Dates covered: August 26-September 1, 2019 (week 35 of 52)
Business
What It Takes to Hire 10 Employees in San Francisco (via The Software Mentor)
Silicon Valley can be its own microcosm of the tech landscape, and this article described how an early startup went looking for talent, what worked, and what didn’t. This is another reminder that to have a successful business, it’s not just about product — you have to attract others to help you, and those skills are very different.
Survey: What Employees Want Most from Their Workspaces (via Harvard Business Review)
The basics of natural light, clean air, and comfortable temperature — the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy topped the list. Another statement that stood out was that employers should ask people what they want instead of guessing and implementing things that have little value.
Career
A Short Guide to Pricing Your Services as a Consultant or Coach (via Harvard Business Review)
- Hourly billing — most straight-forward and well understood, but requires more bookkeeping and explanation (e.g., why did this take two hours?)
- Retainer agreements — once you’ve built trust it’s a fixed amount, but clients may abuse this by treating it as “all you can eat”
- Productized services — e.g., half-day workshop or packages of work
- Value-based pricing — “what the value to the company if X wasn’t a problem?
- Pay for results — if the results are delivered, you get a percentage; a bit more risky because if it doesn’t pan out (especially if it’s not because of anything you did) you get nothing
Communication
Why Filler Words Like “Um” and “Ah” Are Actually Useful (via Harvard Business Review)
Useful to… be diplomatic, hold the floor, or to jump in. Phrases to avoid…
- “I think” (use “In my experience, I’ve found…”)
- “I may be way off base” (use “What if…”)
- “Sorry” for interrupting (use “Thank you” and then continue)
Culture
How my colleagues and I stay sane in our open office (via The Software Mentor)
- Office rules = library rules
- Flexible remote options
- No-talk Thursdays
- Asynchronous communication (as much as possible)
- Quality time instead of clock time
When Teamwork Is Good for Employees — and When It Isn’t (via Harvard Business Review)
Teams fared better when… managers provides the right skills and resources, gave people time to train and learn, had a variety of tasks, control over the pace, allowed to have input over decisions. Teams fared worse when… managers didn’t give them time to train, had no freedom over work responsibilities, listened but did nothing (or made promises that weren’t kept).
Leadership
To Prevent Burnout, Hire Better Bosses (via Harvard Business Review)
“If companies are really interested in boosting their workforce’s wellbeing, they should spend less time and money worrying about perks like office layout, team off-sites, and organic snacks, and more time ensuring that their employees are not traumatized by toxic or mediocre leaders.”
- Keeping the wrong people off the bus is better than getting the right people on the bus
- Resilience can hide the effects of bad leadership
- Boring is often better
Hire Leaders for What They Can Do, Not What They Have Done (via Harvard Business Review)
“You should also take an extra look at the people who “may not be ready,” and analyze them on the basis of their ambition, reputation, and passion for your business. Often the youngest, most agile, and most confident people turn into incredible leaders, even though their track record may not be the best.”
- Does the candidate have the skills to be a high-performing contributor (ability, likability, drive), or skills to be an effective leader (integrity, low on narcissism and psychopathy)?
- Can I trust this candidate’s individual performance measures? Maybe that person’s manager’s measurement is biased, subject to politics, or the person’s ability to manage up.
- Am I looking forward or backward?
Process
Performance Matters (via The Software Mentor)
This story about an electronic system to capture health information for EMTs was a counterexample to premature optimization. Or it could be a case of poor requirement management. The system wasn’t used because it was just slow enough to be annoying. I’ve abandoned two time tracker systems (Time Camp and Toggl) for that reason; paper is faster.
This week’s book club meeting covered chapters 31-35 of The Phoenix Project. Part 8 will be the last post.
4 Tips for Managing Organizational Change (via Harvard Business Review)
- Start with a small group of dedicated people that will eventually recruit their peers
- Identify a keystone change (i.e., some kind of grievance that rallies people)
- Network the movement; not all changes need a single charismatic leader
- Survive victory; focus on the change and the process of change
Security
Every Computer Science Degree Should Require a Course in Cybersecurity (via Harvard Business Review)
Few computer science curricula offer security training, yet as we live in a progressively connected world, should the developers be tasked with having better knowledge? In my opinion, that’s necessary but not sufficient. We need better controls to ensure “easily preventable” mistakes don’t happen, and policies to make management more intent on making security a focus instead of an annoying afterthought.