Working as a Team

Episode 4 is all about strong teams and the importance of trusting each other. At Clearbit, we prevent trust from falling apart by using “impeccable agreements” between team members to get things done. Matt and Alex also talk about meetings, which should be regulated (and justified) to prevent time waste. Get the most out of meetings by structuring them and by writing things down to speed up information transfer and decision making.

We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.

The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.

Resources

Jeff Bezos’ 2015 Letter to Shareholders

Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey

Modern Health - A platform for innovative companies that value the emotional well-being of their workforce.

What we’ll learn about on this episode:

(03:03) - On Clearbit’s Impeccable Agreements - “Often you’ll find that agreements aren’t specific enough, so two people have different ideas of what a task means.”

(05:02) - What happens when you aren’t able to fulfill an agreement? - “Don’t agree to too many things, really only agree to the things you can actually do.”

(07:02) - Why devaluing and underrating meetings is a mistake - “Meetings are necessary in companies, you could think of them like carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.”

(14:15) - The Delegating Framework: Type 1 vs Type 2 decisions - “Type 2 decisions are ones that are reversible and Type 1 aren’t.”

(16:04) - On the Disagree and Commit principle and the importance of team alignment - “Basically it is saying to your team ‘I trust you’ and letting them run with their own decisions.”

(17:39) - When should you invest in buy-in and alignment? - “Alignment and buy-in take time and there’s no way around it.”

(20:15) - On remote teams and how you should manage them - “We have to think really carefully about how we do remote, how we make the remote team feel included and how we integrate them into our decision making.”

(28:22) - A great tool to measure your managers’ performances - “Ultimately, a manager is measured by their team’s output.”

About Clearbit:

Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and tell us what you think.

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