We’ve all heard of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” While there was good intention behind this proverb, it drastically underestimated how diverse people’s needs and wants are. This is especially important as a manager, as our job is to help our team members grow and feel motivated. As such, I prefer the Platinum Rule: “Treat others the way they want to be treated.”
Many years ago, when I was starting out my career, the company I was at was building a new data integration platform. Mike, my manager, correctly predicted that this would be the future of the company. Back then, it was common for tech leads to take on the more glamorous research-y work and do tech presentations while asking their team members to do the day-to-day keeping-the-lights-on tasks. Instead, Mike told me, “Ken, go learn as much as you can about this platform and play around with it. I can take care of the day-to-day mundane technical tasks for the team.”
Mike was right. The platform ended up being the backbone of all projects, and my early familiarity gave me exposure to a lot of critical company investments. This jump-started my career as I was able to lead several key strategic initiatives and also consulted on many others.
Mike was an experienced manager at that point. He didn’t need the extra boost of being the first to learn how to work with this platform, but he correctly identified that I did. He gave me an opportunity that I needed, not what he needed. This certainly boosted my loyalty to him, and you can bet that if he ever called me up I wouldn’t hesitate to go work with him again. In fact, he was so good at leveling up his reports that at one point, three of his former reports ended up having similar if not more responsibility than him! That is true leadership.
Many years later, I ended up at a different company. One of the executives had a habit of scheduling 1:1s titled “1:1 with [X]”. Clear enough when you look at his calendar, but let’s picture the recipient’s calendar. Almost all our meetings are with ourselves: if every sender titled their meetings this way we would have no idea what the meeting is about or even who we’re 1:1ing with.
Along the same lines, I was confused why my manager often scheduled our 1:1s for times when I already had a meeting on my calendar. We would then reschedule our 1:1s three or more times because he would continue to choose times that booked over other meetings. (The 1:1 invites were not recurring: he preferred to set them up manually on a biweekly basis.)
Eventually, I figured out why. During one of our 1:1s, we came upon an important issue and he scheduled a meeting with the relevant stakeholders on the spot. I looked at his screen, and watched as he sent the invites without ever checking the other parties’ calendars. In both cases, the invites were optimized solely for the sender, not the recipients.
Empathy is certainly necessary, but managers also need to have foresight into what their team members need, even if the members themselves may not be aware. The intention to think for others is contagious. Following Mike’s lead, I also try to optimize for what my reports need.
For example, I never cancel and do my best not to reschedule 1:1s. As a manager, taking a 30-min meeting 2 hours later has minimal effect on me because my day is divided into 30 or 60-min blocks anyway. However, my reports are on makers’ schedules. In other words, they often need a longer block of time to focus on solving technical problems. Consequently, any changes in meeting schedules require context switching, which is costly.
Likewise, the lack of empathy for other people’s needs is also contagious. When leaders show that they don’t care about others, the mentality trickles down, which ends up becoming the culture of the company. The world would be a better place if we all took a few minutes to think what other people needed instead of what we need. Or a few seconds to check people’s calendars before scheduling a meeting with them.
For more musings on tech culture, organization building, and management, follow me on Twitter @kenk616.
