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
Ed: This is Day #2 of the Deconstructing Manager’s piece. Day #1 might help you figure out what is going on here. I am not going to explain what your manager does all day. Sorry. I am going to hand you six critical questions that you need to answer in order to figure out if… more
Ed: This piece is long. Really long. Like 16 pages long. For the original publishing, I’ll be serializing this piece into six days of management deconstruction. Enjoy. Back in February, I asked the question “Who is the worst person you worked for?” If you print out the responses in a smallish font, you end up… more
“What, exactly, do you do?” Slack. Jawed. Amazement. This question is coming from someone I trust. A trusted employee who has been working in my group at the start-up for years. This guy always tells me the straight dope and now he’s asking me what I do with my day because he honestly does not… more
Tony passes me the hallway at lunch, basketball in hand, and the conversation goes like this: Me: “Hey Tony, how was basketball?” Tony: “It’s good. I was playing with Phil and he mentioned his team was working on Gimbleflibbits.” Me: “Gimbleflibbits? That sounds a whole lot like our effort on Trimbleflibbits. Did you mention we… more
Anyone who’s worked with me has stumbled on my policy on remote employees. The short answer is, “No”. The longer answer is, “The team is moving far too fast for you to miss the various hallway conversations which randomly point us in different directions.” Software is art. It’s team art. When the team collectively decides… more
Managers, wanna-be managers, and folks who want to understand managers simply need to read the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green and Joost Elffers. I’ve purposely not done any background research on this document because my first reaction to this list was profound and I wanted to stare at that reaction. There’s some pretty… more
Everyone at work chuckles when I, once again, tell them I was out with the chain saw this weekend. They’re laughing because they’re trying to picture their nerd boss act like a mountain man. Fact of the matter is, I am a nerd. I do call Verizon every month or so to see when they’ll… more