/Leadership

Standups: Individual → Teammate

- Kent Beck tl;dr: Kent discusses his reasoning behind standups. “Treating standup meetings as a technical solution to a technical problem — we need to communicate this many bits of information to this many people as efficiently as possible — misses the real point. We’re people. With needs. The better those needs are met, the better we can meet the needs of others.”  

featured in #530

Numbers To Know For Managing (Software Teams)

tl;dr: “Based on philosophy, experience, and analysis; we hope they’ll be of some use.” The authors cover topics such as: (1) Minimum number of direct reports anyone should ever have. (2) Minimum number of candidates you should interview before making a decision. (3) Number of days before a new hire should have merged a pull request, (4) Number of days before a small support issue becomes a large support issue. And more.

featured in #529

Eponymous Laws

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: “I’m a big fan of eponymous laws such as Conway’s law, that software reflects the organizational structure that produced it, named after Melving Conway” Mike discusses his own laws: (1) The more you deny, the more you implicate. (2) If you hire a skill, you will get more of that skill demonstrated. (3) Everyone thinks they can improve on others' works. (4) The complexity of a system increases with each new feature. (5) Change becomes harder as organizations grow. 

featured in #529

Physics And Perception

- Will Larson tl;dr: In 2019, parts of Stripe’s engineering org were going through a civil war, driven by one group’s belief that Java should replace Ruby to deliver a quality platform. The other group believed Stripe’s problems were driven by a product domain with high essential complexity. Switching languages wouldn’t address any of those issues. Will discusses his approach to solving this conflict: “what I have found useful is studying what each faction knows that the other doesn’t, and trying to understand those gaps deeply enough to find a solution. Sometimes I summarize this as solving for both physics and perception.”

featured in #528

Malte Handbook

- Malte Ubl tl;dr: The CTO at Vercel wrote an instruction manual for himself, covering values, principles, beliefs, engineering style, general style, stuff I do & personal.

featured in #528

The OARB Framework: Why You Should Appeal To Self-Interest When Giving Feedback

- Wes Kao tl;dr: I’ll share an advanced technique for getting your feedback recipient to perk up and take action. (1) The OARB framework (Observation, Assertion, Repercussion, Benefit). (2) Make feedback feel visceral by using good logic. (3) Adopt a neutral posture & comment on the behavior, not the person.

featured in #527

Deltas To The Global Maxima

- James Stanier tl;dr: “The global maxima is the point at which we are at our most skilled, our most impactful, and the most satisfied. The global maxima may not even be a role, but a state of being where everything comes together: life, work, compensation, contribution, and happiness. Try restarting your career conversations with your direct reports by asking them what this global maxima is for them.” James shares some primer questions. 

featured in #527

15 Life And Work Principles from Jensen Huang

- Peter Yang tl;dr: (1) “My goal is to create the conditions where amazing people come to do their life’s work.” (2) “I have 60 direct reports, and I don’t do 1 on 1s.” Almost everything that I say, I say to everybody at the same time. (3) “I give feedback right in front of everyone.” (4) “I spent alot of time reasoning with decisions.” (5) “We don't do just vice president meetings or director or board meetings. At the meetings I have, there are new college grads there. There are people from every different organization. We are just all sitting in there.”

featured in #527

Useful And Overlooked Skills

- Morgan Housel tl;dr: (1) Calibrating how much you wanting something to be true affects how true you think it is. (2) Respectfully interacting with people you disagree with. (3) The ability to have a 10-minute conversation with anyone from any background. (4) Getting to the point. (5) Diplomatically saying “No.”. (6) Respecting luck as much as you respect risk. 

featured in #526

Goal Crafting

- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: (1) Make your goal unarguable: An unarguable goal is one that most people agree with as it aligns with the organizational principles and direction. (2) Manufacture consent: A leader’s job involves creating willingness for others to work with the organization to support their objectives. (3) Let it make everyone uncomfortable: They should put your team out of their comfort zone, testing their assumptions and technical and human-relationship competencies.

featured in #525