Returning from a late summer vacation and waving another season of sun farewell, please allow me the opportunity of sharing a favorite pastime – critiquing out of office replies. There is no better time to climb up onto the pulpit and look down upon colleagues and peers of the tech industry than during the final […]
Whether it’s time to put together a plan or align incentives for a team against it, how many pieces are there to your puzzle? From both a tops down and bottoms up perspective, how clearly can impact be measured and progress tracked?
One of the most important, strategic, entertaining, often wasteful and straight up wild parts of your management job is going to be devoted to interviewing. Some candidates will flatter you, some will surprise you, fewer still will impress you. Remember not to forget the point of this exchange is a mutual role & skills evaluation. […]
A little interaction from this past week got the wheels turning – do first impressions matter? Most of the time, it’s probably a mixed bag. But sometimes they do, very much. One of our (early in their career) new hires asked if they could leave training early so they could go to the Outside Lands […]
In the hyper-competitive, rapidly moving world of technology…expect to lose employees quicker than your kid cousin lost their pet hamster. According to one cursory Google Search, data shows companies might expect to keep employees for an average of ~2 years. And those are for well known, growing companies! So, provided you’ve been tasked with the […]
We can learn some good lessons from our venture capitalist counterparts when it comes to evaluating the risk of new management employment opportunities at startups. The most popularized risks of ventures, when evaluated for investment opportunity, are broadly captured within the following categories:
Nick Saban is the head coach of the mens football team at the University of Alabama and winner of SIX national championships, but you likely already knew that. During a recent talk ahead of his team’s spring practices he laid out his goals for the upcoming fall season: Love it! Get the right people on […]
I’ve been thinking about this project for years. Different name, slightly different target market, stops and starts. A project about people. People we work with, work for, manage, mentor, hire and…let go. The management journey. The best summary of effective management I can muster is to care personally about people and give them the tools, resources, […]