Business
Why So Many CEOs Don’t Realize They’ve Got a Bad Jobs Problem (via Harvard Business Review)
- They’re benchmarking against other poor performers (instead of looking at leaders)
- They aren’t looking at the right data
- They’re out of touch with their workers’ daily lives
- They conflate culture, certain benefits, and employee appreciation with good jobs
Behavior
How to Change Your Behavior for the Better (via TED)
This talk has an interesting set of examples where people don’t behave logically, with some tricks to help them make better decisions. Things like desired behavior vs. easy behavior and loss aversion come into play.
For Better Healthcare, Embrace Irrationality (via TED)
Most traditional behavior change approaches assume that humans behave rationally, but we don’t because we’re emotional. This is why telling people facts so they know better doesn’t make them do better. There were several interesting ideas about behavior change, my favorite being we’re always on our best behavior when we’re observed.
Career
The Unexpected Benefits of Pursuing a Passion Outside of Work (via Harvard Business Review)
The likelihood of you finding a vocation that pays you enough for what you’re passionate about it small. This article (which has tons of links) cites studies that pursuing a passion improves well-being, and you don’t have to do that at work. It’s also good to have a diversity of interests and groups so that you’re not putting all your “eggs” in your companies basket.
Conference Talk Abstract Submission: A Reviewer’s Perspective
I recently reviewed over 600 submissions to a tech conference and distilled my experience into some tips about how to get rejected and accepted.
Communication
How to Deflect Difficult Questions in an Interview or Negotiation (via Harvard Business Review)
In negotiation we’re usually asked to share information that could potentially work against us (e.g., “Have you received another job offer?”). There are typically three options: tell the truth (which may reveal too much), refuse to answer (which weakens trust), or lie. A fourth option — deflection — puts the question back in the other person’s court (e.g., “Are you planning on making me an offer?”).
Culture
Scaling Culture: Retain Your Developer Team’s Soul During Fast Growth (via Tamas Torok)
This post summarizes interviews with several dev shops to talk about what works when growing the team. I thought the concept of having a “documentation culture” was particularly spot-on.
Culture Balances: Intro (via Software Lead Weekly)
In an evolving environment, the right balance is never right for long. What worked when you were smaller won’t scale. An interesting suggestion from the article was to articulate what the extremes are (e.g., share with everyone, silo information) to help you find what’s in between.
Education
6 Reasons Why Higher Education Needs to Be Disrupted (via Harvard Business Review)
- Employers need skills, not just knowledge or titles
- Students want jobs, not just knowledge or titles
- Students are paying more and getting less
- Students have unrealistic expectations about college
- Many elite universities prioritize research, often at the expense of teaching
- Instead of boosting meritocracy, universities reinforce inequality
Ethics
Create an Ethics Committee to Keep Your AI Initiative in Check (via Harvard Business Review)
With machine learning algorithms working with massive amounts of potentially skewed data, it’s important to understand bias vs. fairness. Data scientists may need to bias models to be more fair (e.g., training data that favors hiring more men than women). The author points to a book that can serve as a manual for setting up an ethics committee.
Fitness
Prehab vs. Rehab (via Aerobic Fitness Association of America)
This is part of my continuing education for my Program Group Exercise certification. The course covers proper movements for all of the major joints of the body so that rehab isn’t needed (because you don’t injure yourself by moving improperly).
Hiring
Surprising insights from talking to hiring teams in Silicon Valley (via Software Lead Weekly)
This thorough writeup goes into what it’s like for candidates, hiring managers, and companies in Silicon Valley. It’s a complex process, good communication matters, and it’s shockingly expensive to get talent.
Interviewing staff/principal/distinguished engineers (via Software Lead Weekly)
I usually don’t go in for Twitter threads, but there are some excellent questions interviewers can ask (and candidates can ask).
Leadership
How to Manage a Stubborn, Defensive, or Defiant Employee (via Harvard Business Review)
- Adjust job responsibilities to leverage their strengths
- Temporarily overlook individual style while the person adjusts to their new circumstances
- Consider that the other person may be right
- Know where to draw the line
Process
Do the Boring Stuff (via The Software Mentor)
The Debussy quotation about music being the space between the notes came to mind when reading this post. You don’t have to be “on” working on the most important thing all the time.
Nir Eyal: Making “Indistractability” a Habit (via Harvard Business Review)
- Distraction is something that pulls you away from what you intend to do
- We should stop saying that people are addicted to technology, as addiction is a pathology. Plus that mindset allows us to be victims of technology, and that there’s a “pusher”.
- “Implementation intention” — schedule what you’ll do, show it to others. (This is basically sprint planning.) This seems to leave little room for spontaneity, though.
- What about creativity or sleep? Schedule time for those even if they don’t work out. You can’t sleep if you’re not in bed by a certain time; you can’t write that novel if you’re not in front of your computer.
- Use systems, not willpower (which is fickle). Favor consistency over intensity (which leads to burnout).
- Emails — send fewer to get less; label everything as “today” or “this week” and schedule time to get around to them.
Peacetime Productivity, Wartime Productivity (via Software Lead Weekly)
In peacetime you can focus on the space between the notes, working on consistency and execution. In wartime, you’re reacting and making rapid decisions. Both will happen at some point, and they require different behaviors and leadership styles.
Technology
The Risks of Using AI to Interpret Human Emotions (via Harvard Business Review)
Machine learning is being combined with facial expression decoding, voice pattern analysis, eye movement monitoring, and EEG to detect emotional states. It’s important to be mindful of bias and culture differences in emotional expression.