Pressure and stress are not the same thing. A person can apply constant pressure and still not create any stress. And others can create stressful situations without pressure. Pressure can be productive. Stress rarely is.
Here’s what we know – everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes a failure is our own fault. Sometimes it’s because we were counting on something or someone else. It could be in our control, or not. But one thing is for sure: we all make mistakes. Given that reality, here’s the bigger question: how do you handle …
It’s been a long time since Bill Russell was a Boston Celtic. It’s also been a long time since Pete Rose was a player manager. Maybe because it’s been so long we’ve forgotten that they used to exist. The Player Coach: a role for those who are leaders that also are individual contributors. In business …
There are a ton of great articles about the value and benefit of getting rid of jerks within your organization. One of my favorites is, Why Firing Brilliant Assholes Is Required to Build a Great Engineering Culture. Don’t get me wrong. Jerks aren’t fun. They’re not great. They can ruin teams and cultures. But sometimes …
Sometimes it’s hard to know if leaders should lead from the front, or whether they should lead from the back. While people may recommend different approaches, here’s my simple approach.
The deal finally closed. Today. After months of negotiating, after months of finding middle ground, after months of looking over details, numbers, and contract clauses – the deal was finally wrapped up. Today we announced the acquisition of iThemes – a company run, and partially owned, by my friend Cory Miller. Did I do the …
Here’s why you should buy your friend’s company, if you can CONTINUE READING
I love how Amazon talks about ownership: Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”. We’ve all worked with folks who said, “that’s not my job,” and hated …
Every high performing team values ownership CONTINUE READING
Today I was on a phone call with a peer of mine at work, the VP of Engineering at Liquid Web. Within 20 minutes anyone listening to our call would have known I was speaking to a leader, not just a manager. Here are the differences that are easy to spot when you know what …
Four differences between a leader and a manager CONTINUE READING
If you didn’t catch the news, Bruno Mars won in all 6 categories that he was nominated for at this year’s Grammys. That’s a huge win – regardless of whether you love his music or not. This was the first time that the winner of the best R&B album also won the top (pop) award …
Every day I’m presented with a common choice in the software development space – I can either have it done correctly or I can have it done quickly. I’m asked, which do I want? Another common challenge is that I’m told there are finite resources (staff) with a fixed amount of time. So given all …