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
Years ago at Borland. My first real gig. I was poached from an internship into a full-time QA gig. When I accepted the offer, they sent me a box of Borland schwag, t-shirts, notebooks, and pens. I was elated. No more hourly wages, I was full-time. Six months in, my manager sat me down at… more
In our 67th episode, the topic is Performance Reviews and how you build yourself by building others. Oh yeah, we talked about ChatGPT, too. Enjoy it now or download for later. Here’s a handy feed or subscribe via Overcast or iTunes.
At some point in your leadership career, you’ll need to care about performance management. My first bit of advice is the hardest: don’t ever let yourself think or say the words “performance management.” This is impossible, but aspirational. I will explain. My hard earned definition of performance management: a well-defined workflow that either leads to… more
As I mention in this talk, I’ve been attempting to write a talk on performance management for years. Each time I start, I realize the complexity of the topic. It’s not a 2000 word essay, it’s a book. It’s also a topic that when executed poorly results in a variety of leadership disasters that while educational are also avoidable.
When the folks at First Round asked if I had any thoughts on the topic, I produced the following talk which is a small step in educating folks on the complexities of dealing with performance issues.
Great crowd, hard topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjczN5_bmnA
Business is noisy. Business is full of people worrying loudly about projects, processes, and other people. These people have opinions, and they share them all over the place — all the time. This collective chatter is part of the daily regimen of a healthy business, but this chatter will bury the individual voice unless someone… 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
Ed: This article assumes you’ve read Part #1. The first article finished with the big Rands revelation that it’s the manager’s job to figure out how to give Fez a swift kick in the butt. Yes, Fez needs to have the brains to listen and react to constructive advice, but that’s his deal. If I’ve… more
Fez. Fez is a senior engineer who works for me. He’s fictional, but you know Fez. He’s the guy who wrote that piece of code nine million years ago that everyone is dependent on, but no one knows what exactly it does because Fez didn’t bother to comment a single line… oh yeah and he… more
