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Laissez-Faire Leadership
1 day ago
You Don’t Need to be First
2 days ago
Who do you report to?
3 days ago
The Best Ticketing System Ever
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The Only Time I was an Early Adopter
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The Correlation in Stress to Work
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What AI Gives Zero Thought to
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AI talking to Humans talking to AI
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This is How I do it
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The Ownership in Your Work
7 hours ago
When translated, “Laissez-faire” roughly means “Let it happen” – although let’s be honest, “Laissez-faire” sounds much nicer. “Let it happen” leadership occurs when you put a bunch of people in a room and tell them to figure it out. No guidance. No structure. No input. No direction. Just… let it happen. This isn’t a good strategy; everything and everyone needs guidance. We crave it, we want it, we need it to do well. Am I on track? Is this what you expect? Are we aligned? These are all the meme-worthy tropes that come out when a team is not getting …
1 day ago
You Don’t Need to be First
Greg Thomas
You don’t need to be the first person to respond to that new bug; you need to be the right person to respond. The race to first is over – now it’s about being the best to respond. Does this match my skill set? Do I know the context? Do I understand the problem? Can I help or hinder? Being the first one to say “I got it, I’m on it” and then wait on it or spin trying to figure it out – give it to the person who is now second. You need a license to drive a …
2 days ago
Who do you report to?
Greg Thomas
I’ve always had a simple view of who I report to, irrespective of the project and the work I’m doing. If I’m leading a team, I report to the members of the team and manage status updates above. You lead your team; you manage their results. The reasoning is simple – your team is what matters most; they are the ones putting in the time, they are the ones investing extra effort, they are the ones who need your help. Your manager should be leading you: what do you need, and how can I help? Same pattern and practice – …
1 week ago
The Ownership in Your Work
If it breaks, it’s on you. If it looks like you copied it from AI without your own context, you copied it from AI without your own context. If it’s sloppy, you wrote it. If it doesn’t work, you built it. Things don’t always go the way we want in our work, but the level of effort and commitment that we invest is always, entirely up to us. Sloppy, Lazy, cut-and-paste work is a signal of our investment and commitment. You can own and make it more, or leave it and hope no one cares. The thing about ownership, which …
1 week ago
The Leaders You Need
Give them grace to make mistakes when they try their best. Give them space to try out new ideas even though you know it might fail. Give them a path that shows what they could become. Give them the tools to accomplish their goals and learn at the same time. Let them walk before they can run. When they put their hands on the stove, remind them it could burn. Raise them up when they are down. Don’t speak for them; let them and their work do that. These are the leaders we need, and they are also the leaders …
1 week ago
I Don’t Know is the Best Answer
I’ve been running a number of interviews lately, and I’m amazed at how everyone has some type of answer to a question. And sadly, in most cases they are wrong; they are bad answers, and if I’m feeling curious that day, I might keep poking and prodding to see how much I can make your AI hallucinate during the interview. The best candidate I interviewed over the past week asked to use a pencil and paper to draw out the problem and answered a few questions with “I don’t know”. Everything else was solid; he didn’t know it all. No …