/Leadership

What Causes New Engineers To “Sink Or Swim”?

- Lizzie Matusov tl;dr: Consider these tips to more effectively ramp up new teammates: (1) Structure early learning opportunities. New engineers can more quickly ramp up to the context and domain knowledge required to do their work. (2) Be clear about role expectations. Establishing clear expectations for the role is often overlooked in the chaos of growing a team. (3) Prepare the first few tasks ahead of time. Give engineers a series of tasks that build on organizational and system context so they can apply their knowledge more directly and build confidence.

featured in #514

Getting An Engineering Executive Job

- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: Gergely covers the following from Will Larson’s book: (1) Deciding whether to pursue an executive role. (2) Why each executive job search is unique, and how that will shape your process. (3) Finding executive roles externally and internally. (4) Navigating the often chaotic executive interview process. (5) Negotiating an executive contract. (6) Deciding whether to accept an executive offer once you have it. 

featured in #513

Managing High Performers

tl;dr: (1) Don't neglect managing high performers. (2) Recognize and value high performers, notably through career planning. (3) Establish higher expectations. (4) Provide constructive feedback. (5) Pay them very well. (6) Focus them on their strengths. (7) Address behavioral issues immediately. (8) Help them through growth plateaus. (9) Recognize when they've stopped growing. 

featured in #513

3 Critical Skills You Need To Grow Beyond Senior Levels In Engineering

- Irina Stanescu tl;dr: (1) Learning to scale yourself: Maximizing what you can do on your own by ruthlessly prioritizing your time and teaching / delegating as much as you can. (2) Navigating ambiguity: detective work, isolating uncertainty, dividing and conquer, making decisions with incomplete information, being able to pivot. (3) Influencing without authority. 

featured in #513

3 Critical Skills You Need To Grow Beyond Senior Levels In Engineering

- Irina Stanescu tl;dr: (1) Learning to scale yourself: Maximizing what you can do on your own by ruthlessly prioritizing your time and teaching / delegating as much as you can. (2) Navigating ambiguity: detective work, isolating uncertainty, dividing and conquer, making decisions with incomplete information, being able to pivot. (3) Influencing without authority. 

featured in #512

1-Measure-3-1

- Anna Shipman tl;dr: “A format I have found useful for making proposals is 1-measure-3-1. This is a variation on the 1-3-1 problem-solving method, focused specifically on proposals: (1) The problem to solve or opportunity to grasp. (2) Measure: how will we know it’s solved / the opportunity is met. What metrics are we looking to shift, or outcomes are we looking to achieve? (3) What are the three options we have considered (4) Our one recommendation.”

featured in #512

Finding Stuck Energy

- Paulo André tl;dr: Everyone has a switch. Your job is to find it. If you don’t, all the latent energy this person has will remain untapped. To find that switch, you have to temporarily forget the work and focus on the human. Build a relationship. It’s never wasted time. “What is something you found really interesting recently? Teach me all about it.” is a good question to see what lights them up — and, if you pay attention, you’ll likely hear in the answer important clues that might help you change something at work.

featured in #511

The Manager As Debugger

- Camille Fournier tl;dr: The best engineering managers are often great debuggers. Camille argues that there are overlapping skills between debugging complex systems and managing teams. “Managing teams is a series of complex, black boxes interacting with other complex, black boxes. These black boxes have inputs and outputs that can be observed, but when the outputs aren’t as expected, figuring out why requires trying to open up the black box and see what is going on inside.”

featured in #510

The Tarzan Method

- James Stanier tl;dr: “Performance review season always gets people thinking: where am I going? Where do I want to be next year? Why haven't I managed to get that promotion this time around? What's the point of all of this anyway?” James discusses the patterns he commonly sees in reports and how being transfixed on a single goal can do more harm than good.

featured in #509

The Power Of Questions

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: The ability to ask the right questions is a real superpower for executives and leaders. It demonstrates curiosity, intelligence, and the ability to rapidly get to the core of complex issues. Developing this skill requires conscious effort, humility and practice, but yields major benefits in decision making and innovation. Mike shares insights into how to develop this skill. 

featured in #509