Management

Most interviews suck. Not because the questions are bad or the candidates aren’t prepared, but because the interviewer is phoning it in. You’ve seen it. The per...

I think a lot about trust and how I’m perceived by the people I manage and the peers I work alongside. Not in a self conscious way, but in a practical one. Trus...

I recently finished Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner and it immediately earned a spot on my short list of books I recommend to enginee...

Following up on the last post where I talked about over communicating, I want to share a tool I use when critical feedback is not landing.When I give critical f...

If something’s worth communicating, do it twice.Once to inform. Once to confirm.Leaders often share something important once, in a Slack post, in an email, or a...

Leadership isn’t always loud. It’s not just the team speeches, the bold calls, or the product launches that make an impact. More often, it’s found in the quiet...

Product Driven is a refreshing read for engineering leaders who are looking to shift your team’s perspective on shipping code and thinking about outcomes for th...

As a manager, my calendar doesn’t really belong to me. I’m hopping from 1:1s to planning meetings to reviews to unexpected “got a sec?” pings. It’s a blur of co...

I recently finished reading Moonshot by Mike Massimino, and one quote in particular has stuck with me: “Admire and care for everyone on your team.” It’s decepti...

This year, our golden retriever puppy has been the ultimate reminder of a lesson I’ve preached for years: take the first step first. Progress matters more than...

I've been in a lot of frustrating meetings during my career, and many of them have one major problem in common: the participants are talking, not listening...

Over the past few years, people I've worked with have heard me talk at length about my two pillars for building and maintaining high-performing teams. This...

I've been reflecting on partnerships, both personal and professional. As I evaluate my interactions and categorize them as positive or negative, I've...

In 2020, I wrote about my process for staying organized and my goal of keeping things simple. In that post, I outlined several tools I used and how I used them....

Being on call for incidents can be incredibly stressful. You can be paged at any time of day or night, especially because there is a critical system performing...

I work at a large company with many teams, departments, and even sub-properties under the company umbrella. When working on large software projects, it's i...

Last week I wrote about how I use Notion to manage my work week and talked a little bit about the way I have my database set up for TODOs and Notes that feed in...

I attribute much of my success to my ability to organize my thoughts, tasks, and notes for future reference. My systems have changed over the years as my duties...

A seemingly simple quote from Ron Swanson, of the TV show Parks and Recreation, I think its often easy to think you can do everything. Sometimes it happens slow...

Many companies will have end of year reviews for all employees. Its a big production, getting self evaluations, peer reviews and manager reviews. Staple them up...

Early in my career I had trouble focusing on building my skill set in a single area. I wanted to do everything. I wanted to design the best looking, trendiest g...

People, teams, companies, relationships all go though hard times. I always think about a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt."A smooth sea never made a skille...

Stealing the management book name from Michael Scott, of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, formerly of Michael Scott's Paper Company, I wanted to share my thou...

If you have the luxury of starting a new team, or evolving a team overtime, you might want to try collaborating with the team on a working agreement. I call the...

I want to tell you a little story about why I chose Hover as my domain registrar and a lesson I learned about going above and beyond for customers and potential...

At the end of each 1-1 I ask the same set of questions. No matter where the conversation has taken us, I want to be sure to leave open a couple minutes to ask a...

I stole this question from Lara Hogan who took it from someone else. I think it’s such an awesome question to kick off a new relationship as a manager and I hav...

You’re only as efficient as the process you employ. When things get stressful and deadlines loom, you should be able to rely on your organizational system to he...