Short, pithy tips for being clear and direct in conversation.  Quick read, good stuff.

“Jump right into something that others might not bring up . Be known for caring honesty”

Holding onto being right is one of the easiest traps to fall into in human communication.  Another short read with a strong point to make.

“I had so much of my identity wrapped up in being right that I was blind to how the world really works”

Optimism is a super-power.  A short, simple post on ways to tweak your communication towards the optimistic.

Who is responsible for generating employee engagement? The employee, or the employee’s managers?  A collection of feedback to a recent article about engagement: what it is, how to get it.  Fairly raw, pretty fascinating.

What small changes can you make in your “management environment” to nudge towards better, faster results?  A thought-provoking argument for a nuanced look at what causes change.

The case for face to face (literally) interaction.  The more you have it, the more connection your team has, the better the work gets done.  Small design changes in the workplace can make big differences.

A nice, quick introduction to coaching conversations: a different mindset, different questions. A good place to start.

Asking questions that start with “Why” usually creates a defensive response, closing down the conversation.  It’s also very hard not to ask “Why?!”, not least because we use it as an accusation.  A short primer on how to ask questions to open up, rather than close down, a conversation.

Nice, clear account of releasing very large amounts of software, all the time.

When we’re stressed, we sometimes go for accusatory words that won’t help us, “stupid”, being one of the worst.  A useful look at four such words, why they show up, and how to avoid using them.

A little long, but emphasizes some fundamentals about the Vision Thing: repetition, story-telling and celebration.  Good stuff.

Ben Horowitz on one of the most essential, and difficult, leadership skills: telling the truth.

More meeting tips?  Given the amount of time we all spend in meetings, we can never have enough.  A good, practical set.  Scan it, adjust your week, repeat.

A bit of a ramble, but plenty of good stuff to chew on, including the quote below. Takes a couple of minutes to read and will give you something to think about.

“The hardest thing about business isn’t the business part, it’s the people part. Business is ultimately digital. People are analog”

Hmm.  Interesting to scan, but because it’s worldwide, and across many industries, makes me wonder how relevant it is to the tech world.  But take a look and see what you think.

The words we choose are important: “feedback” has a heaviness to it which can be a barrier to communication.  This is a neat little post about using different wording to open things up.

Fascinating discussion of Radical Candor on Hacker News, so almost entirely tech folks.  Well worth scanning if you are interested in, or in the midst of, introducing Radical Candor to an engineering group.

Our natural response to negative feedback is defense: “you’re wrong!”, we think, immediately, reactively.  Good to remember when we’re receiving feedback, but also when we’re giving it: what is the other person hearing?  What is their truth?   A quick, helpful read.

A constructive look at how to receive a performance review.  Again, useful both when you’re getting, but also when you’re giving, reviews.

How does an organization deal with mistakes when the mistakes can be massively fatal?  We know from Google’s work (below) that Psychological Safety is critical to team success. A cool article (with too many ads) describing how “Just Culture” responds to errors in such a way that the organization grows from mistakes. A crucial read.

“The system, which is similarly practiced in US air traffic control but doesn’t go by the same name, involves responding to errors with training and support, not punishment or job loss”