Caution isn’t excellence; it’s drag. Retros won’t fix fear. Cut risk at the source, and your team stops tiptoeing and starts sprinting. I’m going to assume your team is holding regular retrospectives to learn from mistakes and successes. One major source of potential improvement that often goes unnoticed is recognizing fear and combating it. The […]
We’re all human, and to err is human. I can guarantee that you and your team will be making heaps of mistakes. However, I cannot say how much you’ll learn from them. Are you letting all those learning opportunities go to waste? A World of Difference Between the teams that utilize their errors and those […]
Knowledge and expertise are similar to capital. If you don’t make deposits regularly, you’ll miss out on most gains. Your team—and you—should be learning regularly, not just once a year during a “hackathon” or when things are on fire and demand learning rapidly. Let’s learn how the best teams learn. Learning Disorder Being able to […]
As tech leaders, we’re destined to always be in some sort of limbo when it comes to adopting new technologies and combating the hype cycle. You might as well learn how to manage this battle well. You cannot over-hype; that’s like consuming heaps of empty calories. Similarly, avoiding all novelty entirely will lead to innovation […]
Are you building a company or cosplaying success for others? Headcount, titles, splashy events, all used to signal that you’re doing good. Like a peacock strutting around, but for no real gain. Hustle till you burn out. Hire till you implode. All… useless. Who are you performing for? Losing What Matters In my work, I […]
A complaint I often hear from CEOs is that they feel as if their CTOs are confused and view themselves as some sort of engineers’ union leaders. That’s because tech leaders can get tunnel vision and overly emphasize a single way to compensate their people. With the best intentions, we find the easiest lever to […]
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether your boss sucks at providing feedback or whether you’ve found a great coach. It sure would help you make progress, but neither can do the work for you. How you take ownership of your growth will decide your career, and, really, how you spend your […]
Startups are a rollercoaster; we’ve all heard that clichĂ©. But what do you do when things get really ugly? The major outage, a security breach, a critical vendor that suddenly stops working, or a big tech company deciding to become your direct competitor? As a leader, how you react and manage yourself and the rest […]
At a certain point in junior high, I realized not everyone in class had to squint to see the blackboard. That’s when I asked my parents to get my eyes checked. I still remember the first time I stepped onto the street from the eyeglasses store. All of a sudden, trees weren’t just general green […]
Many ambitious eng leaders blame org charts and politics for their limited impact. It’s comforting to think that a lack of authority or a rigid hierarchy is the only thing keeping you from greater things. But far more often, the real barrier isn’t the organization. It’s the title on your business card, and how you […]