mister secretary
A brief recounting of the power of the written word across my life and career. Leadership isn’t in a title, it’s in your words, and you should beware anyone suggesting you outsource them in the name of efficiency.
debugging everything
What is debugging, really? I’ve thought about it for most of my life and never really come up with a satisfactory answer until today.
reviewing performance
Several executives over my career have sat me down, looked me in the eye, and implied I was a naive fool for trusting my employees. Fuck ’em.
framed shackles
My annual “spring is here” post, wherein I connect a 6-year old task I finally completed to our country’s history, my home, and the work ahead of us.
privileged practice
It was quite a roller coaster of a week. Remembering what a privilege certain moments are can help even out the ride.
career goals
I don’t understand career goals. Is my career a list of job titles, start dates, or projects I delivered? I don’t think so.
governance retreats
It’s going to be especially important where your time, attention, and money goes over the next four years. These are a few areas I’m prioritizing.
that word
I’ve semantically overloaded the word “leadership” to the point that I occasionally forget how far removed my definition is from the popular lexicon.
first resignation
This is a reflection on my first resignation in late 2006, nearly 18 years ago, that I found today while looking for a document in my attic.
owner insecurity
A hallmark of a healthy company is keeping incentives aligned with ownership. The only way to scale this is to focus on alignment, not control.
legal entities
Working relationships between humans are far more durable & valuable than those between people and a legal entity. What’s a company, anyway?
strategic capacity
In a small & fast engineering team, it’s challenging to quantify work being done. There’s so much to do, and it’s difficult to categorize. How can you determine your capacity for addressing your strategic roadmap when stakeholders ask about it?
successful people
If you start your career debasing yourself in drudgery for someone else’s profit, you won’t acquire the leadership & critical thinking skills you need and you’ll suffer for it.
discussing violence
It’s very difficult to talk about violence even among close friends over drinks, let alone on social media or other online venues. We need to anyway.
community signal
Patrick O’Keefe of the long-running show Community Signal asked me to join him in a discussion that ranged from private equity buying community software, community data ownership, and the stakeholder challenges of community software roadmaps.
weighted web
Building on the Web these days often feels like a game where you see how much weight you can put in a boat before it sinks, but you get $1 for every pound you add instead of how many days it stays afloat.
psychological safety
Psychological safety is the most powerful productivity multiplier. Without it, no one can take ownership of their piece of the company and make it better.
devaluing quality
Software building is a team activity, and QA is an indispensable stakeholder on a well-functioning team.
feudalistic software
Have you ever noticed nearly all Web software is feudalistic? I share three important pieces from academics that capture the issue.
spring reflection
I’m thinking about how easy it is to get locked into a path. We tell ourselves lies about who we are every day and make choices based on those lies.