Leadership
Content Distribution Team Members
At Content Distribution, leadership is requested from everyone, whether an individual contributor or member of the leadership team.
As a leader, Content Distribution team members will follow your behavior, so always do the right thing.
Everyone that joins Content Distribution should consider themselves ambassadors of our Values and protectors of our culture.
Content Distribution respects your judgment of what is best for you. If you have a better opportunity somewhere else don't stay at Content Distribution out of a sense of loyalty to the company.
We work asynchronously. Lead by example and make sure people understand that things need to be written down in issues as they happen.
We are not a democratic or consensus driven company. People are encouraged to give their comments and opinions, but in the end, one person decides the matter after they have listened to all the feedback.
It is encouraged to disagree and have constructive debates but please argue intelligently.
Start meetings on time, be on time yourself, don't ask if everyone is there, and don't punish people that have shown up on time by waiting for people or repeating things for those that come late. When a meeting unblocks a process or decision, don't celebrate that but instead address the question: How can we unblock in the future without needing a meeting?
We give feedback, lots of it. Don't hold back on suggestions for improvements.
If you meet external people, always ask what they think we should improve.
Strive to make the organization simpler.
Saying something to the effect of "as you might have heard", "unless you've been living in a cage you know", "as everyone knows", or "as you might know" is toxic. The people that know don't need it to be said. The people that don't know feel like they missed something and might be afraid to ask about the context.
Don't use someone else's name, remind people of your title, or otherwise "pull rank" to get things done.
Management group
Members of the management group are expected to demonstrate leadership in the way all Content Distribution team members, plus:
Ensuring team members feel included and valued is one of the most important tasks of a manager. Proactively create psychological safety with your team members so that diverse perspectives can be heard and everyone can communicate and contribute authentically and creatively.
Ensuring team members understand what is expected of them in their roles is a critical role that managers have to ensure company success. Managers should ensure specific Core Competencies and that is clearly communicated to each team member.
Managing underperformance is another important task of a manager.
When times are great, be a voice of moderation. When times are bad, be a voice of hope. In order to effectively be the voice of hope, managers should make sure they understand the company mission, goals, and leadership decisions. If managers have concerns about leadership decisions, they should voice them to leaders in order to understand the context, share key insights from their team members to ensure we make sound decisions, and then be able to explain context to their team members
When you praise someone, try to do it publicly and in front of an audience. When you give suggestions to improve, do it privately 1 on 1. A Harvard study has shown that the ideal ratio of positive to negative feedback for high-performing teams is nearly 6:1. Be generous with your positive feedback.
Express gratitude in team meetings, group conversations, and other communications to people who constructively challenge your opinions and ask difficult questions. This helps create psychological safety, promote our values, and prevent the five dysfunctions.
Understand that there are different ways to get to the same goal. There are different perspectives, and discussions need to happen.
When someone says they are considering quitting, drop everything and listen to them. Ask questions to find out what their concerns are. If you delay, the person will not feel valued and the decision will be irreversible.
People should not be given a raise or a title because they ask for it or threaten to quit. We should pro-actively give raises and promote people without people asking. If you do it when people ask, you are being unfair to people that don't ask and you'll end up with many more people asking.
People should not be given a raise or a title because they ask for it or threaten to quit. We should pro-actively give raises and promote people without people asking. If you do it when people ask, you are being unfair to people that don't ask and you'll end up with many more people asking.Don't refer to Content Distribution as a family. It is great that our team feels like a close-knit group and we should encourage that, as this builds a stronger team. But families and teams are different. Families come together for the relationship and do what is critical to retain it. Teams are assembled for the task and do what is required to complete it. Don't put the relationship above the task. Besides, families don't have an offboarding process. Families should have unconditional love, while teams have conditional love. The best companies are supporters of families. The idea that your team is your family can lead to unwarranted pressure: "this office is like a family… in that there is vague pressure to be here on holidays"
Praise and credit the work of your reports to the rest of the company, never present it as your own. This and many other great lessons can be found in an Ask MetaFilter thread worth reading.
Do everything to unblock people. If someone has a question that is keeping them from being productive, try to answer the question yourself or find someone who can
Get shit done.
We measure results and not hours. If people are getting good results in the work that is assigned to them they are free to contribute to other parts of the company or work on a pet project. Don't say, "Your work on that pet project is hurting your performance." Instead, say, "We agreed to get X done but it is delayed, what happened and how can I help?"
Do not discuss promotions, salary increases, or bonuses until the changes have gone through the entire approval process.
Follow Berkshire's common injunction : "Always tell us the bad news promptly. It is only the good news that can wait." Make sure to inform your manager of bad news as quickly as possible. Promptly reporting bad news is essential to preserving the trust that is needed to recover from it
Complain up and explain down. Raise concerns you hear to your manager. When peers or reports complain, explain why a decision was made. If you don't understand why, ask your manager.
Coach team members to establish good 100% Remote practices, by encouraging Self Service First and Manager of One altitudes.
Director Group
They have the ability to align the day-to-day execution to the top objectives of the company, and they are responsible for making sure the top objectives are well communicated to team members.
They work peer-to-peer and sponsor healthy conflict amongst the team to resolve issues quickly, escalating only when all options are exhausted.
They ambitiously define roles for, grow and hire their teams for what is needed from the business in the next 3-4 years.
They have significant strategic and functional responsibility.
They have significant operating budget responsibility (things like compensation planning, budget allocation, negotiation, investment tradeoff decisions).
They have leverage and influence over the performance and success of large teams (both reporting directly and indirectly) and their success will result in increased success across large numbers of people.
The impact of their decisions are broad and significant.
Some of them have critical external responsibility to represent the company and make decisions and statements for which the company is accountable.
Participate in relevant Facebook Groups and Twitter conversations.
Executive Group
They suggest relevant, ambitious, and quantifiable OKRs and achieve 70% of them.
They are reliable and ensure their teams complete what they agreed to do.
They are proactive about detecting and communicating problems in their functions before other departments even notice them.
They hire and retain leaders that perform better in their functional areas.
They create roles and set requirements for what is needed 3-4 years out and hire for that profile.
They get a huge amount of things done by iterating quickly and training their department in iteration.
They define and communicate the business strategy and vision, instead of being overly tactical in the business.
They share insights about other functional areas that make others better at their job.
They suggest and implement improvements to our cross-functional processes.
They frequently help achieve results outside their function.
They make other executives better in their discipline.