Leadership
Japanese vs. Western models of decision making
I was reading a book about The Toyota Way last year (sorry, can’t remember which) and something that stuck with me was a section on Japanese versus Western decision making*. The diagram was something like this: The crux of it is, Japanese companies like Toyota spend more time preparing...
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Can you quantify trust?
In a previous article, commenter Robert Kist asked: How are you going to judge if people trust you – what would your indicators be, if you decide to treat it as a metric? This is tricky. I don’t think there’s a good answer. Bad managers, who are by definition...
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Hire talented people and get out of their way?
Whenever I need inspiration for a blog post, I check my LinkedIn feed. I am bound to find a stupid inspirational quote. Today’s is: In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way. This advice (hire smart, don’t micromanage) is...
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A manager’s primary job is to build trust
While interviewing for my new position at Cozy, I was repeatedly asked what the job of an Engineering Manager is.* By the end of the day, I had decided (for myself, anyway) that the most important job of an Engineering Manager** is building trust. Senior engineers must trust you....
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“Do you expect too much from people?”
Last year, a coworker asked me if perhaps I expect too much from other people. I thought about it a moment and said: No. I do not accept the argument that I’m somehow inherently superior to most others. In fact it is because I know I am not superior that...
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You must manage what you can’t measure
We all know the quote: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. The quote is often incorrectly attributed to W. Edwards Deming. Thank goodness, because that sentiment is absolutely ridiculous, and Deming is one of my heroes. In fact, a more accurate Deming quote is: The most important figures...
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Everyone should take vacation at the same time
Throughout my career I’ve always seen people struggle with taking vacation. People are too wrapped up in what they’re doing. Managers can’t allow critical people to go missing. There are weeks of trepidation and handover and “I don’t know how to fix that” emails. To a large extent, this...
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Hiring your cake and eating it too
When evaluating candidates, I have always been a believer that cultural fit and potential to improve is more important than technical ability. Of course I like to review real code samples and give a programming test, but I rarely ask for whiteboard programming. I am not a master of...
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Should a team be able to abort a sprint?
After my second retrospective on a new project, I unloaded some pretty harsh criticism about what we were building. I felt it was a “solution in search of a problem” and “not high value.” After proposing an alternative and convincing everyone to change direction, our sort-of Product Owner blasted...
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The myth of the brilliant jerk
Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high. – Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO So I was all prepared to write about how much I hate this quote, but Freddy Nager already did. It is thorough and insightful and explains how out of context this quote...
