Steve

Before you make your 2024 goals…

Resolutions don’t work. There, I said it. And yet, I’m a firm believer in setting goals. But one of the reason new year’s resolutions usually don’t last is that we’re too focused on a behavior we want to change. We don’t do the hard work on the internal transformation that makes that change sustainable. For…
An abridged gratitude list

Last year, I decided that 2023 would be my year for connection and community. What an amazing group of people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this year. I am sincerely grateful for impact this year from these people, organizations, and resources I met this year: – Active In Tech (now The Wellness Collective)– Apollo.io– ATL Tech Meetup– CCNI…
You will get in trouble

Hobson’s choice … the “no-win” scenario. Stay in leadership long enough, and you’ll face it. 🤔 Delay the release, or deploy an embarrassing defect? 🤔 Miss which commitment? The one to your boss or the one to your client? 🤔 Honor whose technology preference? Your boss’s, or your star team member’s? Don’t get me wrong.…
Is your goal really your goal?

Did you know “Five Whys” can work in reverse? When you’re trying to find the “most rootest” of root causes for a situation or problem, the Five Whys technique is an excellent tool to help you see past the surface level symptoms. For each cause you uncover to explain why something happened, you’re invited to…
The best leaders don’t always win

I must disagree with a well-respected leadership expert. Referring to what he called “the greatest leaders,” John Maxwell made a claim in chapter 15 (“The Law of Victory”) in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. He wrote, “I think victorious leaders have one thing in common: they share an unwillingness to accept defeat.” On the…
Sometimes the box is hard to think out of

(Blank stare) “I have no idea…” When you’ve been facing a challenge for any meaningful length of time, that’s often your response when you’re asked what you want to try next. In a coaching conversation, it’s also the reaction when a coach jumps too quickly from identifying goals to choosing actions or next steps. One…
An idea is a dangerous thing when it’s the only one you have

“Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, … Aim …” You can’t bring yourself to pull the trigger on your new initiative. It’s not that you haven’t prepared. In fact, you may have already overprepared. But you’re still not sure that the idea is a sound one. You’re afraid it might fail. And you’re facing FOFO – the…
They buy in to you before they buy in to your vision

You finally got responsibility for the team you need to make a difference. You have a vision for a much better future, and now you need your new team to buy in. But they probably won’t. At least not yet. Unless you’ve been around a while and already built relationships with them. John Maxwell explains…
Surge and Rest

Sloppy quotations lead to bad advice. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Despite numerous citations, there’s no evidence Abraham Lincoln actually said that. And the original quote referenced minutes, not hours. That’s a significant and relevant difference! The change in the quotation over…
Feedback is not about the past

“WoooeeeeeeeeEEEEP!” That’s the sound that introduced the term “feedback” to our vocabulary, and it wasn’t pleasant. A microphone picked up a sound live, and the speaker fed that same sound back into the microphone until it became a deafening squeal. And a repeated focus on the past drives a similarly unpleasant experience in the feedback…
Sometimes the manual way is the best way

“This is so tedious. I should automate it!” has been a recurring thought for me these past couple of weeks. And if you’re a software-engineer-turned-leader, or even just one who works adjacent to software engineers, you’ve certainly faced the same pull. But even the most repetitive, brain-numbing tasks aren’t always good candidates for automation. Here…
When leadership means cutting loose

Big, bold, expensive initiatives sometimes fail. Mine did. I was a young leader trying to make a difference in a new parent company after an acquisition. I had learned the new company’s core development platform. I had also heard many challenges reported by other developers and project managers as they managed the nuances of different…