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Category Archives: Leadership
Mechanisms
March 6, 2020
Business, Clarity of Thought, Customer & Product, Leadership, Organization & People, Technology & Execution
2 Comments
Mechanisms are complete processes built around a tool, owned by a leader, that get adopted broadly and are regularly inspected, and improved to ensure things get done, not because everyone has good intentions, but because the elements of the mechanism structurally force the desired behavior. “Good intentions never work, …Continue reading
Path To Green
A Path To Green (PTG) is clear, crisp, and complete statement describing a team’s plan for how to get a project from yellow/red status to green. This post describes the concept and provides some tips on how to be excellent at …Continue reading
Tenets
This post was inspired by a recent LinkedIn post by Dave Glick who was apparently the “Godfather of Tenets” at Amazon. Much of the content of this post is from notes I took in a class on Tenets at Amazon. …Continue reading
Work Backwards From The Customer
At the 1996 Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) I stood up in front of 8,000 customers and announced what I’d been working on for the previous two years: the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). On stage, in front of all those people, we …Continue reading
Have Specific Conversations, not General Conversations
If you are discussing a topic with colleagues, it’s almost always better to have a specific conversation instead of a general conversation. General Conversation Specific Conversation “We need to figure out how to scrub all open bugs.” Followed by a …Continue reading
Kindel’s 2nd Law
Kindel’s 2nd Law – Companies with a subscriptions-based business model eventually behave in ways hostile to that company’s customers. Charlie Kindel – July 2019 Woot! I now have two laws named after me. This law was originally coined in a …Continue reading
Taxonomy and Lexicon
How many times have you been in a heated discussion only to find out that the two sides were talking past each other because they were reading from two different dictionaries? I bet you can also remember situations where just …Continue reading
One-Way and Two-Way Doors
Effective decision making starts with understanding, in the long-term, very, very few things actually matter. The vast majority of the decisions made day-to-day are either minutia or easily reversible and can be made quickly. However, a small number of things (about …Continue reading
Mental Models
You’ve probably noticed people you work with who are effective at leading can frame complex ideas simply. They’ll lead conversations like this: “Well, I think there are three things we should focus on, not 15, and they are…” “Folks, I …Continue reading
Lead Without Authority
There are two forms of influence in the world: Influence by authority Influence without authority When a ‘boss’ (a manager or someone with a big title) attempts to influence change or drive action using only their authority, it is rarely …Continue reading
Focusing on users is not Customer Obsession
Let’s talk Customer Obsession and how it is different than user obsession. My definitions: Customer: An individual (or entity) that pays you, directly or indirectly, for value you provide. User: An individual that is forced to use something you provide. Users fall …Continue reading
Debate Tenets
If you read my ancient blog post “the 5Ps” (Purpose, Principles, Priorities, People, Plan) you’ll see I’ve long thought having a set of guiding principles for any project is important. At Amazon I learned there was a synonym to the word principle: …Continue reading
The Tension is Intentional
It is no accident many of the Amazon Leadership Principles seemingly contradict each other: they were carefully selected and crafted to encourage leaders to be thoughtful about the gray area. Bias for Action vs. Think Big represent favorite example of …Continue reading
Good Intentions are Never Enough
Everyone has good intentions… Everyone WANTS to do the right thing (e.g. read the doc sent out by email the night before). But good intentions are never enough. Stuff doesn’t get done based solely on people’s good intentions. Change can’t …Continue reading
Have Strong Opinions, Weakly Held
This week’s tip relates to the Are right, A Lot leadership Amazon Leadership Principle: Leaders are right a lot. They have strong business judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. A great mnemonic …Continue reading
Everyone’s a Leader
The word leader is defined as: leader noun a person or thing that leads. The word leader is not a synonym of manager. Everyone is a leader. It’s entirely possible for a people manager to be a poor leader (which …Continue reading
Have a Plan (With Dates)
I’ve written a lot on the importance of having a plan. This week’s Leadership Principle tip doubles-down on that. Consider a status update: Bad: “The team will investigate the issue.” Good: “The team will complete the investigation of the issue …Continue reading
How Meeting/Not-Meeting Goals relates to Earn Trust and Insist on Highest Standards
This week’s Leadership Principle tip is about how setting goals, and holding yourself accountable, relates to Earn Trust and Insist on Highest Standards.Continue reading
Dive Deep != Micromanaging
You’ve said it. You’ve heard others say it. You are not quite sure how you feel about it. “So-and-so is a micro-manager. He/she’s always in my shorts and doesn’t let me just do my job.” This week’s Leadership Principle tip …Continue reading
Just Right Porridge and Leadership Principles
Last week I wrote about Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit. This week the topic is about how to get the balance right when living Leadership Principles. Just as it is possible to not live a leadership principle (under-index), it is …Continue reading
