My first piece of advice to all new managers is: “Schedule one-on-ones with direct reports, keep them on the same day and time, and never cancel them.” With this in mind, some of the trickiest transitions for me during the day are when these one-on-ones show up. I’m deep in some problem, writing a specification, answering a critical e-mail, and this person walks in my office and they want to talk about I don’t know what . . . I’m working in the zone here, people. In the brief second I try to figure out some way to reschedule this meeting, I remind myself of a simple rule, “You will always
...more
