New Manager Handover Topics

New Manager Handover Topics

This is a non-exhaustive list of topics that I try to cover when taking on a new report. This can be in a 1:1:1 with the employee and both new and old managers, a private 1:1 with the new report, a private 1:1 with the old manager, or some combination of those. Topics that are covered privately can and maybe should also be covered with the other party, just to make sure all perspectives are being shared and discussed.  Some things might feel more safe or unsafe to discuss depending on who’s present.

This is in addition to the “first 1:1” that I typically do with reports, which I’ve shamelessly stolen from Lara Hogan: https://larahogan.me/blog/first-one-on-one-questions/

1:1s

  • Describe a typical 1:1 with this person.

  • Do you struggle to fill time?

  • Do they typically come prepared? What does that look like for them?

  • Do they reschedule a lot?  Do you reschedule a lot?

  • Do they seem enthusiastic and interested in 1:1s, or are they showing up and checking a box?

  • What’s the balance of “work stuff” versus “life stuff” versus “goofing off” in your 1:1s?

  • How would you improve 1:1s with this person if you could wave a magic wand?

Team dynamics

  • What role did this person typically play on the team?

  • Did they step into any leadership work, like running rituals or being a team lead?

  • What kind of glue work do they typically do, if any?

  • Who did they typically really get along with or work well with?

  • Conversely, did they have a challenging time working with anyone?

Last performance review

  • Walk me through the bullet points of their last review.

  • How did they react to the review?

  • When you calibrated their rating, how did that conversation w/ upper management go?

    • Especially interested in whether there was a lot of pushback, followups, etc.

  • What, if anything, did you commit to working on or actively coaching them on coming out of their performance review?

    • Did you produce anything to assist in this effort?

  • If the employee got a “does not meets expectations” rating, what was the plan going forward?

    • What specifics did we need to see?

    • What was the plan to get them there?

    • How has that effort gone so far?

Projects & work

  • What work was this person actively involved in?

    • Hit the bullet points and especially talk about how that person approached the work.

      • Did they knock it out of the park? Was it a struggle?

    • What’s the status of that work? Anything yet to be delivered?

  • Are they especially fond of, excited by, or adept at any particular thing, skillset, project, etc?

  • Conversely, do they shy away from anything?

  • Are they excited to be learning anything?

Promotion & progression

  • Is this person actively working towards a promotion?

    • If yes, are they aware?

      • What work have you done on their behalf? Share anything you’re working on.

      • What do you (the manager) think they (the employee) think about the in-progress promotion?

    • If no, why not?

      • Where are they in their journey to the next level, and have you discussed this with them at all?

  • Are they happy with their current level?

    • If yes, talk a little bit about what makes them happy.

    • If no, talk about why.

  • Step through the expectations/ladder doc and get some high level feedback:

    • Where is this person strong?

    • Where is this person weak?

    • Where do they need to be pushed/challenged?

    • Where can they be trusted with room to run?

    • Where have they yet to get adequate opportunities/at-bats?

  • Do they talk about compensation, or do you think they think about their compensation?

    • When did they receive their last adjustment (have they ever)?

    • Where are they in their salary band?

    • Where are they in relation to their peers on their team/in the broader org?

  • Are they a flight risk?

    • Would they be a flight risk if X thing changed, didn’t change, etc?

Life stuff

  • Does this person have any big life stuff going on that I should know about?

    • Moving, buying a house, having a kid soon, big time off, health stuff, etc?*

    • Does People/HR need to be involved in anything?

      • *of course, if it’s appropriate to share


Job searching while remote.

Even though it's never been easier to work remotely, finding a job when geography and proximity are removed from the equation can be difficult.  I recently went through an unexpected job search when I had to walk away from a long-term contract, and I wanted to share my experience in the hope that maybe I could help someone else land a good job in less time.

Sites like indeed.com are too big to be useful when you can't search by city; to fill the void, a number of smaller sites have popped up catering to remote tech jobs.  This includes software engineering obviously, but also design, copywriting, marketing, community management, product management, project management, data analytics, and even executive-level positions.  These are the jobs you're looking for, at smaller companies that really embrace the remote/distributed environment, that will be more likely to notice your resume, and have interesting work you actually want to do.

The two best sites that I found, after about a month of looking around, were WeWorkRemotely and Jobspresso.  Both of these sites had great jobs and an active Twitter feed that made following the openings easy.  Just set up notifications for their accounts on Twitter and you'll get a push notification every time a new job goes up.  Each site lets you search, although Jobspresso's filtering options and overall UI/UX are a lot better.

I had a rude awakening when I was passed over for a job I was very much qualified for and learned that the job got 300 applications, 60 of which got an initial reply, 30 of which got an interview.  300 applications!  Can you imagine a mid-level management opening at an actual office getting 300 applications?  Hell no.  This is the reality of remote work; you're going to be up against a LOT of other people, so you need to make sure you're on your A-game when you start sending out applications.

First, your resume.  Make sure it emphasizes your remote experience, if you have any.  Working remotely is its own set of skills, and it's not for everyone.  If you've proven that you can do the job outside of a traditional office, that's a HUGE asset.  Keep your resume under one page.  The tech industry emphasizes experience and skill above everything else, so if you have extraneous things like volunteer experience, internships, certifications, etc. leave them off unless the application specifically asks for it.  Even leave your education off unless you have a post-graduate degree or you think you'll get extra mileage out of it. 

Then make sure that your online presence is consistent, updated, and as visible as you want it to be.  HR software like Greenhouse has space for LinkedIn, personal websites, Twitter, Facebook, etc. so if you provide that stuff, it's probably going to get looked at.  If you don't want your potential employer to see your vacation photos or your rants against President Trump (*cough*), make sure your privacy settings are adjusted accordingly.  Update your LinkedIn.  If you have a personal website, make sure it looks good and reflects your current job search.

It's also important to make sure your resume looks good.  It doesn't have to be crazy, but having something with a little color or an interesting font might set you apart from the other black and white, TNR stuff that comes across the HR person's desk.  Illustrator is great for putting together a minimal, but visually compelling template that you can then export to .pdf and easily update later.  

Cover letter: they say it's optional, but it's really not.  If they aren't interested in reading them they won't, but having one is always a good thing.  Keep a template ready to go so you can edit and export a good looking cover letter quickly and easily.  Again, do the visual work in Illustrator and just update the text each time.  I can bang out a very good looking, professional cover letter in 5 minutes, and when you're sending out 1-2 applications per day, it's important to not reinvent the wheel every time. 

Also, don't sacrifice quality just because you're sending out an application every day.  Fatigue and frustration are a very real thing during a job search, and if you let them, they'll drag down the quality of your applications.  Don't stop attaching cover letters, don't stop sending follow-up emails, don't stop putting in 100%.  You don't want to get diminishing returns on your efforts, so as tempting as it might be to be done with just the LinkedIn autofill, go the extra mile every time.

Hopefully this stuff helps.  Monitor the remote work sites, have a good looking resume and cover letter, and resist the fatigue that will creep in.  Good luck!

Thoughts on today's United disaster.

I'm sure people have seen the news, but if not, today United violently removed a paid passenger from one of their flights, busting his lip open as they hauled him out of his seat.  

Obviously there are a lot of reactions to this.  I'm disappointed (but not surprised) in United's response, which was tone-deaf and blissfully unaware from the start and didn't get any better.  I'm also disappointed that the Chicago Police Department and any other affiliated agencies who might've been involved have yet to release statements of apology.  

To think that anyone involved in removing this passenger today behaved responsibly or ethically is simply baffling to me.  I've seen a few comments to the tune of "well if he'd just behaved on the plane... you always behave on planes... always do what they tell you..."

How much pretzel logic is needed just to exist, at this point?  How many statements like this are we going to accept before we realize that our basic dignity as human beings is gone, and we didn't notice it was taken from us, because it was taken in a thousand little quiet (or maybe not so quiet) aggressions like today? 

  • If you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be afraid.
  • As long as you do what you're told, you won't be harmed.
  • Protest is only okay as long as it doesn't inconvenience anyone.

By the way - all of those statements are easily proven false with even a cursory knowledge of the past few years. 

I think the best take I've read so far comes from Deadspin, of all places, in a piece titled "The Corporation Does Not Always Have To Win."

"But the point is: You are not the corporation. You are the human. It is okay for the corporation to lose a small portion of what it has in terrifying overabundance (money, time, efficiency) in order to preserve what a human has that cannot ever be replaced (dignity, humanity, conscience, life). It is okay for you to prioritize your affinity with your fellow humans over your subservience to the corporation, and to imagine and broker outcomes based on this ordering of things. It is okay for the corporation to lose. It will return to its work of churning the living world into dead sand presently."

Corporate dystopia stylings aside, I try to bring a similar philosophy into the way I manage.  It's my job to get the best from my people, and that requires treating them like human beings.  That requires acknowledging their complexity, their physical and mental health, their happiness, and their personality.  When people feel acknowledged and respected as human beings; and when that respect is not contingent upon their performance on any given day or any given task; I think people are more healthy, happy, and productive.

I think if United practiced that, both among its employees and management, and among relations between the company and its customers, they wouldn't be in the business of busting people's heads open while dragging them off of a flight.

- JP

First post.

Obviously this isn't much of a blog yet, but I hope for this to be a home for some longer-form thoughts that don't really have a place on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  Expect musings on current events, professional developments, and probably some cooking stuff.