The Bent Archive

Q4, meet flu season

This week is just about the last week you have to get “ready” for the holiday season. That means capacity planning. (Plus, three bonus rapid-fire questions just in time for Q4.)

Every strategy we can think of for managing under a toxic boss

We can brainstorm strategies with you for days — and we definitely will — but I doubt there’s a silver bullet piece of advice that will solve this problem. There are too many different players and you’re all humans: each of you is going to have different things you like and want. Ultimately, I recommend mixing and matching and making your own Thanksgiving plate with what feels right from this assortment.

Get ready: Your team will embarrass you

It took me a long time to build up the confidence to let my team’s actions stand on their own, and not let my own insecurity take over. In the meantime, it’s helpful to have a process to fall back on — a sort of program you can mindlessly rely on when you may not be thinking clearly.

Optional meeting invites

An optional meeting is a meeting where you truly do not care what the reply will be. The optional attendees can come or not come and the world will be exactly the same. Anything more or less than that? Do not mark the invitation as optional. It’s preferred, recommended, prioritized, pointless, a waste of time — some other adjective that’s not “optional.”

Why manage?

No matter what your job title is, you can write such good documentation that anyone can jump in and ace something on their first try. You can yank the chain when you know something’s not right. You can create a safe space for honest feedback, for figuring hard things out, for talking your buddy through a nightmare situation.

Getting to know your new team

I like to flip the assignment: How can they get to know me? Who am I as their boss? What are the qualities I want them to know I have, and in what situations can I show off those qualities?

I provide context and share what I know

When you provide context, you’re explaining how to interpret a raw piece of data. It’s walking through why something is happening, or how it happened, or what’s coming next — why not all three? There are lots of opportunities to provide it outside of explaining stats on a dashboard. These are some of our favorites.

Listening to a problem without solving it

So often we’re kind of trapped: on one side is our team, telling us that they’re unhappy, or that there’s a problem, or that something isn’t fair; and on the other is an entire institution that keeps on chugging along. There’s just not a lot of wiggle room in that space, which is why a lot of the time we wish the people on our teams could simply STOP COMPLAINING.

Asking for something over email

I’ve learned people are much more apt to help me out if I make my email requests easy to answer.

My employee is going full-time remote

We don’t have any remote employees yet and I’m a little lost trying to set expectations for the remote employee, as well as the rest of the team. Please help!

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