management
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Be Less Afraid of Giving Feedback
→: Be Less Afraid of Giving FeedbackMy friend Camille told me once that women get too much feedback, and men too little. I think about this whenever I think about feedback because it captures some of the baggage we bring to giving feedback. If you’ve got a lot of (low value) feedback you might think a lot about whether the…
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Simple Leadership Podcast
→: Simple Leadership PodcastI recorded an episode on managing managers. We talked about getting feedback, coaching, and why peer support is so important. It was really fun to record, and I hope you like it!
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One Year as 📱👑
→: One Year as 📱👑One year ago today, I tweeted: ✨ first day @automattic ✨ — cate // @hachyderm.io (@catehstn) November 7, 2016 Three weeks after that, when my support rotation ended… ✨ first day as 📱👑 ✨ — cate // @hachyderm.io (@catehstn) November 28, 2016 As I recall, my friend James described it as “the most low key…
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Bi-Monthly Rituals: The State of All the Things
→: Bi-Monthly Rituals: The State of All the ThingsAt the end of last year, I somehow found myself as the lead of a team that was 4x as big as my previous one. Many things were different, but one of the big ones was changing from having one person on each platform who really knew everything that was going on… to having some…
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Monthly Rituals: Snaps
→: Monthly Rituals: SnapsA few months ago, I started putting up posts like this each month. Some other teams started doing it too. I like the idea of encouraging people to take a moment for what they’re happy about, and the things others have helped them with.
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On Skip 1:1s
→: On Skip 1:1sOne of the first things I did as a new manager of managers was schedule skip 1:1s with everyone on the team. I blocked off an hour per person, and crammed ~20 hours of them into my first two weeks – along with a lightning trip from Buenos Aires to Philly for WordCamp US. It was…
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The Magic of #FEELINGStime
→: The Magic of #FEELINGStimeA truth that should be universally acknowledged – but isn’t – is that a group of hardworking people do not necessarily make a high performing team. On a basic level, a group of hard working people checking code into the same codebase isn’t necessarily a team. At a more complex level, hard work doesn’t necessarily…
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Org Survey Part 2: Analysis
→: Org Survey Part 2: AnalysisThis is the second part of running an org survey. You can find the questions in part 1. What Does The Data Look Like? First step is color-coding the spreadsheet to show trends in the numbers. I made a sample spreadsheet and generated random data – so it looks a little chaotic – but you…
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Org Survey Part 1: Questions
→: Org Survey Part 1: QuestionsI remember when I managed a 6 person team, and I always felt like I had a handle on what was going on (perhaps I’m being overly nostalgic here). Now I manage a ~26 person organisation, and on a good day I feel like I have a general idea of what’s happening, and certain specific…