Here’s my “How to work with me” guide.

1. Permission to be candid that works both ways

If you’re working with me closely, I’ll ask for your permission to be candid about things at work. I will truly care for your growth and your well being as long as you work with me. For this, we need to have fearless communication between us.

2. Communicating at work

Meetings

If the meeting can be replaced with writing, please do so. I only accept meetings with a clear agenda. Please come prepared with things to discuss. 3PM is the best time to book a face to face meeting. If you’re working with me and you want to have a casual non-work meeting with me, please say it’s non-work so these rules do not apply.

Clarity

I appreciate clear and concise communication. But I also understand that I’m asking you to put extra effort for this and you may not be able to do so always.

Bad days, ego and emotions

If emotions are driving decisions or if you’re having a bad time and not in a mood to discuss something, please say so and I shall not pry and leave you alone with no judgement.

3. Being resourceful

If you meet an obstacle and you want help from me, I’ll expect you to have tried solving it yourself if it’s part of your work. Most questions have answers on google. I’m only useful if my experience makes me better at solving this particular problem than the combined power of google + your decision making.

4. Remote and async communication

I work remotely a lot, and I use this time to focus on work without distractions. If you message me at this time, my replies will be asynchronous. That means, if your work blocks on my response, you should move on with other work. If the response needs to be immediate, you should call me.

All written messages are async for me including slack mentions. Yes you may DM me on slack at 3AM on New Years eve, it’s just that I won’t see it till I’m available, so I won’t consider it rude. But please don’t call unless it’s very important and you’ve tried a written message first.