Fun, and insightful. Leadership often involves apparently contradictory approaches: be firm, and flexible; fast-moving and reflective; emotional and coldly rational. A useful read.

Relatively recent post from Lara Hogan describing the excellent, and complete, advice she received on becoming VP Eng at Etsy. It’s a great post, actually, for leaders at all levels.

My notes on a very common practice - trying to “think through” a difficult conversation before having it. Why it’s futile and what to do instead.

A handy-dandy, amusing, graphic of all the difficult types of people we might encounter in software projects.

Yes, a listicle, but a really helpful one. Highly recommended, practical advice (from the author of “The Coaching Habit” which, by the way, is an excellent introduction to the coaching style of conversation and support),

A super neat little trick from Ed on transforming conversations from confrontation to inclusion and discussion. Didn’t get a lot of clicks, but should have!

A super clear approach to the most critical element of time management - delegation. (Also references this fantastic article from waay back in the 70’s - read it).

Interesting results of polling 1,000 managers about how best to use time. Useful.

Great, direct advice from Lara Hogan on managing your time and energy.

The energy consumed per bitcoin transaction is 444KWh. “An adult human body generates approximately 100 watts of power while at rest, and about 80 percent of this power is wasted as excess body heat”. The Institute of Human Obsolescence (possibly the best organization name ever) is doing the math and figuring out how many people need to lie prone for how long to generate a bitcoin.

Short, interesting look a conflict types and what to do about them. I liked this simple, but undeniable and powerful statement: “Conflict is going to persist until someone decides to stop it”

Kim Scott on jobs, mismatches and how to deal: “Everyone can be excellent at something. But sadly, lots of people never find work they are truly excellent at because they stay in the wrong job too long”

Neat chart from Kim Scott outlining the differences between “absentee manager” (low involvement), “micro-manager” (too much) and “partner” (just right). Helpful, simple model.

Some useful thoughts on communication and feedback - what works, what can go wrong, and how to deal with it.

This is a couple of years old, but it’s super valuable - outlines in stark detail the cost of interrupting a programmer (or by extension any creative) in the middle of their work. Short, but pretty dramatic.

Two lengthy articles about the hiring process, and typical failure points therein. Tremendously complete and worth reading if a) you are ramping up hiring and need to know what to get right or b) you’ve been doing hiring for ever and need to know you are not alone in finding it difficult. Recommended.

Part 2…

CTO is an interesting position because a) almost all companies have one b) companies that have one believe it’s a super-valuable position and c) there’s not a ton of agreement on exactly what a CTO should do. This post is a nice summary of most of the options.

From a very nice set of interviews with new managers. Lot to learn here, not least: You Are Not Alone. I liked this one, particularly:

“Computers need to be only told once. People need to be told multiple times for them to really grok something. That is /okay/. That is normal”

From a nice collection of “Letters to a New Developer” - how to own your own one on one agenda. Neat.