I recently spoke at Yahoo! about the book, and, for this presentation, I adapted the Agenda Detection and Meeting Creatures chapters into a piece about how I assess agendas and people in the first 10 minutes of any meeting. Early on in the presentation, I asked the audience, “What are the things you are supposed… More

The $150,000 mistake, your shipping schedule being off by a year, and The Really Bad Hire (aka: we’re being sued). These are not screw-ups, these are fuck-ups. When you discover them, the air leaves your lungs, the back of your head tingles, and there’s an odd metallic taste in your mouth. Your mind goes blank… More

There is a long-standing perk for working at high tech companies. If there is a nerd-relevant movie coming out, it is the obligation of management to get a sneak preview for the engineering team. An opening day morning showing works, but has significantly less morale impact than the sneak preview earlier in the week as… More

Muddled. Our release was muddled. I was sitting at my desk talking to a white stone polar bear and trying to form an opinion about the release. The execs were going to ask. Soon. “Well, QA is freaked out, but QA is always freaked out, so I’ll call that a wash. The UI guys wanted… More

Worst meeting ever. It’s not that the attendee list is wrong. All the right people are there and they’re bright and they are the decision makers. It’s not that the topic is boring or poorly defined. It’s a big deal. The problem with this meeting is that it’s never going to end. See, about a… More

What do you do? Seriously, on your business card there is a title. Say it out loud. “Senior Manager of Engineering” “Industrial Data Analyst” “Human Factors Specialist” Is that what you actually do? Try this: think about the last four hours of your job and give yourself a title. Mine would be “Sr. Meeting Wrangler”… More

Ed: The last day of Deconstructing Managers week. It all started on Day #1. What happens when they lose their shit? Pride and panic. The two delicious ends of the management spectrum. Pride is when it’s going swimmingly. Great product release, selling well. Hired that phenomenal guy from the other group who is going to… More

Ed: Day #5 of the Deconstructing Managers week. Day #1 is where this whole piece begins. Back at Netscape, Internet Explorer was threatening, but we were under the illusion the sky was not falling. We were merrily planning the next release of the browser under the assumption that Microsoft was going to somehow screw-up their… More

Ed: Day #4 of the Deconstructing Managers week. Day #1 sets the stage and is a good place to begin. How does your manager talk to you? My first piece of advice to all new managers is “Schedule 1:1s, keep them on the same day and time, never cancel them.” With this mind, some of… More

Ed: Day #3 of the Deconstructing Managers week. If you haven’t a clue what is going, I’d suggest starting with Day #1. How are they compensating for their blind spots? Now we’re going to pick on your favorite manager. Tell me about him. Probably a great communicator, funny guy, charismatic, you say? He probably inspired… More