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I manage teams without a single call

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Re: I manage teams without a single call

#71

Post by sonofhans »

joshuamoyers wrote: post #19

> But for me, it becomes the event my whole day starts to revolve around. I have to break out of my flow, put my tasks on hold, take the call, and then get back into context. In the end, a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus. Occasionally I get this feeling for a large customer meeting or a public talk, because there are consequences and serious prep. But this is just trying to normalize extreme social…

Yes, this post is one half of “Maker’s schedule, manager’s schedule” — https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

“In all that time, I’ve never met a single person who sincerely wanted more dailies, syncs, and meetings.” Oh, I guarantee that OP has met these people, and that they have told him this multiple times in ways that he does not understand.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#72

Post by theorchid »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #61

This seems like a version of: https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html but taken to extreme dogmatic-ness. I get it - I’ve fixed problems like this before and you’re so excited you found a hammer, now everything looks like a nail. > a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus. And I might spend the entire day thinking about it. As a manager, you should learn to change this about yourself rather than imp…

> As a manager, you should learn to change this about yourself rather than imposing your work style on your team.

I think we need a different approach here. I shouldn't have to change anything about myself, because we're slaves to our habits. I shouldn't force this on people who don't want to work this way. I just need to work with teams that are willing to work this way. And so far, I've always managed to find such teams and such people.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#73

Post by theorchid »

geoffbp wrote: post #38

Usually if you’re a manager, your job IS the meetings - or a large portion of it. You’re responsible for a remit and the performance of people inside the group and what is delivered. I think it’s unlikely that can be done of high quality without meetings, but ymmv

> your job IS the meetings

No

> You’re responsible for a remit and the performance of people inside the group

Yes

One is not the cause of the other.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#74

Post by prinny_ »

I believe there is a middle ground here. Quick calls can definitely mess with your flow in your day to day work, but ruining multiple hours of “in the state” is either an overstatement or the author may be best suited for a different role that demands less communication.

On the other hand modern application of agile methodology is borderline ruinous for team productivity and most of the time exists for a specific stakeholder to feel less anxious rather than for a team member to raise a blocker or a dependency.

I work in a fairly big company and there is the notion of extracting people from their agile teams to have them work uninterrupted on large tech initiatives. Which is in my opinion a subtle way to signal that if you know what you want to build, agile methodology at least in the perverted way most companies apply it doesn’t work.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#75

Post by theorchid »

zkmon wrote: post #48

I write an email with extensive detail, but none of the recipients read a single line. They expect a call invite from me to read it out to them. People find it easier to hear things from other than read the same, if the option os hearing out is available. Q&A is another thing. You can avoid Q&A only if you are fully aware everyone's context. Otherwise questions sprig up from their own context which may not have been…

It really depends on the people on the team. If they prefer to call each other and hear each other's voices, there's no need to push them to read emails. If you need people to read text, then you need a different kind of team. Every team simply needs its own management style.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#76

Post by Insimwytim »

xyzzyz wrote: post #37
ninalanyon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience. Phone calls almost always leave me feeling that something important has been left out. But there is no record so I can't re-read it to find out if I forgot or if it was just not mentioned. Luckily I rarely had to deal with such things because most of my work required written specifications and technical standards anyway, plus our teams were scattered in widely different time zones so t…

It's very easy today to transcribe and summarize every call that you have.

If you don't care about privacy, consent and other ethical implications.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#77

Post by AdrianB1 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #14

> In the end, a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus. And I might spend the entire day thinking about it. does anyone else have their entire day sidelined by a 10-minute call? is that common? to me, it hints at something else, but i am not sure if i am the odd one out or not.

Yes. Not often, but yes, it happens: when I am working on something where it takes me a few hours of deep focus to complete and I get interrupted, it can derail me for days. What disappears most of the time is engagement, I tend to postpone that work for next day or more.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#78

Post by theorchid »

sonofhans wrote: post #71
joshuamoyers wrote: post #19

> But for me, it becomes the event my whole day starts to revolve around. I have to break out of my flow, put my tasks on hold, take the call, and then get back into context. In the end, a 10-minute call can cost me several hours of focus. Occasionally I get this feeling for a large customer meeting or a public talk, because there are consequences and serious prep. But this is just trying to normalize extreme social…

Yes, this post is one half of “Maker’s schedule, manager’s schedule” — https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html “In all that time, I’ve never met a single person who sincerely wanted more dailies, syncs, and meetings.” Oh, I guarantee that OP has met these people, and that they have told him this multiple times in ways that he does not understand.

Sorry, I forgot to add “I’ve never met a single person, except for managers and recruiters”.

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#79

Post by Insimwytim »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #21
davidhunter wrote: post #6

Using your analogy, imagine it's the year 2026. Two armies are fighting. One uses letter to communicate. One uses phones. Which army do you want to fight in? This is an obviously poor policy.

Why are we using letters? Are we avoiding leaving RF spectrum traces? Are we worried about compromised digital channels? What is the reasoning? In 2026 I'd rather be fighting for the army that evaluates all options to come up with the most effective way to accomplish an objective rather than one that dogmatically clings to ineffective methods. In other words: if the winning side uses letters and the losing side uses…

Yeah, one side is using phones, the other - signal detection system to launch drone strikes[1].

[1] https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted

Re: I manage teams without a single call

#80

Post by theorchid »

kkotak wrote: post #70

In a world where most teams are remote and members don't see or meet each other, sometimes throughout their entire tenure, I think a bit of human contact is worth the time sacrifice. Corporate productivity is does not trump this in my opinion.

I agree. But we can call each other just to chat about things unrelated to work. Just to catch up.
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