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Motivation is a mindset
I come from the old school: when I was a kid, around eight years old, there were no mobile phones, and computers were uncommon. Technology was definitely less ubiquitous than today; working in tech was not something we heard a lot of; connecting computers to other computers could only be done by using an expensive phone call, and only a few people knew how to do it. When my father bought me a Commodore VIC 20, I was just one of three schoolmates out of thirty (!) owning a so-called home computer. We were the nerds. Long story short that was the moment when my life changed forever. I started…
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Delegation = laziness?
Why don’t you delegate? Books have been written on the importance of delegation.Frameworks have been defined, along with diagrams and thorough explanations of what should be delegated and what not, for example: There are also diagrams and guidelines to help identify whom to delegate tasks to, but that is definitely outside of the scope of this post. Now, many managers agree on the importance of delegating tasks. However, surprisingly enough, throughout my career, I have met many managers who struggled with delegation. What were the main causes? In short: Fear of losing control. Fear of becoming useless to the company. Fear of being perceived as “lazy”. Are those valid reasons?…
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Communication is empathy
When I was working at Automattic, we used to say “Communication is oxygen“. I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. From the Automattic Creed But as an inner joke among fellow Automatticians was: too much oxygen kills. The importance of communication Books have been written on this topic but as a kind reminder, I will just point out what is the most important aspect of good communication in my personal opinion, with a specific focus on software engineering. Ready for the revelation?Here it is: The goal of good communication is to help our colleagues.And in doing so, helping ourselves. When we communicate with…
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Just do it Now. Or, improve every day.
The 1% marginal gains rule There has been quite a bit of buzz on the so-called 1% marginal gains rule. This “rule” became famous after Dave Brailsford, performance director of British Cycling, set about breaking down the objective of winning races into its component parts. The basic concept is easy: if we work on improving a mere 1% a day – or a week, or else – then the cumulative gain would be massive. Nothing new, really. Is the 1% marginal gain rule a recent concept? I don’t believe so. If we think about anything we do in our lives, a tiny bit of knowledge is added to our brain…
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Communication is oxygen, they say…
…And I could not agree more. So what is the role of us leads?Can we help our team with communication?Spoiler: of course we do, and it is one of our responsibilities.So how do we do it? Here are some ideas. Build and Share Your Manifesto Leads should be the first to communicate clearly and loud: Their expectations in terms of performance and communications How their teams should work What their style is How success is defined I personally do this as part of each onboarding session; leaving anything to chance has proven to be very dangerous, because everyone comes from different experiences. Taking our personal manifesto as starting point, we…
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I Am Not the Rockstar
In my previous post, I described Team Leads as bass guitar players.Anyone who is familiar with music knows that rhythm and melody go hand-in-hand. With many genres from funk to hard rock, bass guitars place themselves right in between those two, boosting the overall experience.This also means that, by its nature, that low-pitch bass sound is often buried between drums and guitars: it provides the music with body and groove, but many people struggle with recognising its sound. Bass guitarists are often overlooked, while singers and lead guitarists take all the love and the cheers. Can you see the parallel? I do. You have all worked hard to compose the next…
