rands

How Lego Learned How Children Play

Via Quartz:

These and other findings led the researchers to identify the key patterns: children play to get oxygen, to understand hierarchy, to achieve mastery at a skill, and to socialize. The patterns were simplified into four categories: under the radar, hierarchy, mastery, and social play.

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February 25, 2015

An Ideal Conversation

You’re going to have a conversation. Great. Ideally, this is going to be an effective conversation. You have a topic you want to discuss that will likely result in a decision or two. You are confident in your version of the truth and you feel no matter what happens in this conversation, you’ll be able… more

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February 20, 2015
Tech Life
2 Comments

Still Playing Destiny

I’m still playing Destiny. It’s February. We’re well past the holiday period where I have an unusual amount of free time to binge on video games. This Christmas it was Warlords of Draenor (revitalized game play, almost a reboot, right?), Shadows of Mordor (fascinating engaging game play and enemy reputation system + best game based… more

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February 14, 2015
Tech Life
14 Comments

Ask Them How They Want to Grow

“We’re working on development opportunities for our engineering team including some of the most senior folks on the engineering team. What are some interesting things we can provide to help them with personal development?”

I get versions of this question a lot and I have some default answers that I list below, but I would be very interested in what others do to make sure they have credible growth opportunities for their team:

  • Let’s start with: sending folks to conferences is a fine idea and relative low cost, but I find conferences are a short term growth bandaid and don’t give engineers longterm fire/recharge. However, speaking at a conference is whole other deal that I highly suggest especially for the folks who think they are not good public speakers.
  • Vacation is never the answer to this particular question. Vacation is lovely mental opportunity to mentally wander and I’m a huge proponent of mentally wandering, but time off as a growth opportunity often translates to mental wandering that results in resignations.
  • Open sourcing an internal project is an easy short-term win, but the ongoing cost of maintaining said project needs to be factored into this program.
  • Work out an engineering exchange program with another company. Details here. I haven’t done this before, but it makes all sorts of sense.
  • Have an individual work on whatever the hell they want for 90 days. No constraints. Just their project. Extra credit for pairing them with other likeminded engineers. This is hard to pull off because there is always something urgent for these folks to do, but would you rather have them semi-absent for a quarter or absent forever?
  • Ask them what they want to do and how they want to grow. Like I’m doing right now.

What’s your power growth move for yourself or your team?

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January 14, 2015 6 Comments

Your Best Work (2015)

I take issue with the deliberately inflammatory headline that Google is to blame for destroying the workplace since open office style workplaces were around long before Google, but the topic is worth debating. I have a variety of issues regarding the open office trend. Let’s start with the fact that the folks often making the… more

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January 12, 2015
Tech Life
15 Comments

Rands Leadership Survey Update

Over 400 folks have taken the time to fill out the Rands Leadership Survey. Thank you. Some very brief stats:

  • I’m seeing a completion rate of 25%+ on desktops, tables, and smartphones which is a lot considering the survey takes 10+ minutes to fill out.
  • It is apparently easier to fill out the survey on a tablet. Higher completions, lower average time to complete. Tip of the hat to Typeform for making the survey simple and gorgeous on mobile devices.
  • 98% of the folks who filled out the survey want to hear about the results. 92% are willing to joining a mailing list on leadership. That seems like an easy win.
  • In terms of where folks are willing to invest their time, the current winners are: participating in a mentorship program (67%) and semi-informal serendipitous bitching at a nearby bar (67%).

As I mentioned in the introduction to the survey, I’m leaving the survey up for a month and will then publish results. If you haven’t already and you are a leader of humans, take 10 minutes of your time and take the survey.

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January 4, 2015 1 Comment