One of the top five most important things senior leadership do is decide who gets promoted. There is no test, no ranking, no process that can take the place of deep knowledge of the individual and their strengths, weaknesses, and potential to determine their ability for a future role. Mark Horstman, Things I Think I… Continue reading Promoting a Top Responsibility
Month: April 2015
Book Notes: Heroku Up and Running
Notes on the book Heroku Up and Running.
Pretend you’re not afraid
“As he started out into the maze, Haw looked back to where he had come from and felt its comfort. He could feel himself being drawn back into familiar territory, even though he hadn’t found cheese there in some time. Haw became more anxious and wondered if he really wanted to go out into the… Continue reading Pretend you’re not afraid
Face the Uneven Dozen
After a couple of months as a manager I had my feet under me enough to look forward to the annual review cycle. The department had raises tied to the review cycle. Deciding how to portion out raises is critical. My time as a developer had done little to prepare me for it. I anticipated that at… Continue reading Face the Uneven Dozen
quitting often better than heroics
A lot of times it’s better to be a quitter than a hero. “For example, let’s say you think a task can be done in two hours. But four hours into it you’re still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think, ‘but I can’t give up now! I’ve already spent… Continue reading quitting often better than heroics
Keeping Your Team from Burnout
An intern at Novell my first manager told me stories of his experiences with burn-out as an intern for IBM. He loved his work and put in extreme hours. Then one day couldn’t put his hands on a keyboard.
Allison Davis’ article How to Keep You and Your Team from Burning Out gives 6 actionable recommendations for protecting your team.
I’ve experienced burn out. Coworkers I respect have, too. Yet, I hesitate to write about it. It’s squishy. But it is real.
I’m not alone. At NGConf Igor Minar (Angular core team) spoke tentatively about his own struggles with burnout. His talk about mindfulness came just after my own exposure to it in a lecture series on the workings of the brain. Mindfulness is a great tool that studies have shown effective at managing stress and improving mental wellbeing.
Read Davis’ article.
My quick advice is:
Remove heroics from your list of options
Get it done in normal time with normal effort. Don’t do heroics. Don’t ask for it from your team.