Most of us acquire the easy aspects of a skill and then stop improving (true: I certainly do).  Worth reading to consider where you are pushing your team out of their “dawdle zone” into challenge so they are growing beyond “good enough”.

A terrific rebuttal to the article I posted last week about firing a Brilliant Jerk.  Essentially: who was coaching said Brilliant Jerk and helping him out before deciding that the org would be better if he went?   Great stuff.

“we’ve recast dysfunction as heroic sacrifice. We’ve collectively created a narrative around the nature of work that not only justifies such dysfunctional practices, but also regards those who engage in them as selfless heroes, sacrificing sleep, relationships, and even their health in order to help the organization achieve its goals…”

Sound familiar? Yep. Includes What To Do About It,

A snapshot of the state of things wrt women in tech, from the POV of Hacker News.  Which is to say, essential reading - not to “agree” or “disagree” but to see, and be viscerally aware of, the range of opinion out there.

The classic “blind audition” article.   Guess what?  If you don’t know the gender of the person interviewing, your opinion changes.   Looking to improve your interview approach?  Take a read.

Data.

This bunch of enthusiasts just got an Alto to run Smalltalk.  This is where the modern age started.  Fun to see.

Finding “thinking time” for strategy, planning, career development (of yourself and your team) is hard.  Pretty much all of my clients bring it up at some point or another.  Ed Batista breaks down how to figure out what you need: how much, when, where etc.   Good stuff.

Another good Ed Batista post on a time management technique I like and have found effective.  It’s a simple (and well-known) model, but allows to you make subtle, conscious decisions about where to spend your time.  If your schedule is driving you, rather than you driving it, read this.

Delegation and managing your team is probably the critical issue in building your “thinking time”.  How “productivity is people” - a good post.

Published during the Susan Fowler/Uber period (which we’re still in, of course), this post points out that the very label “Brilliant Jerks” smooths over the problem, dulls the edges, provides excuses. Sharp, necessary read.

“Brilliant is just how we excuse Jerk. It’s how he gets away with bad behavior, like sexual harassment and insubordination (and yes, he is usually a he). Let me get all third grade on you for a second here: If you’re so brilliant, then why haven’t you figured out how to be good at your job?”

Great account of taking the courageous leap to confront a brilliant jerk.  The learning here is critical: organizations are far more robust than they may seem, and can survive (and often thrive) anybody leaving/being demoted/getting upset.   Anybody.

Need more encouragement to deal with Brilliant Jerks?  Sure: here it is.

Marcus on a creativity exercise, describing his experience of learning what he was building as he went.  Iteration is critical to the creative process.  Software is a creative process.  Great software develops by iteration.

We’ve repeated ourselves over and over, we keep getting the same result from the person/team.  We’re starting to get frustrated.  What do we do?   Become deeply curious, and patient, and curious again.  Curiosity is a super-power.  Tricky to develop, and deeply powerful once you have it.

Lara Hogan asks you to really consider “why can’t they just…?” when the folks above you, or in a different team, or a different company seem to be missing the obvious.  Be curious.  Assume you don’t know everything. What’s really going on?

Just what it says.  Why is it in the newsletter?   Because it’s awesome.

A typically brilliant post from Rands.  The Old Guard built it, they got it off the ground, they Know Everything, vs the New Guard - they’re here, they’re intimidated, they feel they Know Nothing.  How can they work together?

“There is no Old Guard or New Guard. There is just The Guard. What are we guarding? Why are we here? … Yeah, we’re guarding those dreams, but we’re also going to learn about guarding and protecting each other because that is what teams do when they trust each other.”

Short, direct, useful: how to deal, really deal, when the limits of the culture are over-stepped.  “We don’t do that here”.  Recommended.

A simple, but well thought-out strategy for taking notes without having your laptop open.  The laptop is a distraction, for both people.  Get rid of it.