Managing teams through change at Twitter
The day the skies turned orange in San Francisco (2020).
I relocated to the US in 2020 three weeks before the pandemic started, completely unaware of what was ahead of me. As any people manager would say, companies experienced a lot of attrition over the pandemic. Within a couple months, the team I relocated to manage was completely gone, whether due to reorganization, moving back home or burnout from the relentless news cycle. At the time, Curators faced 24/7 coverage of COVID-19, the 2020 elections and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations around police violence in the US.
While change and uncertainty is tough, it ended up being one of the biggest periods of growth of my career. I rehired and onboarded an entire new team of Curators in San Francisco, LA Seattle and Phoenix, and it was one of the strongest teams I’ve been a part of.
Something that was very important to me was creating a sense of psychological safety on the team. Companies talk about “resilience” all the time but I always felt like this put so much of the burden on employees with the underlying message that if you’re struggling “you need to build tools to be more resilient.” Sometimes there are things employers can also do to ensure there are better guardrails and safety nets. Here are some of the things I’ve prioritized on my team:
Clear and honest communication. It sounds simple, but working remotely means messages and communication can fall through the cracks and it’s all the more important to keep things in writing. Having daily stand-ups in our team’s channel helped people get on the right foot when they started in the morning.
Creating working agreements. I asked everyone on my team to create a personal working agreement where they could share their working style, communication preferences and general schedule. These were reviewed quarterly and a part of every team member’s developmental goals. This setup personally gave me the confidence to leave a little early on Tuesdays to take my daughter to swim class — and doing this set an example for my team that they could prioritize things that were important to them too.
Carving out space for career development. Whatever stage someone is at in their career, having regular and honest conversations can help with engagement and retain some of the most talented people — even if it means branching out to a different part of the organization. In my weekly 1:1 template I always ensured we talked about development by asking what’s one thing they did for development each week (whether it was having a xfn conversation, taking a course or reading an article).
Making space for fun during work time. As fun as social events are, when they’re after work you’re asking someone to give up time with their family. I believe social time should be prioritized and tailored to the needs of the time (cadence, in person vs virtual) but that it should also be optional as forced fun is not fun.
Be human. At the end of the day just be human. Lead with empathy and compassion. Truly understanding a person’s unique situation can help you determine the best way to support them: Whether that’s more challenging projects or time off.
