Episode 4: Hypergrowth leadership, the pendulum swing and attention management for managers with Phil Calçado
Sep 15, 2023
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Phil Calçado, an engineer director with experience leading software teams in hyper-growth stages, discusses his leadership journey, the challenges and opportunities in the live events industry during the pandemic, managing costs and activities for energy managers, the importance of being involved in meetings and influencing decision-making, and attention management for managers with the introduction of UltraP, a copilot for managers.
Building relationships with stakeholders across the organization is crucial for managers of managers.
Establishing baseline communication expectations while allowing flexibility for teams to work in their context is key.
Attention management, including the use of software tools like AlterP, is important for managers of managers.
Deep dives
Building Relationships Across the Organization
As a manager of managers, it is important to build relationships not only with your direct reports but also with stakeholders across the organization. This includes understanding the business strategy, collaborating with other leaders, and being aware of what's happening in different teams.
Balancing Autonomy and Standardization
While giving autonomy to individual teams, it is important to establish baseline communication expectations. This can include regular reports, meetings, or standardized formats. However, flexibility should be maintained to allow teams to work in ways that suit their context and style.
Managing Information Overload
With more teams and responsibilities, managing information becomes crucial. Setting up systems for regular communication and ad hoc conversations, such as office hours, can help stay on top of things. Balancing baseline communication with targeted focus on time-sensitive information is important.
Transitioning to a Broader Scope
Moving from managing individual teams to managing managers requires a shift in mindset. This includes looking horizontally and vertically within the organization, understanding the business goals, and building relationships with stakeholders. The focus should be on providing support, guidance, and creating safe spaces for conversations.
Attention Management and ManagerOps
Attention management is a critical skill for managers of managers. The article discusses the concept of ManagerOps, similar to DevOps, and introduces a new software called AlterP, which aims to automate and facilitate management tasks, starting with attention management. The software will analyze conversations, documents, and collaborations to provide actionable insights and help managers stay focused on important topics.
In this episode, I chat to an engineer director who has done the pendulum swing (from manager to individual contributor to back to being a manager), working in hypergrowth environments and one of the earliest microservices architectures where he first wrong about the Backend For Front-Ends (BFF) pattern and what he's doing now to help engineering managers.
Guest Biography
Phil has been leading software teams in their hyper-growth stages since the early 2000s. He headed product engineering at SoundCloud and DigitalOcean, and platform engineering at Meetup and SeatGeek. He is currently a co-founder of Outropy.ai, the Copilot for Leaders.