare for a 1-1 with their manager

Burnout with Aneika and Anjuan Simmons

What is burnout? What does it look like in an individual, versus a team? What can you do to counter burnout?

What do you do if your new team is already suffering from burnout, before you’ve had a chance to build relationships with anyone?

In Episode 24, Professor Aneika Simmons (@aneika on Twitter) and engineering manager Anjuan Simmons (@anjuan on Twitter) talk about burnout from two different perspectives: academic research and hands-on management.

Show references:

• Talk page for “Managing the Burnout Burndown”
• University of Cambridge research on employee engagement and burnout
• New medical code for burnout
• Fika
• Tuckman’s stages of group development

Startup Hiring with Jennifer Kim

How do you win candidates when bigger companies can offer more money? What changes can you make to your interviews to get your candidates excited about your company? In Episode 23, Jennifer Kim (@jenistyping on Twitter) shares her expertise around hiring, and we dive into what’s different about startup hiring.

Show references:

• Startup Recruiting Bootcamp

Going Remote with Damien Burke

In Episode 22, Damien Burke (https://www.talariasoftware.com/) shares his experience taking a team from fully in-office to fully remote.

Ally and Manager with Cris Concepcion

What does it mean to be an ally? what does it have to do with managing up? and how do you recover when you make a mistake as an ally? Episode 21 is the first of Season 4, and Cris Concepcion (crisconcepcion on LinkedIn) shares how managers can be better managers by being allies to their team.

Side note: earlier this week, I discovered a secret bag of peanut butter pretzels in my pantry! it was the perfectly placed snack of the moment, a surprise gift from past-me to quarantine-me. Episode 21 had a similar journey: it was recorded in Summer 2019, and released in Spring 2020. I’m very grateful to Cris for being so understanding and gracious about the gap between recording and release!

Changing Minds with Cecy Correa

In Episode 20, Cecy Correa (@cecycorrea on Twitter) draws on her training in marketing to share how to influence teams.

Episode References:

• The Psychology of Fake News (And What Tech Can Do About It): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cVfYMxqZmI
• The Knowledge Illusion: https://www.worldcat.org/title/knowledge-illusion/oclc/1027527252/editions?editionsView=true
• Thinking Fast and Slow: https://www.worldcat.org/title/thinking-fast-and-slow/oclc/917473664
• Active Listening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening

Mentoring Mentors with Tara Ellis

In Episode 19, Tara Ellis (@maverick_mind on Twitter) shares how to support new mentors. How do you help a new mentor be set up for success? what should you expect from a new mentor, anyway? All this, and more, in this episode!

Changing Tech, Changing Teams with Kelsey Hightower

Kelsey Hightower (@kelseyhightower on Twitter) is a technical leader in the open source community who contributes to projects like Kubernetes, Terraform, and more. In Episode 18, Kelsey shares secrets to driving technical changes in teams, and how to find feedback in unexpected places.

One on Ones with Nicole Sanchez

Nicole Sanchez (@nmsanchez on Twitter) is CEO of Vaya Consulting and co-creator of the new 1-1 organizer app Digamo. In Episode 17, Nicole shares detailed advice on 1-1s: what they are, how they help us, what we can learn from them.

References:

• Digamo, 1-1 organizer app
• Nicole’s management podcast is Impossible To Manage
• UC Berkeley research on race and trust
• So You Want To Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

Speaking Up with Danielle Leong

In Episode 16, Danielle Leong (@tsunamino on Twitter) shares how to speak up to set culture as a manager, how to create safe teams, how to recognize teammates for the work they do, and more.

Ethical People Management with Danilo Campos

In Episode 15, Danilo Campos (@_danilo on Twitter, co-creator of the new 1-1 organizer app Digamo) shares detailed advice for how to be an ethical people manager. We dig into a handful of edge cases and examples for how to do this.

Enabling Change with Anthony Holloway

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest to both established and budding leaders in technology fields. In Episode 14, Anthony Holloway (@techdirtywithme on Twitter / Anthony L Holloway on LinkedIn / deliriouslyraw on Instagram shares how to change the culture on your team in your engineering teams.

Assessing for Growith with Mannah Kallon

Welcome to Episode 13, the first episode in Season 3!

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest to both established and budding leaders in technology fields. Before his software career began, [Mannah Kallon (@mannahkallon on Twitter)](https://twitter.com/mannahkallon) worked as both a New York public school teacher and as a BBQ restauranteur. In Episode 13, we talk with Mannah about what he learned in those careers, and what he's learned to apply and look for in his software career.

Temporary Teams with Miranda Wang

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest to both established and budding leaders in technology fields. Miranda Wang (@ch0xi on Twitter or mirandawang94 at gmail) led a group of volunteers over a long weekend to create an open source project. She swiftly transformed a group of strangers into a tight-knit team. In Episode 12, Miranda shares how she quickly built a temporary team. We cover ideas and how-tos on sharing and setting community norms, creating space for questions, and more.

Episode 12 is the final episode in Season 2; we'll be back very soon with a third season!

From Engineering To Product And Back Again with Denise Yu

In Episode 11, Denise Yu (@deniseyu21 on Twitter or check out her website http://www.deniseyu.io/) shares specific actions engineers can take to grow their effectiveness. A small sample of the ideas Denise shared:

• Schedule time to learn from people on other teams
• Bring a buddy to learning sessions with you
• Be curious how others feel about what's going on around you
• Share the impact of others' work with their managers

Giving Feedback with Ambreen Hasan

Episode 10 covers how to give feedback, what to think about as you're giving feedback, and how to help others get better at giving feedback.

All this expertise comes to you from Ambreen Hasan (@ambreenhasan on Twitter or ambreenh on Instagram). Ambreen started in tech as a Rails developer and has now transitioned to being a Jane-of-all trades working across many different technologies. Throughout her career, she's regularly been approached for feedback because she gives critical feedback in a way that doesn't make you feel bad about yourself and your abilities -- a truly remarkable skill.

Managing Managers, Remotely with Juan Pablo Buriticá

Episode 9 is a whopping twenty-six minutes because there was so much I wanted to keep asking my guest, Juan Pablo Buriticá (@buritica on Twitter).

Juan Pablo Buriticá has been leading engineering organizations for the past decade. Prior to his engineering career, Juan worked as a chef and as a pharmaceutical chemist. We talk about timezones, how communications is the limiter on scaling organizations, how to create social rulesets for individuals to develop personal filters on communication, how to get a pulse on your organization when you're managing managers instead of individual contributors, and much more!

In Front Of A Crowd with Damien Burke

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest for both established and budding leaders in technology fields.

If you haven't experienced this already, someday you will. At some point in your career, you'll find yourself in front of a crowd. Maybe you'll be explaining your architectural vision for the next sprint, or maybe you'll be sharing the team reorg plan. Whatever it is, what can you do to influence the crowd?

Today's episode is with Damien Burke; an engineer, actor, poker player, and hypnotherapist. We talk about his experience acting as MC for a small conference, and Damien shares he created a warm, welcoming space that pulled strangers together into a community.

Episode references:

• Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini
• What is neuro-linguistic programming?

Enabling Joy with Adarsh Pandit

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest for both established and budding leaders in technology fields.

I thought today’s episode would be about leading when you don’t have full authority, and it was – but it was also a conversation about building trust. Adarsh Pandit explains his mission of enabling joy on any team he works with, and how building trust allows him to do that.

Adarsh shares some of his techniques for building trust, for recovering when things go off the tracks, and for countering social anxiety.

Stroopwafels and Trust with Annyce Davis

Episode 6 covers building trust across differences with Annyce Davis (@brwngrldev on Twitter or annycedavis on LinkedIn). Annyce is a software developer and leader focused on Android and mobile development. She shares her mobile expertise through videos, blogs, and conference talks (ask her to present at yours!). Annyce is an engineering manager who leads the software team at Zola Electric, which provides clean energy to households that suffer from unreliable energy grids.

We talk about building trust in a business setting, how different people may value different ways to build trust, and how to learn and do this in your own team.

Episode references:

• The culture map by Erin Meyer: https://www.erinmeyer.com/book/ (or fnd it at your library)
• Talk to Me Right! by Annyce Davis: http://adavis.info/2019/02/talk-to-me-right.html (or watch it here)

3 Minutes Between Seasons (yes, Seasons! plural!!)

This is a quick 3 minute update of what happens next to Storytime With Managers.

Jobhunting As A Manager with Eddie Kay

In Episode 5, Eddie Kay (@ichthyos) shares his recent experience jobhunting as a manager. If you’ve never jobhunted as a manager, this episode is for you! Eddie shares answers to questions like “how do you schedule interviews on a manager’s schedule?”. Eddie works at Toast in Boston as a Senior Engineering Manager, and has been in engineering management for about a decade.

Coaching Towards Autonomy And Dreams with Bavani Kehoe

In Episode 4, Bavani Kehoe (@jenbavani) shares how she coaches her reports towards autonomy and guides them in following their dreams – all while working part-time. We talk about situational leadership model, how to make office hours effective, and managing reports who are working outside your own expertise area.

Bavani works at Beyond12 (beyond12.org), a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of low-income, first-generation, and historically under-represented students who graduate from college. She manages anywhere from 3 to 8 early career professionals and student interns charged with bringing coaching to life through their MyCoach app.

Finding Your First Team with Raquel Vélez

Episode 3 follows Raquel Vélez (@rockbot on Twitter) in her management journey as she moved from lone-manager-at-tiny-startup to discovering her “first team” of engineering manager peers. Prior to management, Raquel was a JavaScript developer who eventually found her happy place learning to work with systems of people instead of systems of code.

We talk about the similarities and differences between small companies and big companies – the impact of reorganizations, discovering lanes and your first team, managing sideways, securing promotions for your reports – and how it’s still humans all the way down.

Accepting Feedback with Emily Nakashima

Episode 2 covers the topic of accepting feedback with Emily Nakashima (@eanakashima on Twitter). Emily manages the engineering and design teams at a small developer tools startup called Honeycomb.io. Before Honeycomb, Emily worked at a string of developer tools companies and focused on frontend development and performance optimization.

We talk about how to better accept feedback, the correlation between accepting feedback and “growth mindset”, blameless retrospectives, and more!

Episode references:

• The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
• Lillie Chilen’s retrospectives guide

Managing Up with Marco Rogers

Episode 1 covers the topic of “managing up” with Marco Rogers (@polotek on Twitter). Marco was previously an engineering manager and director at companies like Yammer, Clover Health, and Lever, and is now happily writing code for Mode Analytics. We talk about what managing up means, Marco’s journey to understanding managing up, how any of us can do the same, and how we can help those we manage to learn to manage up.