A recent article on parents in Silicon Valley splashed through my twitter account and hooked me in to reading it. It danced around an idea that some workplaces play in to: Parents are worse employees than non-parents. They're less flexible ("can't stay late boss, gotta pick up the kids… Continue Reading 'Are Parents Worth the Price?'
"Son, please come here, I need to talk to you." "Sure Mom, what's up?" "Well, as you know, around this time of year we do our annual performance reviews" "Performance reviews? Are you kidding me?" "No son, we take this very… Continue Reading 'A Familiar Performance Review'
If you had a warning label, what would it say? "Caution: Extreme Sarcasm. Handle with levity." That's probably what mine would say. How about yours? This is the type of question asked every week during "Team Hugs" at Four Kitchens. Team Hugs is the name of… Continue Reading 'How Inquisitive Questions Spur Kinship at Work'
Micro-manager. A term that will bring dread to any heart that's been through the turmoil of working for one. Even those who have never worked directly for a micro-manager can sympathize with the the atrocities committed by them. Who didn't laugh when President Business commanded "Send in a micro-manager!… Continue Reading 'The Manager Matrix'
Over the past few years, I've developed a habit of reading books on management and leadership. These books have transformed who I am and where my career goals lie. As I reflect on the words written, three books stick out to me as especially insightful. While there are many great… Continue Reading '3 Books to Transform your Leadership'
One of the key metrics to employee engagement is how they feel their day-to-day work relates to a shared vision. It's tempting to think that this simply means being more communicative about the company goals (which were often defined by a group of managers outside of the team). However, there's… Continue Reading 'Share your Paintbrush, Share your Vision'
Slack. It's amazingly wonderful; except when it's not. I've been a huge proponent of using communication tools like Slack over in-person meetings for a long time. To me, you can be be so much more productive holding a discussion over chat than you would be in a meeting. Except when… Continue Reading 'The Tricky Thing about Asynchronous Communication'
One of the difficulties companies face when hiring is determining whether the applicant really is who they say they are. Not in a fake/stolen identity kind of way, but in a way that applicants tend to stretch the truth about their experience to better fit the job posting§. What… Continue Reading 'What if you didn’t post a job description?'
A recent post by Mathias Meyer titled "From Open (Unlimited) to Minimum Vacation Policy" has illustrated an important point when implementing any sort of change in a company. Embrace the law of unintended consequences. Many times in my career I've seen good intentions end with poor results. As… Continue Reading 'Embrace the Law of Unintended Consequences'
"[W]e trust each other. We can argue and fight and disagree, but we're going to step onto the court and cheer for each other." - Coach Pop Growing up just northwest of San Antonio, becoming a fan of the San Antonio Spurs was pretty much a given.… Continue Reading 'The Best Fight'
About a year ago, on this date (Aug. 4th), I started a series of posts title "0% Productivity". The idea is to call out specific behaviors that ensure things don't get done. Here are some past posts: 1: Treat work in a Last in, First out queue 2:… Continue Reading '0% Productivity Tip #4: Reward hard work instead of smart work'