Leadership
37 essays, 2012–2025, newest first.
- Believe the Checkbook AI companies talk as if engineering is over. Their acquisitions say the opposite.
- The Most Expensive Wall in Software What happens when you stop protecting engineers from customers?
- Mise en Place for AI Teams Small tools, sharp edges, fast teams.
- The Human Side of AI: Giving People Back Their Time In 1927, Henry Ford made a revolutionary decision to transition his workforce to a five-day workweek. The reason wasn't just altruism - he discovered that...
- Don't Wait for January The Myth of the Perfect Starting Line
- Navigating the Upside Down as a Technology Leader Ideas for leading technology organizations with confidence and creativity.
- Call to Adventure My career's next chapter.
- Organizational Kintsugi: Turning Brokenness into Resilience The following post is something I really haven't shared before. But, it was on my mind during a recent 20 hour road-trip with my family and I had some...
- Encourage Your Team to Take Time Off this Holiday Season Next year is shaping up to be just as uncertain and stressful as the post-COVID years. Use December as an opportunity to encourage your team to take some...
- Leading Through Crisis Earlier on in my career I was working alongside a team of really smart developers building an application that you have probably used at a company you...
- Nine Lies About Work: Series Overview This series dives deep into The Nine Lies About Work - A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall....
- Interview: The One Broken Cog Podcast Pull up a comfortable chair and a calming drink and come spend a few minutes with Robert Greiner and me. I had the privilege of joining John and Brian on...
- Design Thinking for Non-Designers The designer's toolkit is a general-purpose problem-solving loop - and you don't need a design degree to run it
- PERMA-V: How to Flourish in Work and Life Flourishing isn't a personality trait. It's six things you can practice.
- PERMA-V: Positive Emotions and Savoring the Best Parts of Life You don't need more good moments — you need to get more out of the ones you have
- Take a Break! Your brain says this is the wrong week to step away — it says that every week
- Take a Break! The Trip Report Rest stays invisible until someone puts it on the record, and the leader goes first
- Leading in a Crisis: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Super excited to talk to Charles Knight about leading in times of uncertainty. We discuss Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, how the framework applies to...
- Focus on Your Circle of Influence Score 100 on the things you can controlIn life, and especially in uncertain times, there are endless sources of "news" telling you what you should be...
- Humble. Hungry. Smart. Exceptional teams change the world. Dysfunctional teams don’t.One of my favorite movie scenes is from Apollo 13 after the crew realized they didn’t...
- Human and Golf Course Architecture "Narrow fairways bordered by long grass make for bad golfers. They do so by destroying the harmony and continuity of the game, and in causing a stilted...
- Wooden Blocks I was listening to a Manager Tools podcast over the weekend and they shared a great Civil War era poem by Stephen Vincent Benet that applies very broadly...
- Leadership Worst Practices I've been re-watching The Office with my wife over the past several months, starting from the beginning and working through all of the episodes. One thing...
- Eight Steps to Transform Your Organization Change is hard, really hard. Most days, I can barely muster the willpower to floss my teeth - even after deliberately placing the floss right next to my...
- Chess, Not Checkers The first few years of my career were relatively straightforward. I came to work every day, grabbed my new user stories or defects and started working....
- Five Qualities of People-Focused Leaders When you’re in a relationship, if you are aware of a problem, it’s your responsibility to make a concerted effort to make a positive change. - John...
- Executive Presence I had an opportunity to read a few books over the holiday break, and the best one by far, was Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and...
- The Platinum Rule A few months prior to being married, my then-future-wife and I spent some quality time together looking for a new apartment. We had already discussed the...
- Deadlines Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion - Parkinson's LawI remember watching an episode of The Simpsons years ago, where the...
- Grit Every summer before going off to college, I worked with my dad at his Powder Coating business. For those who aren't familiar with the trade, a typical day...
- Leader-Leader Traditional leadership logic (leader-follower) says that organizations need a strong leader to take command and control over the organization in order for...
- The Trust Equation You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you....
- Help Your Team Succeed By Providing Context, Tools, and Opportunities In order for your team to succeed, they must be provided with the proper context, tools, and opportunities. Neglecting any one of these three items will...
- Agree Now to Disagree Later When you find yourself disagreeing with someone, you might find you get what you want more often if you focus on what you can agree on first and save what...
- The First Thing You Should Do After A Missed Deadline There are several different project management levers you can pull when a team member misses a deadline, but there is one that you should always do before...
- People When I was in college, I lived in this old eight-unit apartment complex (for $400/month including electricity) with my roommate who I'd known since high...
- Work Yourself Out of a Job Some of the best advice that I've received in my career is that whatever job position you find yourself in, you should always be trying to work yourself...