Tag: leadership
Making Decisions: First decide how to decide: “one weird trick” for easier decisions December 5th, 2023
This is my preferred decision-making process – a version of the “document-discuss-decide” process that I called for at the end of the part 1 in this series. The most important part of this process – its “one weird trick”, if you will – is the way it includes a “how shall we decide?” step. This separates out the meta-question of the decision-making process from the decision itself, which (I’ve found) makes decisions much easier.
Making Decisions: RFC processes are a poor fit for most organizations December 1st, 2023
The RFC process has been a huge success in defining the standards that run the Internet, but naively adopting this process for your company is a mistake. RFC processes tend to fail at most organizations because they lack a clear decision-making step.
The Intersection of Tenure and Seniority October 20th, 2022
Patterns of short tenure are normal at the beginning of a career, but are more of a red flag in more senior roles. Here’s why.
🔗 Maintaining a healthy work culture is the first role of every executive - Graham says wrong things January 12th, 2022
“This is the part where I say something about how more diverse teams build better products, and how diversity of backgrounds, identities, and opinions leads to better decisions. That is all true. However, in this organization we value diversity and inclusivity because that is the morally and ethically correct thing to do. That it benefits us, our customers, and the company is nice. We will do it regardless of how true that is.…
Effective Organizations Value Autonomy February 26th, 2021
I believe that autonomy is one of the most important values of effective organizations. But I also think it’s a value that’s misunderstood and misapplied. In this post, I’ll (1) define what I mean by “autonomy”, (2) explain what autonomy isn’t, and (3) try to articulate why autonomy, as an organizational value, leads to higher effectiveness.
How to gather consensus before a big decision January 18th, 2021
The next time you have an important proposal to make, don’t wait until the big meeting to ask for support. Here’s how to gather feedback and build consensus beforehand, so you can make that big meeting into a non-event.
My questions for prospective employers (Director/VP roles) April 23rd, 2019
Last time I was looking for a job, I wrote up a list of questions I wanted to ask prospective employees. I just ran across the list again, and figured I’d share. I was looking for a senior management role (Director/VP-level) in Engineering or Security, so the questions are sloped in that direction. Also note that I was in a fairly strong position; I didn’t need the a job immediately. So, I was able to ask fairly direct, challenging questions.…