15 hours agoMember-onlyMotivation for engineering organisationsAre you trying to land someone on the moon or build a pyramid? Understanding how people in your team or organisation are motivated is important and the traditional mechanisms for motivating people don’t well as we think they do. My rough rule of thumb is that if you can effectively…Leadership6 min readLeadership6 min read
1 day agoMember-onlyWhat are Google’s leaders teaching?Leadership is learning but what lessons are being learned? As both a former manager and a (current) parent one of the things that has struck me about both roles is that people are constantly learning from you. They are learning how to act, they are learning a set of values…Leadership9 min readLeadership9 min read
5 days agoMember-onlyHow to make layoffs less awfulPrinciples for being involved in disruptive and difficult change One of the questions I got after writing my opinion on the cultural and leadership failure that is the layoff process at Google was to ask me what I would have done differently. I’m going to reiterate this now before I…Google14 min readGoogle14 min read
6 days agoMember-onlyAfter the layoffsUnderstanding the impact of layoffs and how you can help mitigate some of them I wrote an article yesterday about the Google layoffs which garnered way more attention than I expected. After it I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve shared their experience. A sense of devastation like being…6 min read6 min read
Jan 24Member-onlyWhy the Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadershipHow did the company that aspired to be so much more come to this? Recently, Google announced it was laying off approximately 6% of its workforce (or 12,000 people). This brings it in line with most of the rest of the tech industry. The reason given by a publicly contrite…Google8 min readGoogle8 min read
Nov 25, 2022Member-onlyAn Opportunity for TwitterHow the revolution at Twitter may give them the chance to break their chains. Or not. Like many people I’m curious about the ongoing train crash that is Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. The first part of this is the human carnage being wrought as the company is dismantled and…Twitter8 min readTwitter8 min read
Nov 23, 2022Member-onlyDecision Making and YouHow the way you go about decision making as a leader either cripples or enables your organisation One of the most important roles a leader has is in being part of an effective decision making process. You’ll notice here that I’m not saying “making decisions” which is important but only…Leadership8 min readLeadership8 min read
Nov 3, 2022Member-onlyAsk, Show or TellA simple hierarchy for influencing people Thoughout our personal and professional lives we communicate to influence people of a particular view point or course of action. The trouble is we’re not very good at it. It kind of isn’t our fault because we grow up being exposed to the least…Leadership6 min readLeadership6 min read
Nov 2, 2022Member-only5 Ways That Good Performance Management is like SRE at GoogleWhat managers of people can learn from managers of production systems I’ve been thinking a lot about performance management lately. How do I do it? How have I seen it done? How is it done well? Performance management is all about growing the capability of your organisation. …Leadership6 min readLeadership6 min read
Jun 9, 2022Member-onlyThe Case for KindnessHow the deliberate practice of kindness makes you and your company more successful It’s so easy in our working lives to be focused on getting things done. There’s always more things to do than we have hours in the day. The pressure is always there to be making progress. It’s…Leadership6 min readLeadership6 min read
