Don’t mistake the lack of your pet solution as the problem itself
Start with the history before you look at solutions.
Get creative about assuming best intent
It’s hard to give someone the benefit of the doubt when the doubt isn’t obvious.
What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker
Does the old saying have it wrong, or am I over-extrapolating from this one very specific study?
“At my last company…”
Ever been annoyed by someone who kept saying how things were done at their last job? It’s the worst, right?
The drift to low performance
Our goals erode over time because they’re set relative to our worst performance rather than our best.
Face the webcam for video calls
If you’re on a video call but you’re looking at a different monitor, it’s easy for people to assume you aren’t engaged.
The actual playing time of sports
A football game takes over 3 hours but only has 11 minutes of action. That’s wild.
Wait a bit, then answer with a link
I thought these two tips from the post “Unusual tips to keep Slack from becoming a nightmare” were pretty great.
6 months of podcasting
You could take a respectable cross-country road trip and only listen to our stupid voices spouting nonsense at you.
Stay Interviews (the opposite of Exit Interviews)
Exit Interviews ask why people are leaving, and Stay Interviews ask why they keep working here.
Hey managers, give your people what you want your boss to give you
“As a general rule, whatever you’re thinking you’d like from your boss, it’s likely that your directs want the same thing from you.”
Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness!
In this week’s episode of “are you actually serious right now Critter?” I need to come clean about the fact that I’ve never understood what it means to be mindful.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
I first heard this said by Jacqueline Novogratz on a podcast, but apparently that quote has been around the block.
So what?
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say ‘so what.’ That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.”
– Andy Warhol
If you keep your options open, you may end up with nothing but a lot of options
If the only way to make progress is to commit to something, then commit to something.
“Shields down” is BS
I’ve learned a lot from the writing of Rands. But I couldn’t disagree more with his Shields Down post.
Don’t take ANYTHING personally, even good stuff
This is one of agreements from The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. He argues that anything anyone says about you is really about themselves.
I’m going to die, and so are you
What a privilege to be alive and thrive.
What a privilege to have a pulse and die.
Do I really want feedback, or just permission?
Asking for permission sucks and I’m going to stop pretending that’s not what I’ve been doing.
Planned ignoring
Apparently this is a parenting term, which is funny since I’m a parent of four kids who first heard it on a management podcast.
Build plans around people, not the other way around
Don’t build a plan and then fill it in with people like cars in a parking lot.
Negativity is preening
There’s a fine line between pointing out risks vs. being a naysayer. One is helping people move forward, the other is holding people back.
“Resistance increases exponentially with the size of a change.”
If you want to make big changes (whether they’re organizational, personal, professional, whatever) then split them up into teeny tiny little pieces.
Good manager, bad leader
Is passion for the problem space a requirement for good leadership? Or maybe the thing that makes a leader good is the ability to tap into passion on demand?
What are you good at?
“People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”
Death to the word “expert”
It’s a garbage word because it’s too vague to be meaningful. People use it to mean anything from “not a newbie” to “the best in the world.”
The art of booking a meeting just to force you to do a thing
In this week’s edition of guerrilla productivity, let’s sneakily use other people to get stuff done!
My two golden end-of-1-on-1 questions
I’ve started asking these two questions at the end of every 1-1 that involved any kind of coaching.
A template for writing a team plan
Try filling this out for your team, and if there are any that don’t have clear answers, then work on that!
Never create a policy because of one person
Whenever the actions of one person prompt a team-wide (or, worse, org-wide) policy, it’s usually because someone’s avoiding giving uncomfortable feedback.
You have to standardize before you can standardize
Don’t call something the standard until it’s already become the standard.
Strong relationships built over video calls – impossible?
I heard someone claim that you can’t have real connections with someone when they’re a square on your screen.
Virtual or blurred backgrounds in video calls are a tradeoff
I’m not saying nobody should ever use them. I’m saying we shouldn’t take for granted that you don’t lose any value.
Future-you will be as busy as current-you
Stop planning to do this or that when you aren’t as busy as you are right now.
People can’t change, so what’s the point of coaching?
And why do we care so much about giving feedback? And why the frick are we wasting so much time with our people on personal development?
Why don’t Computer Science degrees teach Software Engineering?
Professors don’t have the time to completely rewrite their course materials every year.
The perks of social anxiety
Most positives have their negatives, and most negatives have their positives.
Color-coded calendars
Now I can see at a glance where my days are going! And I can group related meetings together easier! And it’s colorful!
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