Engineering an Interesting Life
My latest in Quartz… Over the past couple of weeks there has been so much conversation about how to work remotely, missing the key phrase during a global pandemic, which I’m not sure any of us has the answer to. Meanwhile, a lot of people are struggling, even those who already have been working remotely for awhile. […]
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My latest in Quartz… When given the opportunity to establish a process, we’re all biased to advocate for one in which we would be successful ourselves. In hiring, this plays out in two main ways: “A” players build monocultures, hiring people just like them, and “B” players hire “C” players, hiring people who won’t threaten […]
Read MoreLast week Nicole Sanchez of Vaya Consulting and I ran a webinar on remote management, you can find the video below. It was super fun recording it! There was also a summary post on WordPress.com. Tweet your questions at us with the hashtag #rfrw.
Read MoreOn my weekly todo list, there is an item “do something nice for a friend”. Last week, I assembled a care package. I asked myself, “what does a useless man need but won’t buy for himself?” – the answer, incidentally, was an exceptionally fluffy blanket, some really nice chocolate, vitamins, and assorted skincare. As I […]
Read MoreI’m in this book Living By the Code, talking about engineering management. Ray helpfully pulled out some of his highlights from my interview: 1) Keeping a team productiveI loved the section where you talked about orienting the entire team toward continuously delivering use value. It sounds so simple when you say it, but it’s so […]
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I sent 44 WTHIC letters from 14 countries on four continents, and had ten articles in Quartz. I was also interviewed in the BBC. This blog was seen by a smidgen over 40K visitors for just under 60K views, and I published 22 posts (many of which just linked out to the proper post elsewhere). […]
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In 2019, continuing on from 2017 and 2018, I continued to post a photo every day mirrored between photo.cate.blog and instagram (364 in total apparently, I must have missed one day). This year I experimented with more abstract things, text and positioning, and made heavy use of some new film style filters. I also posted a lot of […]
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“The best leaders master multiple leadership styles”, blithely comments some post on leadership. OK, including one written by me. But how? Many leaders are overly reliant on a style and this can hold them back. Generally leadership styles are a function of emotional intelligence, and working on emotional intelligence, such as working on becoming more […]
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My latest in Quartz… In my time as a manger, I’ve encountered quite a few people who were badly onboarded. As a rule it takes as long a time or longer to fix it as it took to poorly onboard them. Sometimes we’re able to re-onboard people and make them successful… and sometimes it’s too […]
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Recent piece in Quartz… One of the few pieces of advice I feel good about giving to everyone is this: When your job gets harder, the best thing you can do is make a friend. This is also backed by the data. Gallup research has consistently shown that having a best friend at work leads to better […]
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