On March 1 2018, Indeed hosted a series of talks about leadership and management in the tech industry. Lighting talks included Data Scientist Robyn Rap with "Fish a Manager to Teach," Product Manager Michael Magan's "What Your Product Manager Wants from a Tech Lead," and Engineering Manager Paresh Suthar discussed "New Engineering Manager at Indeed? First: Write Some Code." Ketan Gangatirkar, head of Job Seeker Engineering, provided the keynote "Quantum Leap: From Managing a Team to Leading an Org."

1. Ketan Gangatirkar
Quantum Leap
From Managing a Team to Leading an Org
Job Seeker Engineering

3. A brief history of my time (at Indeed)

4. 2009
Individual contributor

5. 2012
4 direct reports
1 office

7. 2015
25 direct reports
3 offices

9. 2018
4 direct reports…

10. 2018
4 direct reports…
135+ indirect reports
6 locations worldwide

13. Understand the job

14. Your job is not to build a product

15. Your job is to build an organization
that builds a product.
Kris Gale
former VP of Engineering at Yammer (paraphrased)

16. What's the difference?

17. Laughing at taco jokes

18. Making taco jokes

19. Running a joqueria

20. Franchising joqueriasRunning a chain of joquerias

21. Truths that stop being true

22. Your team
Your product
What's going on
What's going to happen
As a manager, you know...

23. You know your team

27. ? ? ?

28. ?
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29. You know your product

30. “The execs in my review were out of touch with
[the] state of my product and were making
suggestions that were not entirely relevant.”

31. “The execs in my review were out of touch with
[the] state of my product and were making
suggestions that were not entirely relevant.”It me

32. You know what’s going on

33. You will become
thoroughly ignorant
of important things

34. Your life is predictable

35. 90% normal, 10% unusual

36. Leader lyf
10% routine, 90% unexpected
10% normal, 90% unusual

37. "A high probability of low
probability events"

38. Understand your organization

39. Coping with ignorance

40. Ask basic questions
Sometimes it's good not to know too much

41. Ask basic questions

42. What are the pros and cons?

43. What's the worst that could happen?

44. How hard would it be
to make it 10% better?

45. What's the backup plan?

46. =

47. Challenge "impossible"

48. "Couldn't we just…?"

49. "Couldn't we just…?"

50. "Couldn't we just…?"

51. What matters
+
What's practical

52. Get the information you need

53. Information that
comes to you is
i̵m̷p̶e̸r̴f̶e̸c̵t̵
What they think you want to know
Random
Distorted
What people want you to know
Ž̷̗̌ a̴͍̯͑ ̣l̸̙̻̆̄g̶̖̊̋ ǫ̷͈͛̂̕ ̶͉̯̭̈́̈́̕h̸̤͘é̴̠̭͛͘ ̵̧̞̱̈́c̸̞̆͒̚ o̶͔̤͝ m̴̤̭͖͋ e̷͖̒͐ s̷̽ ͈̖̀

55. Skip levels

56. Occasional private meeting with indirect reports

57. Being "available" is not enough
Being "available" is not enough

60. People don't enter open doors

61. "Deko is busy"

62. "He has more important things to do"

63. "I don't want to bother him"

64. Go to people

65. Their location
Their schedule
Their convenience

66. No relationship
Undermines
their manager
How often?
Just right

67. Starting the conversation

68. "This isn't the only time we can meet.
Feel free to reserve time on my calendar."

69. "You can always send me an email. I can't
always respond quickly, but I'll respond."

70. "If I forget something I owe you,
you can remind me."

71. "If it's important to you, it's
a good use of my time."

72. Focus on them

73. "What do you want to talk about?"

74. "How do you like your work?"

75. "How do you like your team?"

76. "What advice do you have for your manager?"

77. "Do you understand your purpose and our strategy?"

78. "Are you happy with your direction?"

79. Ask for feedback

80. "How am I doing?"

81. "How would you like things to be different?"

82. "Are there areas where I could do better?"

83. "How do you think the organization is doing?"

84. "What should I pay more attention to?"

85. Listen more than you talk

86. Listen more than you talk
Let them drive

87. Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change

88. Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change
Be friendly

89. Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change
Be friendly
Don't argue

90. Hear the message behind the words

91. I'm unhappy

92. I don’t like my manager

93. I don’t understand

94. I feel stuck

95. Look for...
Uncomfortable body language
Terse answers
Equivocating
Lack of eye contact
Changing the subject

96. Bad news

97. You want bad news

98. You want bad news Don't go praising for fish

99. Bad news is good news It means people are comfortable

100. Getting just good news Is bad news

102. Lead your organization

104. Why people should do things

105. Why people should do things

107. Delegate

108. You should only see tough decisions

109. True delegation
Goals
Constraints
Authority

110. What can they do?
1 Without your action?
2 Without your permission?
3 Without your knowledge?

111. Expect them to do things differently

112. Find leaders who are
different than you
More impulsive or more d e l i b e r a t e
More in iv or more analytical
More AGGRESSIVE or more cautious
More focused on people or process

113. Discovering what to change

114. Three categories of organizational performance
01 Results 02 Effectiveness 03 Health

115. 01 Results
Complete
On time
On budget
Quality

116. 02 Effectiveness
Speed
Predictability
Efficiency
Capacity

117. 03 Health
Continuous Improvement
Happiness
Organizational Growth
Professional Growth
Satisfaction

118. Make fixes

119. Avoid leadership by editing
10 Ask for work
20 Get work
30 Review work
40 Request improvements
50 GOTO 20

120. 10 Ask for work
20 Get work
30 Review work
40 Request improvements
50 GOTO 20
60 rem See people's souls wither and die
Avoid leadership by editing

121. Correction after means bad guidance before

122. Intervention is addictive

123. Monkey patching your org

124. If it's wrong, figure out why it seems right

125. Everything anyone does makes sense to them

126. Root Causes
Skills
Information
Priorities
People
Your leadership

127. Drive change

128. Every organization can be better

129. Change ahead of need

130. If everyone sees the need,
you waited too long

131. repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication
repetitive communication repetitive communication

132. Figure out your message

133. Make it simple

134. Adapt the message to the time, place,
audience, and situation

135. I
.
Ayudo a las personas
a conseguir trabajos
How do we
help more
people get jobs?
Are we showing
people jobs
they can get?
Does that help
people get jobs?
I help
people
get jobs.
I help jobs
get people.
How many people
would be able to
get jobs?

136. What the job is like

137. You will constantly be failing

138. Need = ∞
Capacity < ∞

139. There are few easy days

140. “It doesn't get easier.
You just go faster.”
Greg Lemond

141. There are no normal days

142. ✔ Practicing for a talk
✔ Assembling an offer
✔ Investigating an outage
✔ Strategy for a new office
✔ Talking to a potential acquisition target
✔ Discussing a change in product direction
✔ Dealing with a quit
✔ Talking to a services vendor
Plus, routine 1:1s, skip levels, and status meetings
Different stuff, different day

143. Beware side effects

144. With great power…

145. Comes bad aim

146. "Shouldn't" replaces "can't"
Morale
Politics
Boundaries
Unpredictable consequences

147. Less freedom and less control
Constraints increase faster than power

148. Your words have weight

149. What you can get done

150. 5%

151. 20%

153. “If everything seems under control,
you're not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti

154. This job isn't for everyone

155. Failure rolls uphill

156. Everything is too slow

157. Everything is too hard

158. #1
#1
#1 #1
#1
#1
#1
#1
#1
#1

159. The workload is infinite

160. #adulting

161. #adulting

162. If you succeed, it's because you have a great team

163. If you fail, it's because
you're a bad leader

164. From here to there

165. Learn constantly

166. Become an astute observer

167. Learn the job before you have the job

168. Get a mentor

169. Try pieces of the job

170. Lots more to Learn
Dividing responsibility
Driving change change
Strategy
Managing managers
When to get involved
Measurement
Dealing with adversity

171. "Only three things happen naturally in
organizations: friction, confusion, and
underperformance. Everything else
requires leadership."
Peter Drucker

173. IT YOU

175. The Art and Science of Product Metrics
May 30, 2018 – 6:30
Indeed Austin Headquarters
Donal McMahon
Head of Data Science
Ketan Gangatirkar
Job Seeker Engineering

176. The end

177. Questions?