How I lead teams

I built and led a remote, international team of 25 over nine years at Workable. I defined levels and promotion criteria, and many team members were promoted internally.

My take: promote from within, and put the front line to work across the company. Support people know the product and the customer better than almost anyone, so I find work that grows their career and helps the team. At Workable, that meant:

• Sales liaisons, who joined account management meetings and caught trends in handoffs and renewals
• Product and project work, for people who wanted to shape what got built
• Knowledge management, for people who loved getting the answer right and findable
• Management, for 7 ICs who became first-time managers

How I kept the ❤️ as the team grew:

• Onboarding built product expertise and customer empathy by having new hires use the product from both the customer's side and ours.
• Mission and values came from a workshop with the team. We made versions to hang in our workspaces and kept highlights of the discussions for people who joined later.
• High ownership, from peer-led training to policies that let people use their own judgment on things like refunds.
• QA. I built our QA scorecard and ran calibration sessions so reviewers scored consistently.
• Minimum expectations. I don't expect everyone to perform exactly the same. I set minimum expectations, make sure people can see what they're working toward, and value steady improvement over burning out on overperformance.
• When someone falls below them, I find the specific gaps and coach them one on one. I've used performance improvement plans, but my priority is solving it before it gets that far.
• Monthly team meetings covered company updates, and anyone could shout out a teammate.
• Minimizing social distance, with team-building events and close communication. Memes included!

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