Leadership

The urgency gap Over the last few months, I’ve sat across from product leaders and engineers in different companies and they all told me the same story: a frustration from product managers and the leadship team about lack of urgency in dev teams and whether they truly care about the company’s success. Product leaders and managers are super eager to deliver new features and to fulfill commitments to customers, but feel that the development teams are slow and don’t care if a feature gets pushed. “Why don’t the engineers feel a sense of urgency? They don’t care if a feature gets delayed for weeks!” “It feels like they don’t care about the success of the company!”. ...

I’ve been a manager for about 11 years now and a team lead for a few years before that. Two of the most important leadership responsibilities, in my opinion, are setting clear expectations and giving feedback. When I’ve mentored new engineering managers and team leads, this is usually where they struggle most. I’ve seen countless managers struggle to give feedback and feel unsure about how to do it effectively. I’ve also repeatedly seen the consequences of missing feedback, how one person’s behavior can sink a whole team. Across all the companies I’ve worked at, only one has offered any kind of feedback training. I’ve read and learned a lot by myself and by experience. Here are some of my tips and thoughts, because feedback can be an incredibly valuable gift if done right. ...

I love books. I usually read 30–55 books a year. It’s usually a mix between non-fiction and work related books: leadership, neuroscience, communication and engineering, and books just for fun, mostly fantasy and science-fiction. Last year I read (and finished) 36+ books, mostly fantasy, since I decided to get my mind off work more during my free time. My favorite work related book last year was Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg. I found it interesting and a good reminder of what to think about when having conversations. I often tell my colleagues that what you say and the other person hears, can be two very different things. Charles Duhigg also describes how two people might be in the same conversation but with completely different goals and view of what the conversation is about. Is it a conversation where you’re trying to solve a problem and come up with actions, or just vent and rant? ...