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

2.
A brief history of my time (at Indeed)

3.
2009
Individual contributor

4.
2012
4 direct reports
1 office

5.
2015
25 direct reports
3 offices

6.
2018
4 direct reports…

7.
2018
4 direct reports…
135+ indirect reports
6 locations worldwide

8.
Understand the job

9.
Your job is not to build a product

10.
Your job is to build an organization
that builds a product.
Kris Gale
former VP of Engineering at Yammer (paraphrased)

11.
What's the difference?

12.
Laughing at taco jokes

13.
Making taco jokes

14.
Running a joqueria

15.
Franchising joqueriasRunning a chain of joquerias

16.
Truths that stop being true

17.
Your team
Your product
What's going on
What's going to happen
As a manager, you know...

18.
You know your team

19.
? ? ?

20.
?
? ? ? ??
? ? ? ?
? ? ?
???
?
? ?
? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ?? ?
?
??
?
?? ?
?
?

21.
You know your product

22.
“The execs in my review were out of touch with
[the] state of my product and were making
suggestions that were not entirely relevant.”

23.
“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

24.
You know what’s going on

25.
You will become
thoroughly ignorant
of important things

26.
Your life is predictable

27.
90% normal, 10% unusual

28.
Leader lyf
10% routine, 90% unexpected
10% normal, 90% unusual

29.
"A high probability of low
probability events"

30.
Understand your organization

31.
Coping with ignorance

32.
Ask basic questions
Sometimes it's good not to know too much

33.
Ask basic questions

34.
What are the pros and cons?

35.
What's the worst that could happen?

36.
How hard would it be
to make it 10% better?

37.
What's the backup plan?

38.
=

39.
Challenge "impossible"

40.
"Couldn't we just…?"

41.
"Couldn't we just…?"

42.
"Couldn't we just…?"

43.
What matters
+
What's practical

44.
Get the information you need

45.
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 ͈̖̀

46.
Skip levels

47.
Occasional private meeting with indirect reports

48.
Being "available" is not enough
Being "available" is not enough

49.
People don't enter open doors

50.
"Deko is busy"

51.
"He has more important things to do"

52.
"I don't want to bother him"

53.
Go to people

54.
Their location
Their schedule
Their convenience

55.
No relationship
Undermines
their manager
How often?
Just right

56.
Starting the conversation

57.
"This isn't the only time we can meet.
Feel free to reserve time on my calendar."

58.
"You can always send me an email. I can't
always respond quickly, but I'll respond."

59.
"If I forget something I owe you,
you can remind me."

60.
"If it's important to you, it's
a good use of my time."

61.
Focus on them

62.
"What do you want to talk about?"

63.
"How do you like your work?"

64.
"How do you like your team?"

65.
"What advice do you have for your manager?"

66.
"Do you understand your purpose and our strategy?"

67.
"Are you happy with your direction?"

68.
Ask for feedback

69.
"How am I doing?"

70.
"How would you like things to be different?"

71.
"Are there areas where I could do better?"

72.
"How do you think the organization is doing?"

73.
"What should I pay more attention to?"

74.
Listen more than you talk

75.
Listen more than you talk
Let them drive

76.
Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change

77.
Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change
Be friendly

78.
Listen more than you talk
Let them drive
Don’t commit to change
Be friendly
Don't argue

79.
Hear the message behind the words

80.
I'm unhappy

81.
I don’t like my manager

82.
I don’t understand

83.
I feel stuck

84.
Look for...
Uncomfortable body language
Terse answers
Equivocating
Lack of eye contact
Changing the subject

85.
Bad news

86.
You want bad news

87.
You want bad news Don't go praising for fish

88.
Bad news is good news It means people are comfortable

89.
Getting just good news Is bad news

90.
Lead your organization

91.
Why people should do things

92.
Why people should do things

93.
Delegate

94.
You should only see tough decisions

95.
True delegation
Goals
Constraints
Authority

96.
What can they do?
1 Without your action?
2 Without your permission?
3 Without your knowledge?

97.
Expect them to do things differently

98.
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

99.
Discovering what to change

100.
Three categories of organizational performance
01 Results 02 Effectiveness 03 Health

101.
01 Results
Complete
On time
On budget
Quality

102.
02 Effectiveness
Speed
Predictability
Efficiency
Capacity

103.
03 Health
Continuous Improvement
Happiness
Organizational Growth
Professional Growth
Satisfaction

104.
Make fixes

105.
Avoid leadership by editing
10 Ask for work
20 Get work
30 Review work
40 Request improvements
50 GOTO 20

106.
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

107.
Correction after means bad guidance before

108.
Intervention is addictive

109.
Monkey patching your org

110.
If it's wrong, figure out why it seems right

111.
Everything anyone does makes sense to them

112.
Root Causes
Skills
Information
Priorities
People
Your leadership

113.
Drive change

114.
Every organization can be better

115.
Change ahead of need

116.
If everyone sees the need,
you waited too long

117.
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

118.
Figure out your message

119.
Make it simple

120.
Adapt the message to the time, place,
audience, and situation

121.
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?

122.
What the job is like

123.
You will constantly be failing

124.
Need = ∞
Capacity < ∞

125.
There are few easy days

126.
“It doesn't get easier.
You just go faster.”
Greg Lemond

127.
There are no normal days

128.
✔ 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

129.
Beware side effects

130.
With great power…

131.
Comes bad aim

132.
"Shouldn't" replaces "can't"
Morale
Politics
Boundaries
Unpredictable consequences

133.
Less freedom and less control
Constraints increase faster than power

134.
Your words have weight

135.
What you can get done

136.
5%

137.
20%

138.
“If everything seems under control,
you're not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti

139.
This job isn't for everyone

140.
Failure rolls uphill

141.
Everything is too slow

142.
Everything is too hard

143.
#1
#1
#1 #1
#1
#1
#1
#1
#1
#1

144.
The workload is infinite

145.
#adulting

146.
#adulting

147.
If you succeed, it's because you have a great team

148.
If you fail, it's because
you're a bad leader

149.
From here to there

150.
Learn constantly

151.
Become an astute observer

152.
Learn the job before you have the job

153.
Get a mentor

154.
Try pieces of the job

155.
Lots more to Learn
Dividing responsibility
Driving change change
Strategy
Managing managers
When to get involved
Measurement
Dealing with adversity

156.
"Only three things happen naturally in
organizations: friction, confusion, and
underperformance. Everything else
requires leadership."
Peter Drucker

157.
IT YOU

158.
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

159.
The end

160.
Questions?