Struggling With New Direct Reports? Watch This!

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Hey folks, I am just leaving CrossFit, heading home. Um, going to experience dev subreddit for a topic. This is uh kind of like the last video one on, you know, some manager kind of specific things. But I think again kind of interesting even if you're not a manager cuz you can think through how this might apply for you being on the other end of it. But this person says they're new to having a couple of direct reports and they feel like they're struggling a little bit with uh they framed it as like managing the context of like like one-on-one context basically. So um you can kind of think about this like if you understand what's going on from the overall team perspective. So, if you're familiar with some of the bigger initiatives going on and like some of the work items going on and like strategic direction and that kind of stuff, like this is all valuable, right?

This is all stuff that applies to the the team, but um what about individuals, right? What about like what people are struggling with? What about people's growth opportunities? What about their aspirations? What about um stuff they've shared that like helps explain if they're getting distracted or like you know all these things where it makes um people individuals right because that's one of the things that I feel like often gets missed in management which seems kind of ridiculous like um people forget that it's uh it's a lot about the people and everyone is individual but Um it seems like this person's asking about like I think the right things right they're they're acknowledging that okay I am responsible for individuals now too. So like how do I how do I stay on top of this? So um they kind of shared they're doing something like equivalent to like a Google doc or something to keep notes in.

Um and I don't know I think like this is the kind of thing that is so situational. Oops. That's not the right not the right lights. Um, it's so situational that I don't want to sit here and like it's kind of ridiculous. I could sit here and be like, you know, the best thing to do is X and like absolutely might not be applicable for someone. So, I think my number one recommendation here is that um you as a manager, you're going to want to come up with systems, but your systems need to have flexibility in them because um like people people don't just follow people don't just follow strict rules. That person almost pulled right out in front of me and died. That was so close. Um amazing. So if you come up with systems and they're very rigid, you're either going to force people into those patterns and it's not going to be effective or your system will fall apart and you're going to feel like uh like what do I do?

So I think very important to come up with systems over time, right? This isn't something that you invent day one and you're like oh I have the most effective systems. You can't just copy other people's systems either. You have to find what works for you. but build in flexibility. I think that's incredibly important. Okay, so we'll start with that. Um, man, that person just ran a red light. Crazy. This is a this is quite the drive so far. Um, so I find like if I think about my current team, right? Um I have one individual that they take a lot of notes. So like interestingly I and we meet very regularly so we're very much on the same page. But in terms of like regular ongoings um they bring notes and stuff and an agenda to our 101 ones. So there's a lot of structure there and they're the one actually providing that.

Um, so that's not I'm saying this out loud because oh my god, what is going on with this highway? Oh my god, this drive. It's been like 2 minutes. It's just brake lights. Um, this isn't something I would rely on from every individual, of course. Um, I don't think that makes sense. Like, if that was your system, I don't think that that has enough flexibility built into it. So, I have one individual that absolutely stays on top of uh bringing an agenda and stuff to one ones. Um, that works really well for us means that we can spend time on the things that they really care about, the things that are top of mind for them. And part of my approach in 101's in general is structuring them in a way where like uh couple minutes just to to do a bit of like ice breaking like hey how was your weekend kind of thing cuz I I do think that having a personal connection is important.

Um, I think if you jump right into like into work all the time and you cut out what feels like personal interaction, like your working relationship maybe isn't as strong. And it doesn't have to come in a one-on-one, by the way, like find other opportunities to do it. But so we start off like that, but then otherwise it's like open the floor for them. What do you want to talk about? What's top of mind for you? Right? And I like doing that because um it it gives control back to the employee for like steering things. But I will jump in periodically if I'm like, "Okay, all we do is status updates and we're not talking about career development and other stuff." Then I'll I'll kind of jump in and say, "Hey, next time we should, you know, spend a little bit more time on this. What do you think?" And uh and kind of pull away just from status updates.

Um the uh so one employee at least that is doing like their own kind of notes and we get to focus on what they're uh you know with an agenda what they're focused on or what's most important to them. Um I have some individuals that are like always very uh interested in feedback right which is great. So again, I have individuals that will they will be the ones that say, "Hey, it's been x amount of time." Or from their perspective, they're like, you know, I think this would be a great opportunity to hear if you have some feedback for me and like anything that you can share. Um, and we'll go through that. So again, if you're relying if your systems rely on only employees telling you when they want feedback, that probably is not going to work across the board effectively because you will have people that won't ask you.

They're just expecting it, right? So you have to understand the individuals and like again, it's really great that I have someone on my team, at least one person that's like quite regularly asking about feedback. It's a good reminder for me where I'm like, "Hey, well, I'm going into a couple more one-on- ons today." Like, good reminder for me. Let's talk about feedback. Um, but in general, I have a flow of things that I like to make sure that we're regularly focused on and I let individuals drive that. in terms of note takingaking on a regular basis. Um I think for the size of the team I have and the complexity of what we have going on with individuals, my notes are at this point they're kind of like more sporadic. Um and that will eb and flow and change over time, right?

I have periods of time where if there's more stuff going on and I'm like I really need to make sure these particular things I'm staying on top of then and like because I'm feeling overwhelmed in other areas or I'm feeling like I don't um you know I might forget kind of thing like I'm nervous about that then I'll adjust my note takingaking strategy. Um, I personally, uh, have tried like One Note. I've tried like having a dock. Um, I I find for some reason, I don't know why, um, a lot of digital notes for me don't really work very well, which seems ridiculous, but this is just what I've learned about myself. And so what works well for me is written notes either on paper or on a whiteboard. But both of those are kind of like they're low tech and as a result like it's really difficult to search them cuz you literally can't.

Um so those are compromises I have to make but I find that written notes for me uh they they work better in my brain for some reason. But you can absolutely do like um you know a a doc where you keep notes for everyone. You got have individual docs for people. Uh I've seen people using draft emails that they just have so they're like they can access them in their email client like it's sort of a convenient thing if they spend a lot of time in email. Um you could do depending on the types of notes and stuff you can do collaborative docs. So I think that sometimes people have in their mind that the manager employee relationship is very much like a I don't know like a a gatekeeping kind of thing. I don't know a better way to say it like like it's not collaborative, right?

It's like manager says something you better follow the orders and then they're gatekeeping promotion and all this stuff from you. and uh it seems a little bit more like adversarial or I don't know like whatever the opposite of collaborative is. Um but I have found over time trying to be more upfront and proactive about structuring things as collaborative is is beneficial. So for example, promotion conversations, reward conversations, obviously like I'm not like, "Hey man, like I'm going to I'm going to score you top rewards. Like don't worry about it." like, you know, I'm your I'm your inside man. Like, it's not like that, but it's like I I let people know that, you know, my responsibility as a manager is to make sure that I can represent people effectively in those conversations. So, like they know what I'm going into. They know I'm going to have types of conversations like this.

like help arm me with the evidence that demonstrates this kind of stuff. Obviously, throughout the year we've been talking, right? I I should know like I should know if I'm doing a good job. Um, and I should be giving feedback throughout the year about, you know, important things they should be working on, things that have high impact, things that have high visibility, things that are aligned with uh areas that they need to spend time improving on. Right? And when I say improving on that doesn't mean they're doing something bad and it has to be corrected. It just means like this is an area you need to focus on. Um that should be happening throughout the year. But I need to let people know or I I've been practicing more and more like hey like I'm on your side for this. Like help me help you because these are the types of conversations I have to go have.

And uh I have found personally that structuring things that way is helpful. And that means that for a lot of like, you know, most of the things that I talk about in one-on- ones with individuals, I could have like a shared document with them that's like, let's take notes together, right? And uh I work at Microsoft. I'm not trying to like advertise a Teams feature, but there's a a cool Teams feature that one of my uh employees noticed um the other day. And I don't it's funny because we're on teams but because we're on like the the testing rings we see things like perhaps earlier. Um but anyway there's like a a note a note takingaking feature in teams and we were like hey that's really cool. It's not it's not groundbreaking. It's like a collaborative note kind of thing. And um like that could be something super useful.

uh you if you have a a recurring meeting chat or whatever, you know, your your one-on ones, like you don't even need a special feature for it. Like summarize the notes in the chat, right? I if I don't know if you have co-pilot, whatever. I don't know. Like we don't turn on co-pilot recordings and stuff in our chats for one-on ones, but I don't know like you could find ways to basically have collaborative notes. Um, and honestly, I think that even for a lot of my one-on- ones, that would help for a majority of them just to keep track of like the things that we've talked about. So, you could look at things like that. Now, like I said, some people might feel uncomfortable about like, oh, like shared notes with my employee whose like performance I'm managing, but like I don't know if you've watched like any of my other videos, at some point I probably say something along the lines of like level set expectations with your manager.

Get on the same page as your manager. You should be working with your manager in a collaborative way. should be ideally I realize not every manager is like this but ideally you can try to move things in this direction um and being on the same page and having shared notes and stuff like that from one-on- ones I think is is a step in that direction there of course might be things as a manager where you're like I don't want to have that directly in the conversation with an employee that's shared like that because you need to frame it a certain way for you to track that could be some notes on performance management. That could be um something you need to follow up with and you don't know a way to phrase that in a way that's like not going to, you know, cause alarm bells to go off for an employee.

I'm not saying that everything that you can think of makes sense to go in a collaborative document. What I am saying is like that could be a really awesome opportunity uh to make your one-on ones turn into something that feels like a productive use of time for both sides. So, just something to think about. Um, what else we got here? Yeah, I think honestly right now I think I mentioned this already, but like right now I don't do a lot of notetaking. Um, I I think that I need like I would need to be careful based on on on that point that if things start to get super busy for me in other areas. So, for example, if I have a high priority project come up and I'm like, uh, cuz I have had this happen in my career. It actually happened the start of this year, uh, for folks that remember when I was talking about like periods of burnout and stuff, uh, more so in the beginning of this year.

Um, there were like some periods where I'm like moving one-on- ones or cancelling one-on- ones because the project I was working on plus another one that sprung up. I didn't really have an option which is pretty terrible because I don't like cancelling one ones. If anything, you know, people are quite understanding if I'm like, "Hey, something came up. Can I move our one-on-one to later in the day or earlier or can I move it to tomorrow or something?" People are very understanding of that. I don't like to do that even, but they're understanding. They know it's like um scheduling can be a pain in the butt, especially when it's um if I have to meet with people on like our leadership team, their schedules are a lot crazier than mine. So, it's not like I can just be like, "Oh, sorry. I'm busy. Like, you have to work around me." Like, I have to work around their schedule.

So if something frees up and they need me, then I got to be there. Um, now it's like almost by definition that means I'm dep prioritizing my team. But, uh, I think what that actually translates to is I'm dep prioritizing that that meeting time, not the individuals. Um, that's how I look at that at least and try to convey that so that I can move the one-on ones. Now, if I am extra strapped or under pressure, what I don't want to have happen is that starts to happen and then and then I'm not picking up the note takingaking, right? Because then I'm probably going to be like, "Oh man, I can't remember what we talked about in the last 101 because my head's not in the right space." And then that's not effective. Like, oh wait, was there something I was supposed to follow up on for you?

Like, sorry, I forgot. or uh people are talking to me in a one-on-one and it's like, you know, they're they're giving me the update or kind of building on the last 101 and it seems like news to me because my brain's all over the place. I don't want that to happen. And so I think that's one of the risks with how I am currently managing things is that I need to stay on top of if that stuff starts to slide, get on top of it ASAP. If you are already used to taking notes very regularly, that's great because the likelihood of you slipping on that will be a lot lower. It's just not how I operate. Um, just to give you an example for me taking notes, um, what I don't want to have happen is that I and during conversations look like I'm spending more time taking notes than actually having an engaging conversation.

Um so I don't want that to happen. Um I have found that you know a lot of the times notes I take like that I don't follow up on. So the value of the notes feels low. Um so it's just I'm not saying like don't do don't take notes in meetings or whatever. I'm just saying I haven't found a way that feels like it fits my style effectively. So mine is a bit of a hybrid and will eb and flow. Um, but that goes back to one of the things I said in the beginning, right? Like I think build your systems and your strategies for how you want to manage and lead and make sure there's flexibility. Um, trying to think what else to add into that. I don't know. I probably will start repeating myself, so maybe I'll wrap it up there. But I think that's the biggest takeaway, right?

is that you have to find things that work for you so you can do your job effectively. But uh that also requires an understanding that the people you manage like everyone's going to be different from person to person, team to team, whatever it is, right? Even same team, just a different point in time based on what's going on. So keep that in mind as you're navigating that stuff. And if you're not a manager and you're an individual, like hopefully there's some things for you to take away where if you feel like you're having conversations with your manager and and the one ons feel like they're all over the place, you might even propose to them. Like if I'm just telling you, if I had anyone on my team that was like, "Hey, like I'm taking one-on-one notes, you know, in this doc or on this Microsoft Loop or on whatever you use like a notion page, right?

I realize not everyone's on a Microsoft stack, but on some collaborative tool, I'm taking one-on-one notes there. Like, here's access to it, and if you want to collaborate on that, feel free to. If anyone told me that, I would be totally fine with that, right? Um, I have uh employees that will do um instead of sharing status updates like super regularly in one-on- ones, like it still comes up, they'll do like a a weekly thing that they're focused on. So, they asynchronously send an email to me and it's just like heads up, here's the things that I'm focused on, right? And then like that's a way that I can work with this person on something that they find is effective for them for managing their time. So treat things uh individually. Um so I hope that helps. Again, this channel is entirely driven by questions that you have.

So if I don't have pending questions, I go to Reddit. Um but if you have questions, leave them below in the comments. You can go to codecommute.com, submit stuff anonymously that way. Um please provide details if you do that because it is anonymous. I literally don't know how to follow up with you to ask clarifying information. Oh, that's why everything's slow. person's in the ditch. That's where you drive by and you say, "You can't park here." Um, car looks fine, but it's in the ditch. Um, what else? Oh, I have other YouTube channels. So, if you're interested in learning uh C or programming with AI tools and stuff like that, you can head over to Dev Leader. That's my main channel. Just crossed 14,000 subscribers, which is kind of exciting. It just took a very very very very long time. and um growth is slow, but that's how she goes.

There's dev leader path to tech. That's where I do resume reviews. I'll probably have some other types of content like interviewing and stuff like that, folks. You got to let me in this lane. Come on. And then uh the Dev Leader podcast is, as you might suspect from the name, a podcast YouTube channel where I interview other software engineers, but I also do a live stream every Monday at 7:00 p.m. Pacific. So you can check that out. Um there's a lot of folks from Code Commute that come over. It's a lot of fun. Um it's definitely like an AMA style, so I go over a particular topic every week. It actually usually comes from Code Commute and then um it's an AMA chat, right? So, anything you want to talk about, I'll spend time going over that. So, would love to see you there. But thank you so much for watching.

Hope you found this helpful. And I will see you in the next one if I ever make it home. Take care.