# 👨‍🏫 NOTES - MANAGING ## Remember * Employees don’t quit their job; they quit their boss. Bad boss - Eighty percent of employees reported having had one at least once in their career and 55% have left a job because of them * Listening is the first and most basic skill of managing people. Listening is a precursor to empathy, which is one of the core skills of a quality manager. * Within two years, nearly half of executive transitions are considered disappointments or outright failures * The Peter Principle is a theory written about by Laurence J. Peter in 1969 that essentially states that people are promoted up to the point of their incompetence. Simple Management Tips * Develop their role * Enhance their network * Define their immediate next step * Enlist others to help hone their skills Avoid CRAP * C - always need consensus, afraid to make decisions * R - risk aversion * A - analysis paralysis * P - process driven, not results driven 15 Enemies of Innovation * Culture of blame; * No safe space to experiment; * Desire to please everyone; * Big egos; * Self-doubt; * Micro-management of talent; * Fear of failure; * Too much process rigor; * Impatience; * Abundance of resources; * HIPPO’s; * Measuring effort vs. results; * Complacency; * Curse of knowledge (expertise); * Groupthink Conflict resolution has three aspects: * The need for self-assertion * Active listening skills * An understanding of and interest in collaboration Use These 4 Steps to Tell Your Manager How You Solved a Problem 1) Start With Why You're Sharing It 2) Give a Quick Rundown of the Situation 3) Explain What Worked—and What Didn't 4) End With Plans for Moving Forward Unpack an issue; solve the root cause; avoid problems Remember that most of mentoring is “caught not taught.” Leadership: You can’t make people change. But you can create an environment where they choose to. Leaders create the conditions where people choose new actions. The choices are voluntary. They’re made by people who see a new landscape, new opportunities and new options. You can’t make people change. But you can create an environment where they choose to. manage yourself -> manage projects -> manage people -> manage programs -> manage organizations ## Advice to New Managers 1) Earn trust by giving it 2) Hire for EQ, Train for IQ 3) Eat lunch with your team 4) Tell people their work matters 5) Be a player-coach 6) Feedback in private, praise in public 7) In victory, lead from back 8) In crisis, lead from front 9) Walk around and help Your boss is your employee experience; The person you work for is 90% of the employee experience Which qualities were exhibited by good managers you've had? * They were Subject Matter Experts * Showed compassion & empathy and were down to earth * Treated me like a friend * Mentored and encouraged me to push myself * Stood up for me * Provided honest feedback * Allowed me to be autonomous and did not micro-manage * Helped me when I was stuck & amplified my strengths * Treated every individual's failure as a failure of the team as a whole * Publicly praised and privately criticized ## QUESTIONS for 1:1 * What are your goals for this year? And for the next 3 months? * What do you need from your manager? * What makes you grumpy? * What do you want to be doing six months from now? One year from now? Five years from now? * What position do you want to hold? * What skills will you need to make it happen, and what are you doing to gain those skills? [Questions for our first 1:1 \| Lara Hogan](https://larahogan.me/blog/first-one-on-one-questions/) ## 10 Questions For Getting To Know Your New Direct Reports Faster 1. What Are Some Features Of Your Best Working Relationships With Previous Managers? 2. What Are Some Features Of Your Worst Working Relationships With Previous Managers? 3. How Transparent Do You Prefer Managers To Be? 4. How Would You Like To Use Our One-On-One Time? 5. How Do You Like To Receive Praise? 6. How Do You Like To Receive Constructive Feedback? 7. Anything I Should Know About Your Working Style? 8. What Experiences Make You Happy At Work? 9. What Experiences Make You Stressed Or Frustrated At Work? 10. What Are Some Things You’re Hoping I Can Help With? Best managers are those that build a work environment where the employees can answer ‘Yes’ to 12 questions. Here are the questions, listed in order of priority: Focus on 1-5. 1) Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3) At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? 4) In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work? 5) Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person? 6) Is there someone at work who encourages my development? 7) At work, do my opinions seem to count? 8) Does the mission / purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? 9) Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? 10) Do I have a best friend at work? 11) In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress? 12) In this last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow? ## Direct Report Conversations * Every Week * “How Are You?” * “How Can I Help?” * Every Month * “This Is What I Want You to Prioritize…” * “This Is the Area Where I’d Like to See Growth in the Next Month…” * “What Can I Do to Help You Reach Your Goals?" * Every Quarter * “What Are Your Long-Term Goals?” * “What Skills Would You Like to Build/Continue to Build?” [7 Career Conversations Good Bosses Have With Their Employees on a Regular Basis ](https://www.themuse.com/advice/7-conversations-good-bosses-employees-regular-basis) ## Career Questions * Entry level * What do I want to be good at? * What skills do I need to be good at it? * What can I do to position myself in the best place possible? * What role does work play in my life? * Midlevel * What tasks invigorate me, and what tasks drain me? * Do I want to be a manager? * Am I progressing in my career the way I imagined I would? * Is this career allowing me to do what’s important? * Senior level * In what ways can I still grow? * What legacy do I want to leave? [Questions to Ask Yourself at Every Point in Your Career \| Lifehacker](https://twocents.lifehacker.com/questions-to-ask-yourself-at-every-point-in-your-career-1825025661) [re-Work Google's New Manager Training Slides](https://www.scribd.com/document/356276601/re-Work-Google-s-New-Manager-Training-Slides-pdf) & [alt](http://hr-portal.ru/files/re-work_googles_new_manager_training_slides.pdf) Median tenure of workers ages 55 to 64 (10.1 years) Median tenure of workers ages 25 to 34 (2.8 years) Median tenure is 4.2 years Public sector median tenure is 6.8 years Federal employee median tenure is 8.3 years ## CEO’s User Manual [Writing a user manual for staff makes teams less anxious and more productive](https://qz.com/1046131/writing-a-user-manual-at-work-makes-teams-less-anxious-and-more-productive/) 1) My style 2) What I value 3) What I don’t have patience for 4) How to best communicate with me 5) How to help me 6) What people misunderstand about me Each section contains four or five bullet points. While points may overlap between sections, the goal is to stay succinct and specific. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-you-revolutionize-way-your-team-works-together-all-david-politis After explaining the concept to the audience of 150-200 leaders and CEOs, Adam led us through an exercise where we created our own user manuals. First, he walked us through a couple of items from his own manual and then put a list of questions up on the screen to help us get started: The first set of questions were focused on us: * What are some honest, unfiltered things about you? * What drives you nuts? * What are your quirks? * How can people earn an extra gold star with you? * What qualities do you particularly value in people who work with you? * What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify? The next set of questions were more focused on how we interact with others: * How do you coach people to do their best work and develop their talents? * What’s the best way to communicate with you? * What’s the best way to convince you to do something? * How do you like to give feedback? * How do you like to get feedback? “The CEO’s User Manual,” was inspired by his interviews with CEOs where they talked about creating “user manuals” for themselves. Basically, the user manual is a “how to work with me” guide: It outlines what you like, what you don’t like, how you work best. It was something these CEOs would give their team members when they joined the company in order to shorten the learning curve of working with them. It’s a “cheat sheet” of sorts, giving employees a way to quickly and efficiently learn about executives, which in turn allows them to work together more effectively. What a brilliant idea -- it makes you kick yourself and wonder, “Why didn’t I think of doing that?” ## Motivation Autonomy - What choices can I make? Mastery - Can I get really good at this? Purpose - Does this matter? ## SBI Formula for Feedback Situation - describe the Situation Behavior - the behavior (what they did) Impact - Impact of that behavior ## Sexual Harassment/Assault ### Sexual Harassment * Staring or leering * Comments or gestures: asking personal questions * Comments or gestures: comments about appearance * Comments or gestures: flirting * Comments or gestures: explicit gestures * Comments or gestures: explicit comments * Displaying indecent material * Indecent photography without consent * Soliciting sexual content * Masturbation / indecent exposure * Verbal threat of sexual assault ### Sexual assault * Attempted touching: non-sexual body part * Attempted kissing: non-sexual body part * Attempted touching: sexual body part * Attempted kissing: sexual body part * Non-consensual touching: non-sexual body part * Non-consensual kissing: non-sexual body part * Attempted non-consensual sexual penetration * Non-consensual touching: sexual body part * Non-consensual kissing: sexual body part * Non-consensual sexual penetration [Helping Industries to Classify Reports of Sexual Harassment, Sexual Misconduct, and Sexual Assault](https://www.nsvrc.org/helping-industries-classify-reports) ## Overworking countless studies have shown, that productivity dramatically decreases with longer work hours, and completely drops off once people reach 55 hours of work a week, to the point that, on average, someone working 70 hours in a week achieves no more than a colleague working 15 fewer hours. [Boasting about how many hours you work is a sign of failure](https://qz.com/work/1486863/boasting-about-how-many-hours-you-work-is-a-sign-of-failure/) ## Performance Appraisal * How do you think you are doing? * What else could I do to improve? * Are you on track relative to your peers? **Idiosyncratic Rater Effect** - human beings are unreliable raters of other human beings ### Top Performers Fifteen percent of most companies workforce are star players, employees with exceptional performance and the potential to have an outsize effect on strategy execution (4 people; 15% of 30) ## New hires & onboarding Critical The first three to six months —­­ when new hires are particularly susceptible to turnover —­­ are most critical. On average, companies lose 17% of their new hires during the first three months, one study found. [Ask HN: Best practices for onboarding new employees?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17246431) ## Four Types of Cognitive Reappraisal: Learning to switch your perception of the situation on demand is called “cognitive reappraisal” (or pratipaksha bhavana in yoga) Reinterperting - "How can I take the threat away from this situation?" Normalizing - "It's OK because others feel this way too" Reordering - "I'm going to think about the value I'm putting this" Repositioning - "I'm going to consider this from another perspective" ## Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) "Directly Responsible Individual" (DRI) to refer to the one person with whom the buck stopped on any given project. The idea is that every project is assigned a DRI who is ultimately held accountable for the success (or failure) of that project. Apple coined the term. The crisis response is really no mystery. The CEO must pull all key people and critical information into the center. He or she must personally make all important decisions on a round-the-clock schedule until the crisis is over. Then and only then can he undertake the work of reshaping the organization so that it can withstand any future shock such as a minor recession. “What 90% of people are born with the ability to be a great technician. 9% are born with the ability to be a good manager. Only 1% are born with the ability to naturally lead. Think in terms of TCP instead of UDP; you'll need to SYN/ACK to really understand what other humans want. Nonviolent communication, where you restate what you heard, is an effective way to checksum your human communications ## Hiring [Interview Questions](http://www.swiss-miss.com/2017/07/my-favorite-interview-questions.html) When hiring candidates, ask for their operating manual. Tell candidates: “Imagine you're a robot. What does your manual say under 'ideal operating conditions.'” Once they answer, follow-up with this question: “What does the 'warning label' say?” You're likely to get insightful, unpredictable, and humorous answers in this very low-lift way of gauging self-awareness and revealing personality. Lots of really good advice. [100+ Job Interview Questions and Answers](https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/100-potential-interview-questions) From everything you’ve learned about this role, me and our company, tell me how you feel you’d make a contribution. Tell me about what motivates you? What frustrates you? Tell me about a time when you had to overcome a major obstacle that stood in the way of you accomplishing a goal or commitment. How did you approach the situation? What interested you the most about this position? What are the first three things you would do on the job if you were hired for this position? ## Types of Power R. P. French and Bertram Raven in 1959, power is divided into five separate and distinct forms. They identified those five bases of power as coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert. This was followed by Raven's subsequent identification in 1965 of a sixth separate and distinct base of power: informational power. ## Burnout Burnout is job-induced depression. The study found that unfair compensation (41%), unreasonable workload (32%), and too much overtime or after-hours work (32%) are the top three contributors to burnout. Employees also felt overburdened due to poor management (30%), having no clear connection to corporate strategy (29%), and a negative workplace culture. ## Toxic Positivity toxic positivity / dismissive positivity - overbearing cheerfulness no matter how bad things are, a pep that denies emotional oxygen to anything but a rictus grin ## Negativity How to Deal With a Negative Co-worker Who Can't Stop (Won't Stop) Venting 1. Ask if They Want to Vent or if They Want Advice. 2. Help Them Frame the Issue 3. Strongly Encourage Them to Create Actionable Next Steps ## Leadership Style [Leadership Flow Chart](https://lifehacker.com/this-flowchart-helps-you-find-your-leadership-style-1791436044) [What Type of Leader Are You?](https://www.headwaycapital.com/blog/what-type-of-leader-are-you/) What greater goal is this tied to? A manager is someone who has climbed up the ranks as a result of their experience in the field and fills the gap between upper management and the technical workers on the ground. “Management is about getting things done in the day-to-day, managing schedules, workflow, projects, and performance,” says Azulay. Managers set short-term goals, delegate tasks, resolve issuwwes, and enforce policy. Leaders, on the other hand, influence and inspire people to action. They provide a long-term vision and goals for the organization and rally people around those goals. “Leaders shape values and culture and role model behaviors,” says Tammy Perkins, chief people officer and leadership expert at Fjuri. “The primary distinction between a manager and a leader is that you don’t have to hold a management job title to be a leader, and a leader doesn’t have to have formal power over direct reports,” Emotional intelligence involves having a high level of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. Practice emotional intelligence by reflecting upon how you react to people and circumstances, pay attention to how you are feeling, and practice responding rather than reacting by taking a moment to pause before answering someone 4-Step Process to Help Senior Teams Prioritize Decisions https://hbr.org/2017/03/a-4-step-process-to-help-senior-teams-prioritize-decisions “start with why” is merely a retrospect observation A blueprint for performance management https://lattice.com/blog/a-blueprint-for-performance-management/ You don’t have to suck as a manager https://hackernoon.com/you-dont-have-to-suck-as-a-manager-4db8646cae30 * Creating a mission statement, establishing values, and setting goals with your team * Setting up a system for and conducting effective one to one monthly meetings and annual performance reviews. * Reviewing the basic building blocks of your team’s functionality, including skills sets, access to information, and the workplace physical environment Better emails What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How will this impact your job? What actions do you need to take? Overview of the Gallup Organization’s Q-12 Survey https://www.hr.com/portals/hrcom/events/ShanklandHandout_Gallup%20Q12%20summary%20-%20what%20is%20engagement.pdf ‘network of enterprises' - Crop Rotation - Multiple projects cross-fertilize https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/02/cross-pollination/ ## Postmortems Postmortems - To understand how failures happen, in order to prevent future occurrences by education and process changes. * Title * Summary of the event * Full timeline * Root cause(s) * What worked and what didn't (a.k.a., lessons learned) * Action items (followup bugs assigned to specific people) https://www.chromium.org/developers/postmortems [Blameless PostMortems and a Just Culture](https://codeascraft.com/2012/05/22/blameless-postmortems/) Having a “blameless” Post-Mortem process means that engineers whose actions have contributed to an accident can give a detailed account of: * What actions they took at what time, * what effects they observed, * expectations they had, * assumptions they had made, * and their understanding of timeline of events as they occurred. * …and that they can give this detailed account without fear of punishment or retribution. Reason's model of human error (a sociotechnical model for improving safety behavior in organizational contexts) To summarise, Reason (2000) points out that person approaches to human error are attractive, from some perspectives, for the following reasons: * attributing blame to individuals is more emotionally satisfying than blaming institutions; and * removing institutional responsibility is of great interest to managers and is legally more convenient. However, the person approach to human error is limited in a number of ways, including: * it promotes a blame culture within systems; * it treats human error as the dominant cause in accidents and incidents; * it ignores the contribution of latent failures or error causing conditions in systems; * it prescribes treatments aimed at the individual only, ignoring system-wide issues and problems; and * it fails to consider error as a consequence of system-wide failure. GEMS failure modes (Source: Reason, 1990). ## 3 Stages of Failure The 3 Stages of Failure - This framework helps clarify things by breaking down challenges into three stages of failure: Stage 1 is a Failure of Tactics. These are HOW mistakes. They occur when you fail to build robust systems, forget to measure carefully, and get lazy with the details. A Failure of Tactics is a failure to execute on a good plan and a clear vision. Stage 2 is a Failure of Strategy. These are WHAT mistakes. They occur when you follow a strategy that fails to deliver the results you want. You can know why you do the things you do and you can know how to do the work, but still choose the wrong what to make it happen. Stage 3 is a Failure of Vision. These are WHY mistakes. They occur when you don’t set a clear direction for yourself, follow a vision that doesn’t fulfill you, or otherwise fail to understand why you do the things you do. If you never measure your results, how will you know which tactics are working? Failure of vision when your goals for what you want to become (and why) don’t align with your actions 20% of its productive capacity — more than a day each week — to what we call “organizational drag,” the structures and processes that consume valuable time and prevent people from getting things done. "organizational debt is the accumulation of changes that leaders should have made but didn’t." - Avoiding Organizational Debt, by Scott Belsky Fifteen percent of most companies’ workforce are star players, employees with exceptional performance and the potential to have an outsize effect on strategy execution [Three Powerful Conversations Managers Must Have To Develop Their People](http://firstround.com/review/three-powerful-conversations-managers-must-have-to-develop-their-people/) 1. Be their Barbara Walters. Take an hour to get to know your employees — deeply. Begin with the phrase: "Starting with kindergarten, tell me about your life."; probe with more questions when they talk about pivots in their lives. 2. Spot their lighthouse and bring it into focus. Articulating a clear vision for an employee’s future is the most important step. Ask your employee about their dreams. * What size company do you imagine working for? * What industry do you want to be in? * Do you want to be in a very senior individual contributor type role or very senior management type role? 3. Create a career action plan. Who will do what by when? That's an accountable plan. Annual Review - IDP Answers three questions: 1) What went well this year? 2) What didn’t go so well this year? 3) What am I working toward? major business change initiative, * starting at the top by defining and communicating goals * establishing metrics * assigning accountability * training people ## Better Brainstorming Sessions * Define Goals & State the Problem * Stimulate Creativity * Ideate Individually * Share, Expand, and Critique * Categorize and Synthesize What are workshops most useful for? ----------------------------------- Facilitate dialogue between different people Gather insights from domain experts Identify frustrations with current state Generate ideas for future state and set priorities You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea, because you forget that the good idea has limits. When bad behavior has taken root, and that bad behavior has a “survival advantage” against good behavior, it becomes difficult, and occasionally impossible, to drive out the bad behavior; a process akin to natural selection. avoid becoming part of systems where good behavior cannot win due to the nature of the Law Think S.M.A.R.T. * Specific – target a specific area for improvement. * Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress. * Assignable – specify who will do it. * Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources. * Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved. A goal is a broad primary outcome. A strategy is the approach you take to achieve a goal. An objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a strategy. A tactic is a tool you use in pursuing an objective associated with a strategy. Example Goal: Make our Core PC microprocessors a category leader in sales revenue by year X. Strategy: Persuade buyers that our Core processors are the best on the market by associating with large, well-established PC manufacturers. Objective: Retain 70 percent or more of the active worldwide PC microprocessor market, according to Passmark's CPU benchmark report. Tactic: Through creative that underlies our messaging, leverage hardware partner brand awareness to include key messages about the Intel Inside program "Effective solutions are developed only when one has a clear definition of the problem to be tackled" FIVE KEY DYNAMICS FOR TEAMS Five key dynamics that set successful teams apart from other teams at Google: * Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed? * Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time? * Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear? * Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us? * Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters? https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/ Survey: 5 Keys to Effective Teams - Let's figure out how to build amazing teams! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQbpJdez--z9Vg4sGZxSho1v2GMTVoKX7bkW_AJcZpBopY8g/viewform All questions except "comment or ideas" should be answered on a Likert Scale e.g.: (Not All) 1 - 7 (Entirely) PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed? Do you feel safe taking appropriate risks on your team? How well does your team foster psychological safety? How well does the company foster psychological safety? Comments or ideas on psychological safety: DEPENDABILITY: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time? Do you feel set up to a dependable team member? Do you feel your team is dependable? Do you feel the company is dependable? Comments or ideas on dependability: STRUCTURE & CLARITY: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear? Do you feel your role is clear and structured enough to be successful at this time? Do you feel your team's role is clear and structured enough to be successful at this time? Do you feel the company's organization is structured enough to be successful at this time? Comments or ideas on structure & clarity: MEANING: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us? Do you find personal meaning in your work? Does the team support the meaning you find in work? Does the company support the meaning you find in work? Comments or ideas on meaning: IMPACT: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters? Is the impact of your individual work clearly connected to the goals of the team and the company? Is the impact of your team's work clearly connected to the goals of the company? Is the greater impact of the company coherent? Comments or ideas on impact: https://www.coursera.org/learn/design-thinking-innovation https://www.coursera.org/learn/art-of-negotiation Core Skills Managing up People Skills Career-Management Skills Management & Leadership Running Meetings & Presentations Time Management Communications Decision Making Negotiating Project Management Decision-Making & Problem Solving Mentoring & Coaching Relationship building Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP https://www.coursera.org/specializations/conflict-management http://www.designthinkingsource.com/#Offerings http://www.mindhatchllc.com/design-thinking/ https://generalassemb.ly/corporate-digital-training http://hru.gov/Course_Catalog.aspx?mgr=false https://www.luma-institute.com/workshops http://www.workforce.com/2002/09/03/31-core-competencies-explained/ FACILITATION/TEAM BUILDING ----------------------------------------- - Sailboat (~30 mins) The sailboat is a great way of evaluating your current situation. Draw a sailboat on a whiteboard or flipchart and give participants different coloured post-it notes. Ask them to individually generate “anchors” on one colour post-it and “gusts of wind” on another. Anchors are known things which are holding you back, gusts of wind are things that are in your favour. Once everyone has generated a few get them stuck up on your drawing and discuss them as a group. You can take this even further by introducing other aspects. For example “icebergs” could be introduced as hidden dangers to reaching your destination. Design the Box (~30 mins) Great for encouraging a group to think about the future. Divide the participants into groups and give each group a blank cereal box and some markers. Ask them to imagine success is packaged in this box. What is the title of the box, what is the tagline, what are the ingredients and warnings. Give each group 10 – 15 minutes to design their box and then 5 minutes to present back on their thinking. A “canvas” can often prove a useful way of framing and capturing the discussion. There are many of these designed for different purposes, for example: Business model canvas – to explore thinking around business models Empathy map – to explore thinking and empathy about customers Team canvas – to explore team goals and alignment SWOT – to explore strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats https://www.blankcanvas.io/ Escape Rooms http://escapetheroom.today/the-oval-office-escape-room-game/ http://www.thegreatescaperoom.com/book-now/ http://www.escapetheroomdc.com/ All time estimates are inaccurate, but if your developers are consistently off by a ton then that's a bad sign. All I can offer is a general rule: your first 3 developers should be senior, the next 3 should be mid-level, and the following 3 should be junior. Thank you for your message. I’m out sick for the day. I won’t be responding to email. If it’s urgent, please reach out to [Co-workers’/Boss’ Name] at [co-workers’/boss’ email]. [Your Name] Set a clear meeting goal. At the start of the meeting ask the organiser to repeat the meeting’s purpose and expected outcome in a sentence. Summarize meeting outcomes. Summarize in brief the key discussion points, decisions that have been made and the next steps. Be clear on actions. Make sure everyone leaves knowing clearly what tasks they have, ideally with completion dates. Ask for a rating. Show a willingness to learn how you can improve by asking for a meeting rating and short feedback. https://superyesmore.com/confessions-of-a-professional-burnout-c5e0bdf92c8dff4c774ebec920a40e5d [an organization] that isn’t fueled by stress, or ASAP, or rushing, or late nights, or all-nighter crunches, or impossible promises, or high turnover, or over-collaboration, or consistently missed deadlines, or projects that never seem to end, or manufactured busywork, or incorrect assumptions that lead to systemic institutional anxiety. The highest performing leaders use simpler words to communicate, they respond faster, and they communicate more often. In other words, they are more engaged, more efficient, and more action-oriented. high performing leaders must build strong relationships all over the company. The more relationships they have, the higher performer they were. (Many studies now show that your “connections” define your success in most companies.) Is this meeting intended to inform, get input, or get approval? Never have more than five top priorities. HiPPO, “highest paid person’s opinion” NOTES - RETROSPECTIVE ------------------ Introduction (5 minutes) Axioms / Rules for Retrospective * Everyone acted in good faith * Everyone is competent * We are doing this to find improvements Q: What went right that we can repeat in the future? [SUCCESS] * Brainstorming on post notes (10 minutes) * Discuss- Organize & Prioritize (15 minutes) Q: What went wrong that we should avoid in the future? [FAILURE] * Brainstorming on post notes (10 minutes) * Discuss- Organize & Prioritize (15 minutes) Q: What should we do differently next time? * Brainstorming on post notes (10 minutes) * Discuss- Organize & Prioritize (15 minutes) Closing Thoughts (5 minutes) Cushion (+/- 5 minutes) Retrospective Axioms - Rules for retrospective * Everyone acted in good faith * Everyone is competent * We are doing this to find improvements Retrospective Questions What went right during the project that we can repeat in the future? What went wrong during the project that we should avoid in the future? What should we do differently next time? Human error is the question, not the answer Ex post facto accident analysis of human performance is inaccurate Fundamental Attribution Error; Humor == Break Frame; complex systems run as broken systems. The system continues to function because it contains so many redundancies and because people can make it function, despite the presence of many flaws. After accident reviews nearly always note that the system has a history of prior ‘proto-accidents’ that nearly generated catastrophe. How to Run a Post-Mortem (With Humans, Not Robots), Velocity 2013 https://www.slideshare.net/danmil30/how-to-run-a-postmortem-with-humans-not-robots-velocity-2013 Blameless PostMortems and a Just Culture https://codeascraft.com/2012/05/22/blameless-postmortems/ 9 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Post-Mortem Meetings https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/9-tips-for-getting-the-most-out-of-post-mortem-meetings A practical guide to Lightweight Post Mortem Reviews http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3120/h06/studentarbeider/Prosjektoppgave/PMA_practical_guide.pdf PROJECT RETROSPECTIVES: EVALUATING PROJECT SUCCESS, FAILURE, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN http://www2.commerce.virginia.edu/cmit/Research/MISQE%209-05.pdf How Complex Systems Fail http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf after action review (AAR) is a structured review or de-brief (debriefing) process for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the participants and those responsible for the project or event Follow the steps below to use the five whys technique in your post-mortems: 1) Identify a problem/success that occurred during your project. 2) Ask your participants “why did that problem/success happen?” & record responses. 3) If their answers do not appear to be the root cause of the issue, ask question again. 4) Repeat this process until your team & client feels like the root cause has been identified (this usually will occur within five whys — hence the name). 5) Document the root cause, discuss potential solutions, and assign responsibilities among your team. Reason's model of human error (a sociotechnical model for improving safety behavior in organizational contexts) to security To summarise, Reason (2000) points out that person approaches to human error are attractive, from some perspectives, for the following reasons: • attributing blame to individuals is more emotionally satisfying than blaming institutions; and • removing institutional responsibility is of great interest to managers and is legally more convenient. However, the person approach to human error is limited in a number of ways, including: • it promotes a blame culture within systems; • it treats human error as the dominant cause in accidents and incidents; • it ignores the contribution of latent failures or error causing conditions in systems; • it prescribes treatments aimed at the individual only, ignoring system-wide issues and problems; and • it fails to consider error as a consequence of system-wide failure. GEMS failure modes (Source: Reason, 1990). Burnout Effective teams have good onboarding documents they provide to new hires. premortem - an exercise where you go through all the things that could fail on the launch of this big project. You do set the standards for culture on your team, which is good and bad. It’s good when they take after your best aspects, and it’s bad when you realize that your team is also mirroring your faults. Your team does not naturally just agree with you, respect you, or even like you. You realize that authority requires more than a title. You find yourself scrambling to motivate them through tough periods when the projects aren’t going well, or when you have to tell individuals that they aren’t ready to be promoted just yet, that they aren’t getting a raise, that there’s no bonus this year. Some of them don’t bother to tell you when they’re unhappy; they just get fed up and quit before you’ve noticed there’s anything wrong. When the company is doing well, and you have lots of money to pay, and there are plenty of exciting projects, life is great; but when things are stressful, you see how little power you have to make people happy. And what’s worse, you can’t even fire people without going through a crazy HR process! Still, you can see that your work matters to some of them, that they are happier and more successful because of your coaching. These little wins sustain you through the tough times. process czar believes that there is one true process that, if implemented correctly and followed as designed, will solve all of the team’s biggest problems. Process czars struggle when they fail to realize that most people are not as good at following processes as they are. Educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom found that one-on-one tutoring using mastery learning led to a two sigma(!) improvement in student performance. overconfidence leads to higher status because it is falsely mistaken for competence overconfidence is socially rewarded and its detection isn’t penalized people prefer to work with lovable fools rather than competent jerks People who are likable, unlike those pursuing status, tend to listen to others, engage in behaviors that help out the group, and don’t dominate interactions. Likable people are also more resilient, fulfilled and happier. Assertiveness Basics: The 30-minute Communication Guide https://www.udemy.com/assertiveness-basics-the-30-minute-communication-guide/ Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills https://www.coursera.org/learn/negotiation-skills How To Influence People & Double Your Persuasion Skills https://www.skillshare.com/classes/How-To-Influence-People-Double-Your-Persuasion-Skills/1751358081 3 questions to ask yourself to spring clean your career 1. What projects gave me the greatest satisfaction? 2. Where were my shortcomings? 3. What avenues do I want to explore? ## Information Radiators A good information radiator * Is large and easily visible to the casual, interested observer * Is understood at a glance * Changes periodically, so that it is worth visiting * Is easily kept up to date http://alistair.cockburn.us/Information+radiator Organizational leadership often does not understand that in the absence of adequate internal and external communications: Operational response will break down. Stakeholders will not know what is happening and quickly become confused, angry, and negatively reactive. The organization will be perceived as inept, at best, and criminally negligent, at worst. The length of time required to bring full resolution to the issue will be extended, often dramatically. 70-20-10 model for professional growth 70% from the work experiences 20% from your interactions with others 10% from formal education Create a personal experience map A personal experience map shows which experiences you want to acquire in the next two to five years to grow your career. https://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/management-basics-trinity Widespread mistrust leads to low morale and low productivity, high (and unnecessary) turnover, increased claims of unfairness, difficulty in recruiting and retaining top talent, legal claims, and, of course, damage to the corporate brand. “Managing up is adjusting to your boss’s preferred style and communication by anticipating their needs and being proactive,” It’s often difficult to disentangle actual drivers of performance, including how much luck and difficulty level played a role. Because of this, people tend to evaluate competence based on other factors, meaning you have to do more than produce results to convince them of your expertise. Overall, on average, companies spent $986 per learner this year compared with $1,075 per learner in 2017. Government/ military organizations spent the most per learner this year ($1,433), followed by nonprofit organizations ($1,360). Midsize companies spent less ($858) than large ($1,046) and small ($1,096) companies. Federal Supervisory and Managerial Frameworks and Guidance https://chcoc.gov/content/federal-supervisory-and-managerial-frameworks-and-guidance Bain & Company "MANAGEMENT TOOLS 2017" - An executive’s guide https://www.bain.com/contentassets/109d90597d774549850226aaa67e249e/bain_book_management_tools_2017.pdf Introductory bullshit detection for non-technical managers https://itsyourturnblog.com/introductory-bullshit-detection-for-non-technical-managers-7c7a9e54afee 10 questions for 1 on 1 meetings https://hackernoon.com/top-10-questions-managers-are-asking-during-1-1-meetings-c2c9ee8ad201 Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist https://insimpleterms.blog/2017/08/07/the-tech-leads-new-project-checklist/ Awesome List of resources on leading people and being a manager https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing What is the purpose of 1-on-1 meetings with your direct leader/boss? https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/32765/what-is-the-purpose-of-1-on-1-meetings-with-your-direct-leader-boss mandatory training https://www.opm.gov/WIKI/training/Federally-Mandated-Training.ashx https://www.opm.gov/WIKI/training/Supervisory-Leadership-Development.ashx https://www.opm.gov/wiki/training/WORK-LIFE-TOOLKIT-FOR-MANAGERS-LEARN.ashx https://www.dartmouth.edu/~eap/supervisor.html Based on the fundamental idea that what defines a good manager is 2 things: Results and Retention. Frederick Winslow Taylor vs W. Edwards Deming: Taylor - the former an industrialist who equated machines and human beings (both to be managed for maximum output) Deming - humanist who saw the individual as internally motivated to do good, meaningful work ## Star Trek * Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek: The Next Generation