daily-writing

I shuffle when I walk, which means I kinda drag my feet on the ground. This results in ’scuffing’ along, as my father put it. You can think of this shuffling as a system that’s balanced when my action (shuffling feet) is met with a particular reaction (dirt or gravel which give way) in a…

My sister has twin 4-year old kids, a boy, and a girl. Both have autism and are on different points of the ASD spectrum. I was having lunch with them on Sunday, for Fathers Day, and I noticed something interesting. Our waitress happened to mention that her two-year-old son doesn’t like loud noise. My sister…

Leaders need to understand that mental models are the lens through which we see reality, indirectly. Otherwise, we fall into the bias of Naïve Realism, believing that we see things objectively, as they “really” are. This is a problem because it makes us sure that what we perceive is true and correct. And being sure…

Over the past two weeks, two ideas have been bouncing around in my brain. They have now smashed into each other, producing a couple of emails. Today’s email is about the first idea, which is from fourth-wave systems thinking. It’s the idea of “mental models,” which we all use, all the time. Here’s the idea:…

Friday I sent you a fun puzzle to consider. It was an encoded message that began: Toothy purse in respond civil force ending theme honey:   Some of you replied with the correct answer: To the person responsible for sending the money:   Not sure how to solve it? Iain wrote to me about his…

A bit of #FridayFun for you, taking a break from the seriousness of life. My friend Nathanial sent me this today and challenged me to translate this text into comprehensible English. Would you give me a hand? Toothy purse in respond civil force ending theme honey: Eye wand Ed two purr son a leery late…

We’re continuing our discussion about how you can develop new engineering managers: the elements of your training program. (Part one: Everyone talks about it, but no one does it.) (Part two: Becoming a true believer.) There’s one topic which always comes up first when thinking of management training programs. “What should they learn?” This makes…

(Part 1: Everyone’s talking about it,  but no one’s doing it.) Most executives with feel in-house training for new Tech Leads and Engineering Managers is a great idea. But most aren’t doing it. Why? Today I’ll address six common reasons I hear, and the underlying beliefs which deserve refactoring. Six belief hurdles to training programs…

For the past five years, I’ve been helping engineering managers become better leaders, one at a time. Thus far, I’ve adopted mostly a B2C approach: I sell leadership development products and services to managers who want to improve their own work. But lately, I’ve been asking Directors, VP’s of Engineering, and CTO’s how their company…

One of the core ideas from the field of systems thinking is mind-bending in an Inception kind of way. It asserts that we see reality indirectly through our mental models. We don’t see reality – we perceive reality through our mental models. For example, take what I’m doing right now. I’m sitting in a chair…

Growing up in the 1970s, I developed a mental model of how push-button telephones worked. My mental model went like this: When you lifted the receiver, you heard a dial tone. That told you that you could dial. When you pressed a number on the keypad, you heard a tone. That told you a number…

Today I held a videoconference discussion with 14 people. It was the first of seven weekly discussions we do in the Software Leader Seminar After the quick introductions, I asked this small question, “In many meetings, I find that only some people talk, and others are silent. What guides could we invent so that everyone…

My 23-year-old daughter, Maggie, has a scar above her right eye. She was hit in the face, by a guy with a golf club.   She dropped like a rock, blood streaming down her dress. My wife screaming. I was frozen, stunned.   I bent to help her, still holding the club.   I have…

Chris, a Senior Programmer, leaned on the table as Bill wrapped up his proposal about improving the dev process. Chris unleashed a short, sharp question:“Bill, what’s the goal here?” Just as expected from a virtual punch in the face, Bill looked stunned. Staggering a bit, Bill tried to defend, “Chris, we’re trying to reduce the…

In today’s small group mentoring session we had a bunch of good questions which touched on topics like: How do I manage difficult developers? Identifying and communicating our hidden expectations of developers Transitioning from a “family” to “sport-team” mindset Finding new areas of growth for ourselves What to do when people leave in droves All…