I’m going to allow myself to talk about this problem because I was once one of these precious snowflake engineers. Acting like a snowflake hurts everyone involved. In my work with tech executives, I see this originating from sympathizing too much with your staff or a tendency to put your people on a pedestal because […]
Any person that cares about coaching has to be familiar with the concept of a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset. When I first heard about it years ago, I had a genuine eureka moment—it instantly made me know myself better and realize how different issues in my past related to my mindset. […]
Over the past weeks, I’ve had a lot of talks, webinars, and podcast interviews (the launch of The Tech Executive Operating System is going well, thanks for asking!). I often talk about the magic that happens when you incorporate regular innovation into your team’s schedule. Unsurprisingly, I notice the same sorts of objections again and […]
CTOs and VPEs tend to come from a technical background, naturally. That means that some patterns of thought have been engraved in their mind. Sometimes those act like superpowers. For example, the critical thinking skills you gained learning how to debug a production issue effectively and pinpoint the culprit rapidly can often be translated to […]
Having had the opportunity to work with dozens of teams and companies globally, I’ve spent quite some time considering what seems to set the best ones apart. Given that my personal mission is to create world-class engineering teams, knowing how to achieve that is a prerequisite to reliably replicating them. I believe that the extraordinary […]
I’ve been enamored with writing code since I was nine years old. I still view it as somewhat like sci-fi: we type on our keyboards, and things happen. However, we are prone to committing a mistake here and treat code not as a means to an end but an end. I posit that we become […]
One of the hottest terms among tech leaders nowadays seems to be the “scale-up.” You’re no longer a mere startup. They’re relatively easy to identify, as these are companies where all managers are occupied with maintaining the breakneck hiring pace. There’s nothing necessarily bad about achieving this phase. In fact, many times, that’s the right […]
Every person has a different propensity regarding taking risks and the associated anxiety or excitement. You might be wholly risk-averse or get a thrill out of trying something out. Further, it is common to have a certain risk-aversion in some areas in your life and a completely different take in others. For example, I know […]
We all know that creating a team filled with code monkeys is a bad thing. Paying a small fortune for engineers to merely follow precise orders doesn’t make sense, and most of them object to being micromanaged and being deprived of any autonomy. Your intent is to form an engineering team that has ownership and […]
The best tech leaders I’ve seen and who remain remarkable over the years are those who are never “done.” They evolve, learn, experiment, and change their minds routinely. The constant need to undergo personal growth is both the most fascinating thing about leadership and a source of anxiety and fatigue. It can feel like a […]