In this week’s episode, our co-founders Darja and Anthony chatted with Meri Williams. Meri was the CTO at Monzo - the online bank - before it even became a bank! She led the technology team through a period of immense growth in both the team itself and in the customer base. Now as the CTO at Pleo, Meri is continuing to lead teams through different changes while enabling each team member to reach their full potential. Meri shared her key learnings on what it actually takes to create a healthy, safe, diverse and inclusive work environment, as well as why high-performing teams are the ones who are happy, and feel comfortable in their individual roles. Meri also discussed what she would do differently as a new CTO, some of her best principles for success and why sometimes hotdogs are the only thing you need to make your team happy.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why management (especially in engineering) is a career change, not a promotion, and how can you succeed in it

• What it really takes to build a diverse and inclusive team: 3 questions you should ask yourself

• What is the real difference between being nice vs. kind to your team and the impact it can have

• Why you shouldn’t treat others like you would want to be treated. Rather treat them like they want to be treated

Timecodes:

• 2:30 - the challenges of joining a growing startup as a CTO

• 12:00 - purpose, autonomy, mastery, inclusion: the magic formula for high performance

• 14:00 - the model for DEI: 3 questions you should ask

• 32:00 - why management is a career change, not a promotion and how can you succeed in it

• 41:00 - how to help people feel safe at work, enabling them to reach their potential: be nice AND kind

• 51:00 - how to really be an empathetic person and leader

Connect with Meri:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Geek_Manager

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meriwilliams/

Connect with Anthony:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyreo/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthonyareo

Follow Bunch:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bunchai/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/bunch_HQ

Other helpful resources:

• Learn more about engineering leadership from Lara Hogan: https://larahogan.me/

• Learn more about being an Engineering Manager: https://nickmchardy.com/2019/02/on-being-an-engineering-manager.html

• The home of engineering management: https://leaddev.com/

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