It’s easy to have a lead foot, but that won’t make you quick. The key to speed is in fact braking, unless you’re running down a straight quarter mile but that’s hardly the case in a company. Speed is important, but agility is essential.
Go to workshops that aren’t for you, especially the ones where you’re a little over your head in someone else’s specialty.
Two weeks ago I stayed late to join in on a Test Driven Development (TDD) workshop we had at SlideShare. I really had no idea what TDD was before this. And for those of you like me, it’s a way of programming that integrate testing / debugging alongside the development of the code instead of leaving it all at the end. Now I’m not an engineer, but from what I can tell it reduces load off of QA testing at the end and helps focus in developers onto the task at hand.
Sounds a bit technical I know, but that was the point. TDD has absolutely nothing to do with my job description. It’s not going to help me with our SEO strategy or help me write our next press release. But it is going to help me understand and work with our developers, which at the end of the day is just as important if not more so.
If you have a multidisciplinary job, which everyone does at a startup, it is important for you to get a little bit of everyone else’s perspective. I need to make sure that if I’m out solving problems, not just asking for new features. Often I ask for something that is hard to do, but we can get at least 80% of the way there on something easy. Sometimes settling for the easy 80% is the right decision and sometimes it isn’t, but I knowing about that option makes the world of difference.
These things aren’t always easy to spot, but even if someone sees them, it’s hard to bring up if the higher up is merely saying “do this, code that. I need this done.” I’ve seen this happen with graphic design, user interface design, and even with franchise incentive programs. It happens everywhere.
So, be a better coworker and a better boss. Go to someone else’s workshop and get some perspective.
When you’re managing people, how you see them as employees below you is surprisingly different than the view their underlings have of them.
You often have this wonderful view of your personnel. They are smart, cheerful, energetic and easy to work with. But that’s just how they relate to you. We seem to assume that how we related to one person is usually how others related to them as well. But power structures definitely change that, and this is aside from them just sucking up to you and doing a 180 when you leave the room.
I recently realized that someone I used to delegate to who I really enjoyed working with was often viewed by others as hard-nosed and cold. When I worked with her a few years back, I always thought she was a touch quiet, but always stepped up to the plated when needed. She got along well with the other team members, which was not a surprise since we had an extrodinarily cohesive team.
But it did surprise me that she manages people underneath her in a very different way than she manages herself and her peers. It’s not always a bad thing, but it’s something to be cognizant of, especially if you have personnel problems.
It’s always good to get away from your desk, talk to people you don’t seen routinely and get a different perspective. The trick is, as the boss or the boss’s boss, getting them to be candid. And that’s a tough, but I’d say vital, managerial skill.
So this has come up a bit lately, and it has always been a pet peeve of mine so I’m doing a quick blog post in the middle of my work day.
STOP WASTING TALENT. You probably have a lot more talent around you than you realized. That intern in the corner? Probably could do more than watch videos all day, waiting to be assigned work.
This goes beyond interns and entry level as well. Everyone seems to be either unemployed or absurdly busy. It’s a good time to see who can step up and who can’t. Go give people higher level work, , make people stretch a little, just try to minimize the busy work.
Challenge everyone to be better, not just busier. It’s also a good time to see if you’re a leader, or just everyone’s boss.
The converse of this, is to make sure you’re not asking an unsustainable amount of work from your employees… but that’s at the other end of the scale and a post for another day.
If you have ever wondered what power a single word could hold, simply look at the money spent on Prop 8 on California. With both sides spending over $74 million, the figure will only rise as Prop 8 opponent challenge the amendment in court.
The word marriage is steeped in cultural tradition, religious connotation, historical meaning and legal context. It is the metaphorical tip of a very large iceberg.
Malcom Gladwell has an interesting piece up on the New Yorker (if you want to read it, and not hear me talk about it and quote it, the link is below). He discusses the two types of genius we seem to have. The first is genius as we normally think of it. The type that seems innate and fated. It shows up early and fully of energy. It seems that these youth were simply “born with it.”
But more interestingly, he talks about genuis of the late-bloomer. Genuis that is found through trial and failure.
Gladwell writes, “On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure,” and on their journey this type of genius requires ”forbearance and blind faith.” Thus, Gladwell brings up something I haven’t heard about in a while. The need for a patron. Someone who believes in us, not because they were simply waiting for a break through, but because they already think you are incredible.
Gladwell continues, “We’d like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell
On Monday I got a copy of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics dropped on my desk. I use Google Analytics at work and so naturally it’s one of those things I can never learn enough about.
However, today Google announced a whole new set of features that will be coming to Google Analytics. A lot of the round about ways of doing things, the little hacks and shortcuts, are now covered by new features. The book on my desk has whole chapter on these things. It’s tough timing for the author. The book looks well written and is about a popular topic. The timing seemed great. Google Analytics had been around enough to be popular and stable enough to gather expertise on. Unfortunately, these changes makes that expertise a little obsolete.
Sometimes timing is out of your control. But that’s just one of the many risks in business and in life.
This is originally from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivy_windchaser/2939110809/ The link to her livejournal is under the picture, I highly recommend reading the original post and the follow-up. I think it’s brave, hilarious and all around awesome.
Stolen Obama sign replaced, equals more money for Obama
October 2nd is Gandhi Jayanti, which is Ghandi’s birthday and the International Day of Non-Violence. Now Gandhi is one of the most respected and remembered historical figures of our time, if not all time. And what I would like to touch upon today is the amount of force that is needed for social change.
People not only disagreed with Gandhi and argued against him, people mocked him. The idea that morality is universal and obviously accepted is something I like to think is true, but I don’t see it in the world we live in. As people we tend to stick to our social constructs, our ability to rationalize our feelings seems boundless.
At some point, eloquent speeches do no further, logic convinces no more minds, and even facts can be filtered and ignored. And to really change minds in a drastic manner requires uncommon strength and unconventional example. So if you truly seek social change, be prepared to be ridiculed before you are accepted.
Champions are not winners, to call them that could almost be disrespectful. Champions do not simply win, they persist, they endure. They endure past where others would push themselves. They endure for what is easily won is easily forgotten.
In our day we do not look at those who win easily or champion quickly. We study the struggle. We are impressed, not with the fall and near failures, but with the remounting of the horse.
We watch amazed because before us, in their all consuming struggle, they are naked. They are stripped of flash, of suave and savvy. In demonstrations of unbelievable feat, they show us weakness, they show us humanity. In the arena we see not a demi-god, but a brother, a sister. A sibling we are proud of and sympathetic to. And we love them, not from some sense of familiarity, but largely from their love of their struggle.
Their passion ignites something in us. We love those who have found joy in their purpose. Not enough of us love what we do. Champions are lovers. For even in the midst of winning or losing, their passion seeps through. Be it a fist pump, a roar or scream or half crooked smile. We can see it in their eyes, in their posture, the way they carry themselves under tremendous pressure.
We even find ourselves behind not the most skilled, but the most struggled, the most passionate. Even if they are not the most likely to win, we find them the most deserving. They may not be faster or stronger or sleeker. They simply want it more.
In the end, in the cloud of confetti, we find we have chosen our champion, trophy or not. And in that choice, talent does not matter.