A cool set of reminders not to rely on single “genius engineers” who can knock up a super-nice prototype quickly. Getting production software done needs a team.

Nice little article pondering why execs don’t listen well (and let’s just postulate, for the moment, that this is true, shall we?). Well, not clear that really listening is a skill we look for in senior managers. What do you look for in future (or current) execs?

Nice, clear description of a) how to think about leadership style and b) a particular technique for inducing process change. From Will Larson at Stripe, a prolific and deep writer on technical management.

Neat trick: ask the most obvious question! Reasons why to do it, and why it works.

Good long look at why asking questions and really listening for the answers leads to productive conversations.

Schein has diagnosed two things he believes are missing from most conversations: “Curiosity, and a willingness to ask questions to which we don’t already know the answer,” he writes.

Taking feedback well is hard (I went into the reasons here a few weeks back - humans are deeply social animals and take potential rejection as an almost physical threat).

Some nice practical tips and thoughts in this post. Quick read, and helpful.

My post on the delicate business of adding a VP Engineering to a startup. I’ve been on both ends of this, and coached multiple clients (founders and VPEs) through the transition. It’s a big change, and needs subtlety and caring on all sides. Take a look.

Wow. Exactly as the title describes. Terse, pretty complete advice and guidance for first time managers. Hold on to it. Pass it around. Use it.

A short, excellent list of resources for new managers.

Nice! Hard to find whimsical writing about management, let alone whimsical writing about management that makes useful points. Short, fun.

“ Your team can achieve far more than you can. As a group they’re stronger, smarter, and can see more than you can. When your team smashes a problem into bits, it’s not literally you that did it, but you can get the deep satisfaction of smashing problems that are bigger and scarier than you could ever smash yourself”

A ridiculously complete guide to hiring, onboarding, retention and engagement practices at Stripe. Think you’re doing it all right? Take a look.

I think Manager READMEs are a neat tool. Camille Fournier, who I have some respect for, doesn’t. Interesting.

Huh. Interesting research about how change spreads. Made me think about how thi would apply to culture change - maybe there are places in the org that will adapt change more quickly and build the social proof necessary to support a much wider change.

Interesting comments about intuition by the author of Thinking Fast and Slow. Includes three conditions that need to be met in order to be able to trust an intuitive conclusion, which is helpful. The discussion on Hacker News is cool, as well.

Wild. Turns out we expect that achieving modest goals will be easier than maintaining the status quo. Change, in other words, if relatively small, is preferable to stasis. Has implications for stuck people, stuck projects…

Sunday (the day this newsletter goes out) is the fiftieth anniversary of “The Mother of All Demos” by Doug Englebart, which showed text editing, a mouse as a pointing device, linked documents, video conferencing, describes a global network. We’re only now just starting to move past the future as it was sketched out in this demo.

If you haven’t watched it, take the time and watch the future from fifty years ago.

Somewhat humorous, pretty accurate, infographic of difficult people types. May make you feel less out on a limb from time to time.

A good post (despite the click-bait title, sigh) about ways to build relationships with your team.

Nice, concise article about how small interaction choices can make a significant difference to your team relationships. Useful.

A little bot that generates three questions to ask in a one on one. Refresh, get three news ones. Sweet.