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Intro

First-time Managers

First-time manager: what is one area for improvement you see among new managers?

• IC to 1st-time manager: how to give up what I am good at / known for
• Teach others to fish
• Not expected to know all the answers, imposter syndrome
• When to fire

Building Trust

Building trust with your team (how trust builds productivity) (actions + reliability + personal value = trust)

• Bring down barriers: 1:1: offer vulnerability
• Authentic leadership: managing during the downtimes, firing myself, e.g. eBay CEO's authentic leadership example, Jim Collins’ arctic trek example (short sprints regardless of conditions / poll audience: what’s more effective)
• Embrace failure
• Self-awareness (open to tough feedback)
• How to navigate change and keep the team focused during uncertainties (M&A)

Motivating Your Team

Goals & motivation. How to motivate a team, align personal goals & company goals, without monetary incentives?

• People have different motivators: +responsibility vs. +comp example
• Stretch roles: Balance upward vs. lateral expansion: e.g., concentric circles, learn a new function
• Skill vs. will
• Who do you consider to be “your team” (peers vs. direct reports)
• Unblock (upside down pyramid) - servant leadership

Managing Conflict

What are some strategies and tactics you use for managing conflict? (Both personally and for your team)

• Team member conflict - Beata/Joni
• Peer conflict - Brian
• eBay: “in the spirit of being open, honest & direct”

Communication Tactics

What communication strategies do you use? How does that change depending on the setting? If you could encourage people here to do one thing when they go back to the office to improve their communication with their peers, what would it be?

• How to be an active listener - convey you understand the point: GS example - car repair (validation) don't have to apologize, your job is to convince someone you hear them
• Customize for audience: reading vs. seeing vs. hearing
• How much/little is appropriate
• How to adapt to diverse perspectives and different cultural backgrounds

Culture Building

As somebody who has built teams from the ground up, what are the most important parts of building a strong team culture?

• Shared value/purpose (common vision/enemy), but different drivers (responsibility v. comp)
• eBay CEO's authentic leadership example
• Consistency - actions - e.g. Manicube

How do you keep that culture as the company grows?

• Living it (e.g., Steve @TripAdvisor answering support, interviewing), ID shepherds

And how about bad cultures. What are some of the things you watch out for, and how do you get rid of those types of behaviors when you see they exist?

• Toxic behavior. Skill or will?
• Firing fast

Career Growth / Professional Development

Did you have a master plan for your career path beforehand?

• Could stitch a story, but each decision was a 51/49

As your responsibilities grew throughout your career, how did you manage the transitions?

• Each one is hard: engineer->PM, IC->manager

Career growth: Many of us are relatively early in our careers, and still figuring out where exactly we want to land. Advice for someone at that stage?

• Take stretch roles: Balance upward vs. lateral expansion: e.g., concentric circles, learn a new function. Gamble on yourself & play the long game.
• Develop informal (vs. formal) authority e.g. product managers typically have no direct reports, how to manage former peers
• Manage the 360: not just downward - need to manage upwards & sideways
• Find partners to fill the blind spots: e.g., Jim/Nataly