My wife occasionally talks about a manager she once had. Once in a while she would approach him with a problem—a paper needed to be written, a process needed to … Continue reading Having solutions ready to go
Category: General management
Toeing the line in public
One Friday, many years ago when I was working with a web agency, one of our designers sent round a company-wide email. This was before the days of Slack, and … Continue reading Toeing the line in public
Using experience
Over many years I’ve had the good fortune to work with a number of very experienced people, and more recently I’ve been working with senior leaders, each with a stong … Continue reading Using experience
Society inside companies
Last week the small but influential software company, Basecamp, made some internal policy changes. You can read their (much-amended) public announcement, as well as some well-informed background and a follow-up. … Continue reading Society inside companies
The relevance of psychological safety
I’ve never given too much thought to “psychological safety”. It’s something I’d read about, and did see as probably interesting, but many of my day to day concerns seemed to … Continue reading The relevance of psychological safety
Practise being wrong
When locked in debate it’s easy to dig in and entrench our position. This is my position, if I explain it enough to you then you’ll come round to it. … Continue reading Practise being wrong
Companies taking a stand is basic humanity
In recent days a number of high-profile US corporations have publicly criticised lawmakers in the US state of Georgia for implementing voting laws that particularly penalise voters of colour. The … Continue reading Companies taking a stand is basic humanity
It’s good tactics to start with the goal
Recently I wrote about the need to state the problem for any solution—that is, when proposing or discussing some kind of approach or thing to do, it’s really important to … Continue reading It’s good tactics to start with the goal
The human bug report
The other day I was speaking to a friend about having conversations with colleauges when you’re unhappy with something they’ve done. It’s important to be clear, and it’s important be … Continue reading The human bug report
Editing down for clarity
While reading Kim Scott’s Radical Candor recently, I was struck by this (on page 93 of my paperback revised edition): The next time you spend 2 hours helping somebody edit … Continue reading Editing down for clarity
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