Geoff Mazeroff

Burnout 3 Types of Burnout, and How to Overcome Them (via HBR) Overload — working harder and more frantically to achieve success. Develop stronger emotional regulation skills, and separate your self-worth from your work. Under-challenged — being bored and understimulated…

Career How to Get the Best Possible Recommendation from a Job Reference (via HBR) Choose references that will be enthusiastic about you Prep your references so they are set up to help you (the article lists example questions) Manage “backdoor”…

Career Stop Offering Career Ladders. Start Offering Career Portfolios. (via HBR) It seems that rapid change is the new normal. “Linear” careers seem to be few and far between. The author talks about portfolios of things an employee could do…

Career Ask for What You Need at Work (via HBR) Apply the magic 5:1 ratio of healthy relationships. This means that for every negative feeling or interaction between people in a relationship, there must be five positive feelings or interactions….

Communication How to present to executives (via SWLW) This article has several useful patterns (and anti-patterns) for communicating with a very specific set of people. You need to understand how your audience consumes information and what they need from you….

Communication 7 Rules for Persuasive Dissent (via HBR) Demonstrate how your work has benefitted the team Pass the group threat test Be creative with your consistency Lean on objective information Address obstacles and risks Encourage collaboration Get support Management The…

Communication As a Leader, You Own Your Communications Bubble (via SWLW) It’s not what you say; it’s what you tolerate Battle the “10x bad news” tax Seek the truth, no matter how painful Blame yourself first Take fame last Be…

Communication How to Write Less But Say More (via TED) Stop being so selfish (give your readers what they want, not what you want to give them) What’s the one thing you want them to remember? Keep it simple (length,…

Behavior change Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change (via Amy Bucher) Amy is one of my colleagues at Lirio, and she graciously provided a copy of her book. It provides a fantastic overview (in an accessible and fun manner) about the…

Business The 7 roles of a CTO (via SWLW) Granted, the CTO for any given company may look different; however, I liked his approach of talking to other CTOs. A CTO is an executive, a representative, (sometimes) a people manager,…