Dates covered: July 8-14, 2019 (week 28 of 52)
Business
Building a Startup That Will Last (via Harvard Business Review)
- Articulate a value framework oriented toward societal impact, not just financial achievement
- Demonstrate the ability to execute second and third acts
- Move beyond founder-driven decisions to a scalable system of leadership
- Focus on endurance
Match Group’s CEO on Innovating in a Fast-Changing Industry (via Harvard Business Review)
This article isn’t about providing specific advice, but instead about how the landscape (culture, technology, data science) of online dating has changed in the last 15 years.
When the Heir Apparent Is the Wrong Choice for CEO (via Harvard Business Review)
Reasons the wrong CEO can be chosen… 1) the heir apparent often wields more power before transition, 2) likability counts more than it should, 3) the safe choice can be irresistible. Instead… 1) create a CEO scorecard linked to business strategy to evaluate candidates, 2) use a broader/deeper lens on the leadership bunch, 3) consider trusted agitators.
How to Scandal-Proof Your Company (via Harvard Business Review)
- The root causes are weak leadership and a flawed corporate culture
- Send a message that crime doesn’t pay. Illegally acquired business isn’t very profitable (e.g., bribes to get into new markets typically don’t match returns or damage control if caught)
- Everyone suffers from the immediate fallout and long-lasting stigma
- Protect whistle blowers
- Be clear on what behavior isn’t tolerated
- Prosecuting white-collar crime is difficult because you need evidence in addition to proof of knowledge of wrongdoing
- If you don’t get rid (or punish) wrongdoers, morale suffers and good workers can quit
- Recruit leaders with a record of integrity
- Make tough decisions in groups (e.g., bribes are easier to transact when done alone)
- Champion transparency; this lets people considering/doing wrong things know the business is serious about not tolerating this
Career
6 Causes of Burnout, and How to Avoid Them (via Harvard Business Review)
- Workload doesn’t match your capacity
- Perceived lack of control
- Extrinsic and intrinsic rewards don’t match your investment
- Quality of relationships
- Fair and equitable treatment
- Mismatch in your values and the company’s values
Managers should get their hands dirty (via Software Lead Weekly)
Yes, manager is a different job than individual contributor. However, if you get too far from the work before you understand it, you’ll lose touch, the ability to truly understand your team’s struggles (or worse, not be able to help them find a path out), and trust/credibility of your team. Take the time to know what’s going on — try doing development for a few weeks and then transition back to management, or at a minimum keep up with code reviews.
Communication
How to Have Difficult Conversations Virtually (via Harvard Business Review)
The more distance there is from the other person, the more abstractly you think about them. Prefer a medium where you can see each others faces.
Stand-up meetings– daily, weekly, or non-existent? (via Software Lead Weekly)
This post has some aggregated responses from managers about how they report progress. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but the goal is the same: Minimize the amount of times people say “I had no idea we were working on that.”
Culture
A Toxic Work Culture Is Forcing High-Performing People to Quit (via LinkedIn)
- People can’t make decisions
- Working from home or part-time work is seen as lazy
- Entrepreneurship is frowned on
- Management vs. Us culture
- The number of hours you work matters
- Preferential treatment
- Talking down to people who have found themselves in the wrong role
- Shaming low performance
- Rotating door policy (people that leave — or think of leaving — are traitors)
- Asking staff to write reviews online to cover up the toxicity
- Values are rarely spoken
Why People Get Away with Being Rude at Work (via Harvard Business Review)
The study in this article found that victims of rudeness are blamed for their mistreatment even when they’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not sure what to make of this, as I’ve worked with people I consider rude despite having led with a friendly approach. My strategy is to give people the benefit of the doubt at first; if behavior doesn’t improve, however, I determine whether I want to invest in the relationship (i.e., talk to the person directly to get things out in the open) or minimize my interactions with that individual.
Process
What AI-Driven Decision Making Looks Like (via Harvard Business Review)
A typical approach is to take the huge amounts of data, have machines summarize it, and then humans make business decisions using human judgment. Although this is better than not using machines (the problem is too broad and abstract for our minds to comprehend at speed), we still have cognitive biases and may have things categorized incorrectly (e.g., Simpson’s paradox). This article proposes having the machine systems propose possible actions so that humans, who excel in integrating non-linear constraints, can choose among them.
Two other IT colleagues and I are reading The Phoenix Project together. This post covers the topics we discussed from the first five chapters.
When to Stop Deliberating and Just Make a Decision (via Harvard Business Review)
- If of little consequence, decide and move on
- If more important, reflect, or gather/analyze data
- If frequent (e.g., pricing, hiring), make a model to understand your decisions
- If infrequent (e.g., change business model), you’re not likely to get return from a model
- See if you can buy an option to decide later at the same price as now
- Put a time limit on your decision
Don’t Set an Agenda Before Important Meetings (via Harvard Business Review)
I’d re-title this article to replace “important meetings” with something else. The focus is on open-ended decisions such as how to grow the company, realize the benefits of a merger where the problem is complex. The topics may not be well understood in advance. The gist is that the group should spend around 10% of the meeting deciding what the topics should be; the post provides some criteria and example expectations.
How to Protect Your Free Time From Other People (via Lifehacker)
Ask yourself whether what someone is asking you to get involved in is what you really want. There’s power in saying, “I already have plans; you all have fun!”
A Brief Exercise to Spur Innovation on Your Team (via Harvard Business Review)
Divide a sheet of paper into three sections: 1) what’s the recipe for success we’ve always used, 2) what things might threaten status quo, 3) what are possible solutions to each threat?
No, You Can’t Make a Person Change (via Mark Manson)
By trying to “fix” other people through tough love, you’ve committed a boundary violation and have essentially taken responsibility for someone else’s actions. What you can do to help is 1) lead by example, 2) ask questions instead of giving answers, 3) share your advice unconditionally through your own stories.
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (via Software Lead Weekly)
- It’s not about the facts themselves, it’s about the social norms (your friends, your tribe).
- “Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe.”
- Reading about alternative opinions works well because the argument/conversation takes place inside our head without the risk of being judged by others.
- Champion good ideas instead of tearing down bad ideas (because to do the latter you must restate the bad idea which lends it more visibility).
- “Be kind first, be right later.” Breaking down someone’s beliefs is painful for them; work with them rather than labeling them.
Software development
How to Become a Bad Developer (via The Software Mentor)
This post inverts the argument of what makes a good programmer, providing some behaviors to avoid…
- Never assume there’s a bug in your code
- Write code without reasoning
- Lack assertiveness
- Take pleasure in writing more code
- Write for machines, not humans
Managing Programmer Productivity (via The Software Mentor)
I’ve seen versions of this argument (which I agree with) that I can’t write software faster simply by being able to slam more keystrokes into the computer. The majority of the work is thought work: reading, understanding, discussing, planning, fixing. “Perhaps we should think about producing code at the best speed rather than the maximum speed.” I’m in favor of the idea of measuring generativity rather than productivity — that is, how much is someone helping others instead of doing themselves (e.g., we’re getting 20% more done now that Sue is here).