Brad Feld

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A User Manual To Working With Me

Apr 13, 2016
Category Management

Jon Hallett, a prolific angel investor and successful entrepreneur who I’ve gotten to know over the past few years, dropped a major knowledge bomb on me yesterday afternoon when he sent me a post from David Politis titled This is How You Revolutionize the Way Your Team Works Together… And All It Takes is 15 Minutes.

I remember having a meal in December 2011 with David at the Plaza Food Hall in New York and talking about BetterCloud which we foolishly passed on investing in. So I wasn’t surprised to have the reaction I had after reading the post, which I said out loud to myself.

“Fucking brilliant!”

The simple idea is to write a user manual about how to work with you. My partner Seth has an email he sends out to companies he joins the board of titled Welcome to Foundry which is a roadmap for working with him, but also reflects how to work with all of us. It’s similar and touches on some of the questions that David addresses in his article, which he based on a presentation from Adam Bryant, a columnist for The New York Times, titled “The CEO’s User Manual.”

In this presentation Adam gave there were two sets of questions to answer to sketch out the User Manual. The first set, focused on the individual person, were:

  • What are some honest, unfiltered things about you?
  • What drives you nuts?
  • What are your quirks?
  • How can people earn an extra gold star with you?
  • What qualities do you particularly value in people who work with you?
  • What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify?

The second set are focused on how the individual acts with others.

  • How do you coach people to do their best work and develop their talents?
  • What’s the best way to communicate with you?
  • What’s the best way to convince you to do something?
  • How do you like to give feedback?
  • How do you like to get feedback?

I’m going to do this exercise over the weekend and share with my partners and all of the CEOs I work with to get their feedback on whether (a) it’s helpful and (b) it’s truthful. I’m going to let them give me feedback (which will help me learn myself better). As I iterate through it, I’ll eventually publish it on this blog. And, if the exercise works, I’m going to encourage every leader I work with to consider doing it.