¶ Optimizing Communication and One-on-Ones
I think I told you, I remember this. I really like gifts in teams. And I just like, you know, my, my, if I have a mediocre day of nothing but meetings and I just drop an absolute banger in teams, get like. three thumbs up for an animated GIF. But then my boss texts me, not helpful. Okay, that's a different kind of feedback. Most of my feedback is that I'm not code switching appropriately.
based on context. Because I'm the same guy in all meetings, and that's not always appropriate. I just assume everyone has the same context. So I'll be in a meeting and I'll be talking like I'm talking to you. And they're like, no, that group was not, they did not need to know where all the bodies were buried for that particular project or whatever. Visibility, I find really challenging. Like, I can't remember.
who knows what. That's tough, especially when you're in meetings with different overlapping sets of people. Yeah, because the altitude changes between meetings very, very dramatically. And I've tried color coding my meetings and trying to get organized that way.
I even have three different colors for my one-on-ones, whether it's direct, skips, or others in other organizations, as a way of coordinating, like, okay, this person doesn't have the context, but this person has direct context. Do you color code your stuff? I color code by type of meeting, not that fine-grained, but if it's a customer meeting versus a team meeting where it's presenting to me, it's the forum that I'm running versus I'm participant.
versus a one-on-one with somebody senior. My team had a little bit of a reorg and I got new people. And of varying and sundry levels. And I have found a lot of sloppiness and lack of clarity in how most people do one-on-ones. And most one-on-ones are just a weekly hangout. with someone who does your annual review. And I think that that's problematic. So I like a little more structure to my one-on-ones. How do you do your one-on-ones depending on where the person is in the org?
I've got senior people in my directs that I do one-on-ones with, and then I do one-on-one check-ins, skip levels, and I also go through and meet with every single person on my team. For 15 minutes, I cycle throughout the year. So I've got about 55 people, so that allows me to go through the team roughly twice in a year. And the way that I treat them is a little bit differently. The directs, I ask them to provide a...
an agenda of what they want to talk about before him. And for the other ones, I'm not so structured. Which makes sense because I would assume that the people at the lower levels are uncomfortable or nervous. and they think you're creeping around trying to double-check their work, and you need to make sure that they feel welcome and that that's not what that is for. That's right. And the check-in, I call them check-ins, the 15 minutes, just...
They're not related to what they're doing work-wise unless they want to talk about that. It's just, tell me what's top of mind, how things are going, how are you feeling, how's the org, how's your boss, any issues you're running into, any feedback from me. A lot of times... They're like, everything's great. Let me tell you what I'm working on. That's because of the visibility myth. Everybody wants to be visible and they think that a promo can't happen unless your boss knows your name. Yeah.
¶ Communication Pitfalls and Management Styles
Okay. And do they ever give you pointed feedback? Hey, Mark, you did a thing I didn't like. I've not received any. I get that so much. You get pointed feedback? No. I get none. I mean, I get... I did have some good point of feedback. I think I told you this years ago, it coined a new term, which was the Hanselman blast radius. You probably have the Russinovich blast radius, where you throw a grenade into the crowd and people who didn't mean to get blown up got blown up.
The issue was I would send an email, and I would add too many people, and then they would add people. And the next thing you know, a simple, basic, technical question became meetings about a thing I needed. So that one really bugs me, which is, hey, let's meet and discuss this. I just want to understand what's going on early in the process. And then I get there and I find out there's been two prep meetings.
and there's a slide deck, and there's 30 people in the meeting. Yeah, and you show up, and you're on the spot, and they don't realize that they think they're doing you a service, and they've done exactly what you don't want. And I just wanted a casual discussion.
with just a few people that could talk deeply about it. Yeah. Literally today, an hour and a half ago, someone said, I want you to meet with so-and-so. Should we do a prep meeting? I will avoid prep meetings at all costs. Not because I don't need to prep.
because I don't need to prep for a two-person meeting or a three-person meeting. So 100% agree. Yeah. The blast radius thing was important for me to recognize, though, that when I, you know when someone texts you and they say, like, we need to talk. Like, are we... Am I in trouble? Actually, that one's annoying in any aspect of life, professionally or personally, which is the, do you have five minutes? Are you free? And I'm like, depends. Depends.
Like, exactly. Who are you? Why are we doing this? Is it good? Is it bad? Do I get candy? Are there snacks? Is it urgent? Is it, could it wait till tomorrow? Like, yeah. I am lousy with that. I'm doing better. But now I say,
You know, I'll text people like, hey, can we talk for 10 minutes? It's a good thing or something like that. Even that's vague. Just tell them what you want to talk about. Like, I can't stand that. It's bonus time. Just tell them like, hey, can I, you know, all right. If you're there.
I mean, if you're their boss and it's a good thing and you want to surprise them, that's fine. But if it's, let's discuss this topic, like just tell them. So you're a fan of the no hello people that put in that, they put like no hello. You've seen that website? No. There's a site. I think it's nohello.com. Yeah, it's literally nohello.com. Please don't say hello in chat. Just say hi, dash, dash. I'm working and then ask the question.
Yeah. If you do hello and then you wait. That's annoying. That's really. Just tell me what you want. Yeah. On the one side, one of the things that I've tried to do better lately because I'm trying to be a better manager is I've been asking people.
how do you want to be managed? Like I've got one person on my team who is like, you know, I don't need regular one-on-ones. We can just do email. I feel good. I have confidence in my work. We can talk whenever you want, but like your one-on-ones are slowing me down.
And then other people are like, no, I would like him twice a week because it makes me feel better about my job and it's structured and it's organized and that. So I have been asking people, how do you want to be managed? Do you prefer Teams? Do you prefer email?
And I realized that a lot of managers show up and they declare, okay, here's how we do things here. I want weekly Monday emails or I want weekly, you know, regular daily reports. And I try to find a little bit place in the middle where I ask people how they want. You need to manage them. Because they're grown. These are adults. I don't need to know when you're out of offices. The out of office isn't an issue, but for a lot of the teams, I do want weekly updates.
So I can just track what's going on. Yeah, you don't want to lose time. Yeah. Okay. You don't want them to disappear for a month. Yeah. But are you counting their daily, are you counting their PTO? I don't micromanage at all. Yeah, exactly. Except for me. Yeah. Yeah. You need it. I do. I do need that structure. I do need that structure. I definitely lose time. This is the thing. You're a very good IC, a very good individual contributor, and you're also managing. Do you ever like...
forget that you have a team because you're like so excited about the thing you're working on. There's like 50 people I need to go and talk to. Well, the nice thing is, and I've said this before, my team is pretty senior given it's a central CTO organization. And the LT that I have under me, managing the different parts of the team, are very senior and very capable. So it's an organization that I just have to nudge this way and that way.
¶ Constructive Feedback and Accountability
And otherwise, it moves along pretty well. Yeah. When you give them feedback, do you do the compliment sandwich? Oh, the really good job, but here's some feedback. And then keep it up. Yeah. Kiss, kick, kiss? If I do, it's not me doing it intentionally. Yeah. But I do try not to be... If I'm giving, this really sucks, it's not what I was looking for. I try to...
Make it soft. Yeah. But there's definitely times when, by the way, and I'm sure this has happened to you, when you show up in a meeting and it's like you've asked for something. Yeah. And it's so far off. And it's clear, you know, you were very...
clear with them about what you wanted. And it's very clear that they decided they were going to provide something else. And you just want to explode. You can see me looking off screen here because I was just in a meeting, like literally before this, and hopefully those people don't. watch this meeting or know what day it was or know exactly what was going on and they showed me the thing and then they like okay and i go
I can see why you went in this direction. I understand why this would be the result that you came up with. But given we believe this, this, and this, and I said, I don't want to bring stop energy, but this isn't a direction I want to continue in.
And then I went off on a back channel. I was like, was that mean? Was that mean? I need to work on that. And they're like, no, no, you said we need to be said. But that one sounds like you asked for something and they went off and they took it in a strange direction. As opposed to, you said, hey.
this is what we want to do. Like, go fill in the blanks on this. Yeah, yeah. And then they came back with a completely different playbook. It was just a direction that I wouldn't even consider. I wouldn't have ever considered. So that one isn't as bad as what I'm talking about, which is...
They just kind of ignored or decided unilaterally to do something else without checking in. Like, no. Well, and that is the balance, right? Because you're the one who gets in trouble. Yeah. Right? You want to trust your people to do their thing. They're all grown adults.
¶ Promoting Others and Earning Recognition
But ultimately, though, if something bad happens, it's going to be your fault. That's right. And people are looking at me like their success is my success and vice versa. Yeah. When you write papers and stuff and your name's on the paper and other people's names are on the paper.
Does your name always go first? Do you move the names around based on who does the most work? Well, so there's somewhere I've been the impetus and the key driver for an idea. Like we just recently wrote a paper about the future of confidential computing. Okay. to present to Satya and the SLT. And it's based on a vision that I've largely kind of led and some pieces of it that I've come up with to fill in. And my...
contribution to the paper besides the overall here's what I'm thinking is just that kind of outline in the pieces and the background that was already there. The direction and the oomph of the initial. So there's like... 10 people's name on the paper, my name went first. And there's other papers where I'm participating again in a thought leadership way where my name will come in the middle or last. Good.
Yeah. The reason I'm asking is that, you know, I'm trying, as I'm on the downslope of my career, I don't know when it'll end, but I'm certainly past the middle part, unless there's another 30 years from now of work. I'm like trying to...
think about how I lift others up. Because there's this term credit, like, oh yeah, you get the credit, and then you get the credit. Credit feels limited, like there's not enough credit, there's not enough credit to go around, there's like a pie of credit, we gotta chop the credit up.
And this is just semantics, but I've been using the term lift. Like we can all get lift. That's different than we all get credit. And someone wanted to send a newsletter out. They had done virtually all the work. Like I'd asked them to do it. They put together the whole newsletter. It was fantastic.
And then they had just assumed it would go under my name. And I was like, I mean, I see why they would think that and it makes sense because it's a thing attached to me. But I was like, I think you should be the name. You get the lift, you get the identity, and then I'll reply. And I'll go, that was amazing. And everybody wins. They see me. I point to the thing and go, that's a good thing. Good job, person. And I've been doing that more.
the older I get and the higher level I get, because it costs me nothing to do that. And then everybody else gets the lift. So I think you do that when you adjust where you are in the paper order, which I think is cool. There are some cases where there's other considerations besides just a local decision about who you want to be highlighted yourself or somebody else. And it depends on the audience, too. But one example is a blog post that's going to go out next week.
Great example. Which is on what we're doing with quantum. And my name will be on it, even though I've just been one of many that have contributed. Because it'll get people's attention. That's right, yeah. Right, and that's strategic. And I think the thing that I think we both agree on then is that...
Simply having those conversations in a public way, like you did the thing and my name will be on the byline, or I did the thing and your name will be on the byline. Is the audience the street? Is it The Verge? Is it The Wall Street Journal? Or is it an academic paper?
Yeah, and actually, a good point about, you know, because you just implied there was a discussion. Whose name should go on it? What order should it be in? In some cases, I mean, that can be a very awkward discussion. You know, because you'll...
People are afraid of like, I want my name to come first, but if I bring it up, then somebody's going to argue with me. And so maybe I just put in the list with my name first and not have a discussion about it. And I think it's probably, even if it's awkward. worthwhile always having the discussion about the order and, you know, which names go on. Yep.
Yeah. Being able to have that discussion though, I've always decided that a way to lend my level privilege is to just be the one that brings it up. Yeah. You know, like when I give talks where it's two people. I think there's value in calling out the power dynamics that are implicit within the talk, whether it be age or level or whatever. So I never punch down. Okay, so what do you do in the case where it's you and three other people?
And you think your name should go first because you're the one that kind of was the key driver. How do you bring that up and say that? Because they're going to go, oh, well, you're the boss, so go ahead. If it's three other peers, I would fully... be honest and say, listen, I think it's clear I did 40% of the work. I think it's clear I had the original idea. I'm going to go ahead and say, I would feel better if I was first. But if it is me,
and three people a couple levels below me, I usually just fall on my sword and I just give it to them. I don't know if that's good or bad. Let's not try to be magnanimous. It's just avoiding conflict and awkwardness. Yeah. Yeah. I just think, like, I don't know. It's tough, though, because then a paper will get written. I've literally, not a lot, maybe twice in the last 20 years, seen a paper that's clearly...
a chat GPT version of my idea. And I can like look in the version history and like, that's when that guy or gal hit control A and then put their name. And I was like, man, that kind of sucks. But it doesn't happen a lot.
¶ Proactive Management and Problem Solving
I know it does happen to some people, though. That's important. Yeah. Yeah. Back to one-on-ones. Isn't our job as managers to get issues out of the way, to make things less awkward, to... to move things that are blocking them or preventing them from being successful. That's a part of the job, yeah. And that's what I, and by the way, on that one, I had teams, one of my teams, Sysinternals team, was running into an issue.
where they were getting blocked because of a security exception that they should have gotten but weren't getting. And they let it drag on for two months before it raised to me. I'm like, you need to raise that, like when you get blocked like that. yeah immediately because that's my that's what i'm here to do is on block you get to cut through the crap so that was frustrating uh that they
operate it like, oh, we don't want to bother him. Let's just see if we can work it out. And then they don't get any response from the other teams and they end up getting stuck. I really, that calls back to the part where you said, and meetings were had. And I was not there. Because I own some security stuff and some decisions were made recently about public-facing shipping software.
And it was very straightforward, but like a decision happened with no visibility. No one gave me a heads up because they didn't want to bother me. That's literally what I'm here for. Like I'm green. You know what I mean? Like while you're, you know, working out and eating health thing, like I'm literally a Popeye's chicken in the parking lot. And you, I was green on teams and I was, I'm here to help. But like meetings were happening. Do chicken eating.
I was just eating chicken. Come on, man. What are some ideas on what I can do to improve my team's one-on-ones? And for our friends that had this idea, this one-on-ones show idea was actually suggested by someone in the comments. What can I do to make my next one and one a better one? With people on your team? Let's say with my directs. With your directs. We didn't really talk about it. I mentioned that I have them provide an agenda.
of what they want to talk about and the reason i wanted i do that and by the way we'll talk about one-on-ones with people that are above you too oh those are scary but um the thing i The reason I want to do that is I want to see the full list, and that way I can say, this one's important to me, or this one looks like it's a problem. Let's go talk about that one first. And maybe this one in the agenda, if you've written in the description, you know what?
that's enough for me to know what's going on. We don't even have to talk about that one. Ah, they give you the list and you prioritize the list. They give it to me before and then I can, I read it. If I don't read it before the meeting, I read it at the start of the meeting and then go, okay, so this one, what about this? Let's talk about that. It's just, and it relates to what I do with one-on-ones that I have with people more senior than me too.
which is similarly, I've never been asked to do that, by the way, by anybody. So that's something that I came up with on my own. But what I do proactively with people that are senior to me, like if I've got a one-on-one with Satya, I sent, or Scott. I'll send him an email, typically at least a couple days before, if I can, that says, here are the topics that I want to discuss. And it allows them to do the same thing.
And also they know like, oh, this looks important, but we didn't get to it. We need to follow up later. This is obvious, but not something that I think I'm doing. And I think it is super helpful because I usually have a list, but it's kind of, you know.
A little bit of formality, because inevitably with these kind of situations, the one-on-one's going to get cut short, and at least you front load the hard stuff. Yeah, and they get the things that you wanted to convey no matter what, even if you don't get a chance to talk about them.
When you're doing one-on-ones with people higher than you, is it mostly that you're looking for A-B testing? Like, go, no go. Yes, keep doing that, stop doing that. Or are you honestly looking for like, I need advice on how to handle this tricky situation, which is more... It's more, here's what I'm... I want to give you an update on progress. Ideally, I would like some feedback on, do you think this is good? Do you think that I'm spending my time wisely? I think I've talked about this with...
before on this, is that as I got more senior in my career, I got less and less feedback. In fact, that's just been the trend. I get less and less and less feedback. I get almost zero feedback now from anything. That sucks. That's got to be lonely. Yeah. I'm going to work. I'm going to give you. Stop breathing in your mic. That's good feedback. But I've largely been self-directed because of that since I joined Microsoft. Yeah. All right. That is our How to Make Better One-on-Ones show.
I want strong, people don't give Mark enough feedback. So in the comments of this show, if you made it this far, I want pointed feedback to Mark. I'm sure Scott would appreciate something. About his shirt. Be fair. His mic positioning. All of these things. Okay. So like and subscribe, friends. Tell us that we're doing all right in the chat. Otherwise, we'll stop doing this show. It's not an aisle thread either. It is not an aisle threat, because Mark's pissed. So mad. So mad, you can tell.