Manager OTG's Sunday Night Slack to #general, Annotated
The message arrived at 7:08 PM on a Sunday. Not 7:00 — which would be a number someone chose deliberately. Not 7:15 — which would suggest a person who respected the quarter-hour. 7:08 is the timestamp of a thought that could not wait twelve minutes but also did not require acting on at 6:55.
The channel was #general. Lumenwave has 204 Slack members. On weekday mornings it receives roughly fourteen messages. On Sunday evenings, it receives this.
What follows is that message, annotated.
Hey team 👋 — hopping into #general quickly to share some thoughts on our Q3 direction.
As you know, Q2 has been a really strong quarter in terms of momentum, and I wanted to make sure we're all heading into Q3 with the same strategic north star.
I'm going to drop a few bullets — not meant to be exhaustive, just a directional framing as we think about where we're focused.
Q3 Strategic Priorities — a few things to have top of mind:
- Continuing to invest in our customer success motion
- Deepening cross-functional alignment across teams
- Creating space for the team to be heard
- Owning outcomes, not just activities
- Being intentional about how we show up for each other
- Staying nimble as we scale
Anyway — just wanted to put that out there. Happy to dig in async or we can take it to the team sync Tuesday.
Hopping off for the night — hope everyone had a restful weekend! 🙏
Dana said something on Thursday that Manager OTG is still metabolizing. This message is the metabolization.
"Strategic north star" is a phrase that arrived in a Substack newsletter he opened on Saturday. It is, by Sunday evening, his phrase.
There are six bullets. He said "a few."
Continuing to invest in our customer success motion: Priya is the customer success motion. Manager OTG has a standing 15-minute with her that he attends 60% of the time.
Deepening cross-functional alignment across teams: There will be a meeting.
Creating space for the team to be heard: The last all-hands Q&A had four questions submitted. Manager OTG answered both of the non-anonymous ones.
Owning outcomes, not just activities: Greg has read this. He is working on a bug. He does not respond.
Being intentional about how we show up for each other: No further specification was provided at time of publication or thereafter.
Staying nimble as we scale: Every company says this at exactly this stage. Lumenwave is not the exception.
"It is Sunday at 7:08 PM. The team sync is 48 hours away. There is nothing to dig into."
That last line is not in the message. It is, however, implied.
🙏 🚀 👀
Forty-two seconds. Kyle is never not watching.
Love this framing! Very much in line with how we approached Q3 at [previous company]. Happy to share more context if it'd be helpful!
Marcus has been at Lumenwave for four months. "[Previous company]" appears in approximately three-quarters of his Slack messages since onboarding. The offer to share more context has been extended seven times. It has been taken up once, by accident, during a meeting Marcus was not originally scheduled to attend.
👍
Sarah's camera has been off for fourteen months. Her 👍 does what her camera won't — it registers that she was here, which is all anyone can confirm.
👍
Same emoji. Different weight entirely.
7:51 PM — No further messages.
The "dig in async" offer was not followed up on. The team sync happened Tuesday. Q3 priorities were not on the agenda — Manager OTG spent eleven of the forty-three minutes discussing a company he'd heard about on a podcast that had "really cracked the accountability thing."
Dana had sent her regrets at 7:02 PM Sunday. Six minutes before the message arrived.
The thread still lives in #general. Scroll far enough and you'll find it. Kyle's three-emoji cluster is the most-reacted post in the channel that week.
Greg's 👍 is below the fold.