rumon-readme

Why?

The idea behind this repository is to provide a "how-to handbook" for working with me. Its hope and intent is to be helpful, providing folx with self-serve access to things like bios as well as insights into my motivations, preferences and ideosyncrasies. By definition, none of us can be objective about ourselves, so while I've tried to provide an honest account of myself, I've also augmented the materials with direct, unedited inputs from my teammates. If you're one of those and you find anything missing here, at odds with your experience, or otherwise indicative of a glaring blindspot of mine, please lend me - and others! - a hand and submit a pull request to make it better. Also, with credit to Cassie for pointing this out in her blog post about embarking on a similar exercise, it bears noting that I'm setting this out with full knowledge that not all my needs and preferences can be met - nor do I expect them to be - but I nonetheless think there's value in making them explicit for those I work with. Last introductory point: Credit where due, along with Cassie and a handful of others who've produced/discussed "Instruction Manuals for Oneself" and the ilk, this is modeled after GitLab's CEO Handbook. My hope at time of writing is that any organization I lead for a sufficient amount of time will ultimately put in place a broader handbook/guide such as GitLab's. In respect of the Exchange Lab, which I co-founded and led between 2018 and 2021, you can find that work in progress here.

Bio

Rumon works for the Government of British Columbia as the Executive Director of the Exchange Lab, where it is his job to support the creation, cultivation and continuous learning of teams enabled and equipped to solve some of the most complex problems facing the province today. Outside government, Rumon is fiercely passionate about connecting people to the outdoors, to movement, to one another, and to the best versions of themselves. A writer, photographer, biologist and lawyer, he does so through advocacy, stories, coaching and community-building. His fiercest passions, though, are his partner, Jennie, and her two girls.

This is a short bio (97 words) intended for conference agenda, etc. If you're looking for a more substantial version, you can find that here (link TBA). Alternately, the full gamut of my professional background and work-related updates can be found on LinkedIn.

Core Values

Many years ago, during a time of transition and career uncertaintly for me, a friend of mine - my teammate in many multi-day mountain bike races and other adventures - who had his executive coaching certitification offered to run me through an evening of values-based decision-making coaching. He started by confronting me with a full page of value descriptors, directing me to pick first a top-25 list, then pare it down to ten, then five, then three. I found it at once challenging and instructive, honing in on the values that I felt had the greatest impact on how I navigated through my life. All these years later, I recognize that some of the values I selected for my long list that night were more indicative of aspirational values, values I wished I espoused at that point in my life, rather than values that I actually held and expressed. However, those at my core have deviated little, though I have grown to understand and consider them with greater nuance.

Entertainingly, based on those three most-core of my values, I'm a pretty average person, given they're essentially a version of the same three things that Daniel Pink observes, in his book Drive, motivate us all (acknowledging that values and motivations are not necessarily synonymous or congruent in each of us): Purpose, Autonomy & Mastery. I set out below each of those core values as I consider them, as well as a handful of others that exist one ring outside my values bullseye. In addition, I describe how I see these values showing up in mysely, my actions and decisions in the workplace.

Virtues

[Virtues vs. Values] A note on nested virtues. Note that these are my (ideal) values and are not, per se, expected of my teams. Not listed in any particular order.

• Manifest the change you want to see in the world Extreme ownership here.
• Show up with your whole self. Vulnerability, Brene, there's no work-life. Unless you can't. Then take a break (see next).
• Take care of your whole self.
• Maintain a growth - and beginnner's - mindset.
• Walk ten miles in others' shoes. Empathy. Not doing the de minimus (a single mile).
• Take care of your team Defined broadly - including potential future team members. Foster psychological safety.
• Focus relentlessly on the right things.Identify core vs. context and focus on the former.
• Use your power to elevate others.

Rules

Note: These are rules for myself. Others on my teams may choose to model them also, but are not required to do so.

Take care of the team. Sub: Requires taking care of yourself

Go first, go positive.

Radiate your intent. Fulfill your commitments.

Be early. Sub: Self-management.

Pointers from Previous Direct Reports

1. Rumon will always have your back. Rumon cares about his team above all else. He will almost literally go to war, run through walls or work all night for his people. If you have a pressing issue that you can’t move forward on, don’t be afraid to escalate it to Rumon with a clear suggestion on how he can help address it.
2. Rumon is intense. Rumon is among the most intense people you’ll ever work with. For context, he’s competed at the national or international level at several endurance sports (biathlon, cross-country skiing, triathlon, rowing, mountain biking, road cycling, marathons, ultra marathons, etc.). He applies the same level of intensity it takes to win at that level of sport to his work, working tirelessly to achieve results under challenging conditions. Accept this, use it to drive forward on tough issues, but don’t let it guilt you into thinking this level of intensity is expected of you. It’s not.
3. Rumon is radically transparent. Rumon is radically transparent with his staff, especially his direct reports. His team will be the first to know about major strategy/policy/staffing changes. In return, he expects complete confidentiality from his team. For some people, this level of transparency can be stressful at times.
4. Rumon believes in agentic leadership. He empowers staff at all levels with full autonomy to solve tough problems and deliver on their files. He expects his direct reports to run their own operations (finances, HR, procurement, etc.), but will always be there if you need support or top cover.
5. Rumon is most effective when he’s not sitting behind a desk. Minimize the amount of time he spends doing minute tasks like poring over financials or approving documents, and maximize the time he spends creating, problem-solving, presenting, story telling, negotiating and influencing. He also deeply appreciates those who are stellar at detailed and administratively essential work.
6. Rumon sometimes communicates at a grade 19 level. Rumon trained as a lawyer, and sometimes lapses into using complex sentence structures and words you may have to look up in the dictionary. This is especially true when he’s in a hurry or working late at night. It’s completely normal to have to look the odd word up, ask him what he means by an expression or acronym, or request that he run through Hemingway a document that reads more like a PhD thesis than a briefing note.
7. Little things, and good design, delight Rumon. A well communicated, nicely formatted communication will elicit a kudos from Rumon. He will be giddy over a document or presentation that has nicely balanced images. Rumon values engaging communication, the consistent use of simple fonts (BC Sans or Myriad Pro) throughout a document, and generally, care and attention being paid to the experience of the people his team is engaging, enabling or serving.
8. Rumon needs help staying organized. On a typical day, Rumon will engage with dozens of people across multiple complex files. One of the few things that stresses him out is losing sight of important tasks. His team needs to have disciplined systems for administrative tasks like filing records or logging action items. Without these systems in place, he’ll focus all of his time addressing urgent issues, and routine tasks may slide. The best channels to reach him are mobile (for ASAP responses) and Teams (for same day responses). Rumon’s email inbox is chronically broken.
9. Rumon will attempt to organize and create process when he is stressed out. His preferred state is to be ready to act on work to do and to make decisions. He’s highly effective at this, but like all of us, has a different state when he is stressed. If his team or environment is not sufficiently organized, and there are high stakes or sub-optimal working conditions, he will start to reorganize the LAN. It is highly advised you prevent this from happening.
10. Rumon will be quiet when he gets to the next order of stress. Rumon cares deeply about the people he works with and actively engages and trusts them implicitly. He’s also very contributory in nearly every situation. However, after his attempts to reorganize the LAN, and if the stress levels up, you’ll notice he will disengage. He is taking time to untangle the situation and attempting not to cause damage with his intensity. Rumon can de-escalate from this state if he has an opportunity to recharge in nature. He also values candor and genuine attempts from his direct reports to actively solve the problems that might be causing the stress, if that is possible.
11. Rumon is a strong ally for those with unrealized potential and a desire to contribute. He is passionate about equality, inclusivity, and creating conditions for all of us to address systemic barriers and our own biases that get in the way of these values. You will notice him doing this openly himself. He puts his growth mindset on display. He also expects this mindset from his direct reports and nearly everyone he engages. There is no limit to the success the team, organization, or community he leads can have when this growth and potential is unleashed. He’s had great success doing this in a variety of settings and will not accept any excuses for perpetuating limitations to the greatness any of his team members might achieve. The only condition is that people show up to contribute generously with situational awareness, courage, empathy and humility, as best they can.

Communication

When it comes to work, there is nothing I enjoy and value more than a vigorous, generative discussion among 2-6 contributing participants - in-person, on our feet, likely huddled around a whiteboard. That said, for a variety of reasons - not least, most recently, the pandemic and how it has driven us into a distributed, work-from-anywhere context - this is an increassingly rare experience for me. I miss those times, but as per my family's motto, I make the best with what's presented. Generally, that shakes out as the following options for communicating, which I hash out in this section (and in a separate subsequent section specific to scheduled meetings):

1. Scheduled meeting;
2. Process tracking tools (e.g. eApprovals)
3. Persistent publications (e.g. blogs, wikis, weeknotes, the intranet);
4. Email;
5. Microsoft Teams (subcategories: (a) channels, and (b) chat);
6. Text (mobile phone); and
7. Ad hoc real-time conversation (Teams / phone calls).

Before digging into those specifics, though, a few general points about the purposes of communication, and my preferences and peculiarities in its regard.

One could argue the finer details of this, but for the purposes here let's set out five categorical purposes of communication: to inform (informative communication), to express feelings (affective communication), to imagine (imaginative communication), to influence (persuasive communication), and to meet social expectations (ritualistic communication). Aguably, each of these arises in the professional communications context as much as in our daily lives outside work; additionally, one can also argue that each form of communication lends itself better or worse to various forms and channels of communication. For example, admitting the bias of my preference expressed above, I think we can probably all agree that a series of reply-all emails among a group of 20 is not the most effective channel for engaging in imaginative communication.

Applying this to our work in government, we could identify the following reasons for internal communication (i.e. leaving aside public communications, promulgation of policy, etc.):

• Documenting decisions and records;
• Making decisions;
• Creating / iterating on documents, content, etc.;
• Sharing information (noting varying degrees of formality and audience size, as well as constraints re: type of information that can be shared on various channels); and
• Social / informal connection.

Intersecting our purposes for communication with our available means of communication in government, tuning for a desire to maximize effectiveness and minimize context shifting, I've landed on the following personal preferences for how and when to use communication channels.

Communication Channel Preferences

According to channel:

• LAN: Not really a communications channel *per se*, but for documenting decisions and the formal filing of final versions of information, briefing materials, etc. this is the go-to spot, with ORCS/ARCS applied as required.
• eApprovals: As is surely manifestly clear I love *purposeful, effective* process, i.e. process that serves, supports and accelerates effectiveness. (Correspondingly, I disdain process for its own sake, or as a risk- or decision-avoidance hedge.) eApprovals, while an imperfect tool, serves an important purpose of tracking and contributing to the documentation of government decisions and information records. In the absence of anything better, I'm a fan. That said, it should be used at the end of a content creation process, i.e. only final version candidate / decision-ready documents should be loaded into eApps - for the generation and iteration processes, use true collaboration tools (per below).
• Email: