Author: Steve
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How much “Deep Work” is enough?
Two days ago I mentioned how the kind of valuable work that demands deep focus changes as you advance in your career – even along a purely technical track. It’s easy to get the idea that this “Deep Work” is the only valuable work that you do, and that’s not true. I hear people say,…
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Deep Work Becomes Shallow
When you were an engineer, much of the value you offered your organization was the result of the deep work of creating technical pieces that worked and met the requirements of those who defined expectations. Early in your career, creating those technical pieces wouldn’t happen unless you were able to reach what some call a…
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Promoters, Passives, and Protestors
Whenever you have a change to implement in your company, different people are going to have different opinions of that change. The standard Net Promoter Score categorizes people as Promoters, Passive, and Detractors. In the workplace, I like to call then Promoters, Passives, and Protestors. The detractors may not be holding signs and picketing, but…
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The Problem is the System
Very popular these days is the idea of a “blameless post-mortem.” After all, as Dr. Paul Batalden liked to remind us, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Don’t blame the people; blame the system. I am all for blameless postmortems. When performed honestly, they offer the kind of psychological safety…
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How can I make it worse?
Many times over my leadership career, I struggled with misaligned incentives. Development teams were rewarded for publishing new features rapidly, while IT operations teams were rewarded for uptime and stability. Leaders who were too busy to participate in long-running strategic discussions felt ignored when decisions were made without their input. Team leaders would debate fiercely…
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Success vs. Growth
As an engineer who would do anything to make sure my product worked, and as a manager who would do anything to make sure my team’s project succeeded, I was taken aback by something my boss told me when I began leading other leaders. “Steve,” he said, “sometimes you need to let your direct report…
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Training, Delegating, Empowering, Supporting
As a manager, you have many tools at your disposal to help your team members grow. But just like physical tools, when you force fit the wrong tool to the wrong use, you can end up doing more harm than good. By way of illustration, I’d like to look at four specific tools today. And…
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The Leader as Elicitor
When I first became a manager, I was so excited that I’d finally have the authority to make sure my brilliance – which the company obviously recognized by promoting me – would finally prevail in decisions that we needed to make. It took me longer than I wish for me to realize that good decisions…
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Kindling Workplace Warmth
When I was younger, I was annoying, arrogant, and socially inept. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with everybody around me and why nobody wanted to be friends with me. I asked for advice on what I could do to make people like me, and I got generic advice that basically told me to…
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It Pays To Be Likeable
First, a caveat. One of the big downfalls for many leaders is becoming too consumed with wanting people to like you. That’s definitely a danger. But some technical experts go too far the other way and count on their superior skills alone to do all the heavy lifting in the growth of their career. They…
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Processing a Corporate Seismic Shift
A couple of days ago, I talked about how to oppose a decision that goes against your organization’s core values. But what if the decision is deliberately to make some fundamental change to the values, mission, purpose, or identity of your company? What if the decision is as significant as Netflix abandoning DVDs in favor…
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“That’s not who we are.”
You’re in an executive leadership meeting and someone just proposed an idea that you’re convinced is a huge mistake. It will send the company in a new direction that you’re certain will lead to disaster. Unfortunately, whoever’s making the proposal seems to present an apparently logical case with rosy predictions for its success. Still, your…