Review season. You start your career thinking the review is the most important milestone of the year, but as an individual, you only see part of the picture. Everyone cares about the compensation (base salary, bonus, and stock). That’s the data they care about, but where did this pile of compensation come from? Who decided… more
I will now explain why at least 50% of your team finds your current All Hands to be a waste of their time. They believe: Now, I will describe how to build an All Hands that will exceed their expectations. Let’s define the All Hands: Everyone. Together. There’s an important organizational inflection point when you… more
Welcome, new leader. We’re glad that you are here. Your arrival fills a critical vacancy in our team, and we can’t wait to see what you can do at this company. We’re going to say that we’re not in a hurry and you should take your time, but we’re in a hurry. Before you arrive,… more
Coffee in hand, I sit down in the Cave. Any Tuesday during the work week, a sip, and I parse the calendar. 1:1 — he’s fine. Status meeting — listen. Staff meeting — read the notes from last week. Exec review — figure out the biggest fire, have a defensible opinion. Wait — Mark Team… more
Carolyn, my chief of staff, sat on the couch as I ran into my office. The Palo Alto building wasn’t built for tech; it’d been adapted to support the use case over the years. My office was in the center of the building, which had an inner atrium. Way too many windows. Maybe a salon?… more
The Head of Product, Customer Service, and the CTO of Slack were sitting in the front row at an important conference. This was peak Slack; we were all the buzz, the fastest-growing enterprise software company in history. The conference speakers were singing out praises, and at that precise moment, Slack was down. Again. I wish… more
They don’t want to hear it. They don’t. It is legit good feedback. It is substantive, and it is 100% true, but they do not want to hear it. How do you know this? You’ve provided the feedback several times. Three different variants of the critical feedback, and each time, the response is one of… more
It’s hard to tell what drives each human. This is why my usual last interview question is a very blunt, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask everyone regardless of the amount of experience because I want to see how they improvise and, often, a hint at their motivation. I… more
I worked for each of these humans. They either hired or promoted me. I worked for them for many years. As is my way, I’ve vastly altered the details of each human, but the core issue I describe is the core issue. Also, each of these humans is very smart. No dummies. Here are their… more
I don’t like fish. “But Rands, have you tried…” Yeah, I tried that. I don’t like fish. “Wait, wait, wait, what you need to try is…” Tried that, too. A couple of times. I don’t like fish. “Rands, you haven’t had good fish.” Yeah, I’ve had good fish. Many times. Girlfriends, good friends, bad friends.… more
