How I built my support crew - and why you also need one
True story
In early 2019 I’ve been working at Facebook for 8 years.
I moved through offices and roles, but largely remained on the same growth organization, building Facebook product for emerging markets.
I’ve seen the project I initially led going from 8 people to 100, but I didn’t grow with it, I remained an engineering manager and external leaders were brought in to manage me.
I was just not ready to step up. My leadership skills were not good enough.
In end of year performance review, my manager told me two transformational things:
I’m looking burned out
Maybe being an engineering manager in Facebook just isn’t a good for me. If I could grow at Facebook I would already grow - I had the opportunities.
This has devastated me, it made me question my competence and killed any confidence I had in my skills as a leader and manager.
It also led me to action, I started by googling burnout and immediately used the list of symptoms to diagnose myself with burnout.
I then scrolled down to the prevention and treatment part [it might have been this article] and remember two suggestions I would adopt and implement:
“Turn to other people”
“Take time off“
Taking time off was the easy part, my wife and I were expecting our 3rd baby and Facebook’s 4 month paid parental leave was coming, just in time 🙌
Turning to other people was the harder thing to do, and the bigger change I made. I decided I need a support crew - not sure where this came from, but a support crew is what I built.
Setting up a support crew
The first member of my support crew was my wife. I was always sharing things that happened at work with my wife, but this wasn’t intentional as it should have been. I started by sharing the talk I had with my manager and continued to keep her updated about the bigger things and concerns I have.
The second and only paid crew member was my coach Dan Arad. I started talking to him while I was in parental leave and been working with him ever since.
The larger crew
The rest of my support crew are friends and past colleagues, the contract is simple
We meet regularly once a month for a coffee / beer / lunch
I intentionally speak about my half-baked thoughts.
I share how things are going and what feedback I got.
I talk about the most difficult and important things I’m working on.
This may sound trivial and I’m guessing some people already do that with their friends. I didn’t, and that is why this is such a big deal for me.
The best thing about my support crew is THEY ARE ALWAYS ON MY SIDE.
The fact that I can bounce my thoughts and get some friendly advice, on a regular basis is insanely valuable.
Discussions are free flowing we speak about things that are on both our minds. We usually don’t spend the entire time speaking about myself.
I trust the crew to tell me when I’m making a mistake.
How do I know the support crew works?
The last two years of my career were amazing, I moved from Facebook to a startup. I moved from being burned out to being highly recognized in the new place and feeling great. I built my leadership skills and feel like I’m doing the best job of my career.
Recently I decided to move on to a new adventure and start my own company with a partner from my support crew.
During all that time, the support crew members have been listening, advising and keeping my back, and for that I’m very grateful.