leadership
Skip-level 1-on-1s are the concept of you, as a leader of multiple teams, of meeting directly with people who report to people who report to you. This is sometimes a very delicate topic, because you may make your direct reports, or the people you're meeting with (who work
leadership
Fundamental, tactical skills like email management, schedule/calendar management, and making documents and presentations are sometimes overlooked by leaders when they consider how to keep their teams aligned. If things aren't running smoothly, there's value in reflecting on these fundamentals, both for yourself (Are these tactical,
lessons-learned
Here are some random concepts/frameworks for great time management: 1. Build your own personal productivity system so that you keep track of action items/tasks/to dos/ongoing responsibilities/etc. 1. Consider investing time in reading books like David Allen's Getting Things Done, which walks through some
leadership
As a leader, it's easy to get sucked into filling your days with meetings focused on the work, and not investing time in taking care of your people. Don't let this happen -- it reminds me of the personal finance concept of "Pay yourself first&
leadership
The difference between watching 5 year olds and professionals play soccer is a powerful illustration of what organizations feel like as they mature -- early startups tend to have people swarm every issue, like little kids playing "magnet ball", while mature organizations has clear responsibilities and expectations. I
leadership
Moving up the org chart from individual contributor to team leader, to more senior management jobs, and eventually into senior leadership (executive leadership) isn't trivial. Most people don't get a lot of education or training on how to be great leaders and managers. As you move
miscellaneous
I used to help my grandfather work on old cars -- he was a telecommunications engineer who supported NASA on the Apollo missions, who could quickly learn how to take apart, and put back together pretty much anything. When my father was in college, he had an old beat up
leadership
You've heard people say that multi-tasking is inefficient, and everyone thinks they're good at it, but they're really not. That's a powerful concept to remember, as you try to work through your day, but many people don't try to influence
agile
When you're planning to launch a big new program (or other big effort) at work, it's valuable to step back and clarify, very succinctly the purpose and scope of this new thing. It's easy early on when planning a big new thing to think
leadership
Organizations and teams often need to mature from one central leader to several empowered leaders. Sometimes that's a founder delegating real authority and ownership (not just helpers who are doing what the founder tells them to do). Sometimes it's a team within a bigger organization that
books
It's not much fun to carve out time to write things down about who can do what -- there are many more fun things leaders can do. But if you don't invest the time in that, then the people who work for you, and colleagues outside
books
A friend and mentor of mine brought me two big boxes of books a while back, which I appreciated, and I asked him about what the catalyst was for him to give them away. He explained that he realized, based on his age (60s) and the number of books he