You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

This morning before camp, my son came down with O, The Places You’ll go by Dr. Seuss, one of my favorite books as a kid, and reading this wonderful book bring up one of my favorite topics, Resilience. 

Regardless of who you are and where you are, your life is probably hard. There are things at home, in your work or with friends or hobbies that don’t go as you planned or aren’t where you’d like them to be. This is a big part of life and you know what?

It’s ok.

Life is supposed to be hard at times and the best way to deal with it is how you can give yourself grace and bounce back.

Today, we learn about resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back, adapt, and recover from setbacks, challenges, or difficult circumstances. It involves maintaining mental, emotional, and physical strength in the face of adversity, allowing individuals to persevere and thrive even in the most trying situations. Resilience is not an innate trait; rather, it is a skill that can be cultivated over time.  

It's about embracing change and seeing challenges as opportunities for growth rather than insurmountable obstacles. Resilient individuals are not immune to hardships; they simply respond to them differently, using setbacks as stepping stones toward achieving their goals.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

Here are a few helpful ways to build up resilience.

Grittiness

The ability to maintain sustained effort and determination in the pursuit of challenging objectives, even in the face of obstacles, setbacks, or failures. Gritty individuals are driven, resilient, and possess a strong inner motivation to keep going, no matter the difficulties encountered along the way. You can do it, these are speed bumps.

For more here, digging in with Angela Duckworth is a great next step: https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/. 

Self-Compassion

Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a friend facing a difficult time. Acknowledge your emotions and be gentle with yourself during challenging moments. Forgiving yourself is the first step to helping you move forward.

Practice Mindfulness Techniques

Engage in activities that promote relaxation, such as meditation, yoga, or spending time in nature. These practices can help reduce stress and enhance emotional resilience.

Yoga every day is a practice that I started again at the end of March and outside of its health benefits, it has allowed me to center myself more. Yoga with Adriene is a great place to get started. 

Embrace Failure as a Stepping Stone

When we acknowledge failure as a natural part of the learning process, we free ourselves from the fear of making mistakes. Instead of being discouraged, we see each failure as an opportunity to gain valuable insights, refine our strategies, and grow stronger. Embracing failure cultivates resilience, encourages experimentation, and fosters a growth-oriented mindset.

By learning from our mistakes, we can make more informed decisions, develop better problem-solving skills, and become more adaptable in the face of challenges. So I challenge you, journal for five to ten minutes on that one thing you wish you did better and write down what you learned.

Foster Flexibility

Life rarely follows a linear path, and unexpected twists and turns are bound to occur. When we remain rigid and resistant to change, we risk becoming overwhelmed and frustrated by the constant disruptions. Flexibility empowers us to embrace change as a natural part of life, making us more open-minded, adaptable, and receptive to new possibilities.

By cultivating flexibility, we can maintain our resilience and overcome obstacles that come our way. 

Taking a note from the good doctor again…

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray 

Or {Insert your name here}  (I do this with my kids every time we read it!)

or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Have a great day and keep learning!

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The term "Band-Aid" itself comes from the well-known brand of adhesive bandages developed by Earle Dickson, an employee of Johnson & Johnson, in the early 20th century. In 1920, Dickson created the bandages for his wife, who frequently cut or burned herself while cooking. The innovative design consisted of a small piece of gauze with an adhesive backing, covered by a protective strip of crinoline fabric. The bandage was easy to apply and provided quick relief and protection for minor injuries.

The Band-Aid brand quickly became popular and synonymous with adhesive bandages, leading to the term "band-aid solution" to describe a quick, temporary fix for a problem. It does not address the root cause of a problem. The term "band-aid solution" is thought to have originated in the 1960s, when the Band-Aid brand of adhesive bandage became popular.

Now, these patches also happen a lot while you are building software, specifically web based applications. There is not enough time to make sure all the coding decisions are architecture correct for every use case. There are edge cases you haven’t thought of, that people strangely find. As software gets more popular, scale may become an issue as well. These all result in small or large bugs being uncovered and as you have incidents, band-aid solutions, in the form of patches are added in to fix the immediate issues and plans are put in place for longer term refactoring of the code to ensure a full fix is put in.

Now, back to bikes!

A few things to know about road bikes and somewhat serious to serious cyclists. There are a lot of fun gadgets. Bikes are a dream for tinkerers. There are lots of parts, breaks - rim or disc, brake levers, the tires and rims, front and back derailleurs. The saddle, the pedals. Everything!

With the pedals to get more of a 360 pedal stroke. Now pedals come in all types breaking down into pedals that clip in or are flat:

• Clipless pedals use a system of cleats and pedals to attach your shoes to the pedals. This allows you to transfer more power to the pedals and provides a more efficient pedal stroke. There are two main types.

  • Two-bolt cleats are smaller and often recessed into the sole below an outer sole. They are typically used for mountain biking and commuting.

  • Three-bolt cleats have a wider surface area and are typically used for road cycling. They offer more stability and power transfer.

• Flat pedals do not have a clip system. Instead, they have a flat surface that your shoes can grip. Flat pedals are typically used for BMX, mountain biking, and commuting.

For me, I have a Cannondale Super Six Evo with rim breaks and mountain bike style pedals that support two bolt cleats.

At a minimum, in order for this system to work, you need to make sure that all gears are clean and lubed, so that as a pedal it reduces the friction at every pedal and keeps the teeth in the crankset and rear cogs from wearing down as much as possible. The front and back derailleurs need to be positioned such that they can easily move the chain to the right cogs and don’t rub or damage the chain.

You need to make sure your saddle is the right height and distance forward or backward for maximum efficiency and to prevent injury and lastly need to make sure your pedals and bike shoes are in the right shape to effectively power this fun but complicated contraption.

All that is to say, biking properly is a little complicated and requires a decent amount of care and maintenance in order to have a great ride and really fun experience. I think you all can see where I’m going with this.

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The Ride

Going into the ride, I have been doing a decent job tuning up, cleaning and lubing up my bike, but the inserts on my bike shoes where designed for D-clips and I used a SPD cleats adapter on them to allow for Shimano two bolt clips, specifically Shimano SH51 SPD and bike shoes that made it so the cleats extended out from the bottom of the shoes.

Now these, I had been treating nicely, but just like with tech debt, this important but little paid attention to feature had not gotten the TLC it had needed and there were all sorts of gravel jammed into the cleats and bolts holding them in.

We drove out to the Cape Cod Rail Trail with plans for a 60 mile ride, around 30 miles out and back. We take the bikes off the car, get on our bike shoes and pump up the tires and get out. The ride is smooth, weather is perfect and the scenery of the trail is lush with trees on either side interspersed with road crossings and the occasional lake.

At each of these road crossings we need to stop for cars, as that happens, my right and problem cleat feels a little loose coming out of the pedal and I file that away as something I need to look at when we get to our stopping point in Wellfleet at the end of the trail. We keep a slower and steady pace, have some good conversations on the way and make some decent time out to the White Sparrow in Wellfleet.

I take a small tool kit whenever I ride to make sure that I can fix almost any problem I have on the road. So I take out a small Allen wrench set and start removing the bolts holding in the cleat on my left shoe. Since these cleats stick out from the bottom of the bike shoe, they’ve gathered up some gravel in them over time and I had not spent any time making sure they were cleaned out.

As I work on the cleat, after I cleaned out all the dirt and gravel, the bolt just will not screw fully into the bracket adapter. The bolts for this cleat were bare threaded at the top and could no longer fully screw in. Now.. given my clipless pedals, I have no way to bike the 30 miles and couple hours back to car or the 15 or so miles to get to the nearest bike shop.

Houston, we have a problem. My tech debt had come home to roost.

The Patch

Luckily, as a Software Engineer and bike tinkerer, once I and my friends on the ride had exhausted all possible threading solutions (threading solutions also come up A LOT in software bug patches as well), an idea comes up.

One of the riders had taken a small fall and skinned their elbow and of course with the small first aid kit I brought was able to help out with a band-aid and some bacitracin. Given that the bolts were only threadbare at the top, I got out a band-aid took off the padding and folded it both ends in.

With my smallest Allen wrench I poked a hole on either side of the band-aid measured to the distance between where the two bolts need to get screwed in and placed in on top of the bracket needed to help secure the cleats.

Then the screwing..I mean reassembling the cleat began. Once the bolts got through the band-aid, it did give enough space to effectively secure the cleat!

With it I was able to just barely clip in and for 15 or so miles effectively ride to the bike shop to take a closer look and get a full solution in place.

The Cost

Once successfully at the bike shop, the damage was worse than two partially threadbare bolts, the bracket was older and partially threadbare as well. The shop didn’t carry the bracket adapted I would need to continue on. I either needed to buy and install new pedals or new shoes. The new shoe option was the way I went, but it, like software breaking was costly and threw off our timeline back to the end of the trail.

In fact, while I did get the novelty of putting a real band-aid solution into place, the time, money, effort and efficiency lost is all too common today in most software development. For me, it cost me far less than I’ve seen it cost the places I’ve worked.

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The Cost of Tech Debt

A recent article by McKinsey painted this picture of impact in three ways:

• Increased costs: Technical debt can lead to increased costs in a number of ways. For example, it can lead to increased costs for maintenance and support, as well as increased costs for development, as developers have to spend more time working around the problems caused by technical debt. A study by McKinsey found that companies with high levels of technical debt spend an additional 10-20% on development costs.

• Decreased productivity: A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that technical debt can lead to an average of 15% productivity loss. This is because it can make it more difficult for developers to work efficiently, as they have to constantly deal with the problems caused by technical debt. The more whiplash your organization has, the harder it will be to focus on one thing.

• Decreased uptime: Technical debt can also lead to decreased uptime. This is because it can make systems more unstable, which can lead to more outages. A study by the Standish Group found that software projects with high levels of technical debt are 30% more likely to be canceled or significantly delayed.

Just like with my bike, paying down tech debt is critical for an engineering team to work at peak performance, so while technical debt happens, please focus on paying it down. Your engineers and company will thank you for it.

Over the weekend I was listening to a great podcast about Jiaona Zhang built her career and the concept of Radical Candor came up because she got to work with Kim Scott at Dropbox for a bit. In today’s work place, especially now with a lot of organizations not hitting their goals and pressure being turned up, there is an atmosphere of growing psychological insecurity and battening down the hatches going on. In order to really combat this, Kim Scott provides the right recipe to bring back openness and collaboration.

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Radical Candor is a communication approach that encourages open and honest conversations in the workplace. It was developed by Kim Scott, who wanted to help people improve their relationships and achieve better results by finding the right balance between being caring and challenging.

"Caring Personally" means that you genuinely care about the people you work with. You want them to be happy and successful. It's like when you have a good friend and you want the best for them. In the workplace, caring personally means building trust, showing empathy, and taking the time to understand your colleagues' thoughts, feelings, and goals.

On the other hand, "Challenging Directly" means giving honest feedback and having open conversations about performance and work-related matters. It's about being clear and specific when you talk about what's going well and what needs improvement. This helps your colleagues understand how they can grow and do their best work.

Radical Candor is about finding the right balance between caring personally and challenging directly. It's like a scale: if you only care and don't challenge, it's like being too nice and not helping your friends or colleagues improve. But if you only challenge without showing care, it can be harsh and hurtful.

Implementing Radical Candor is not a one-time effort but an ongoing commitment to building a culture of open communication. Encourage your team members to embrace Radical Candor by leading by example. Foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas. Implement regular feedback sessions or check-ins to ensure continuous improvement and growth. Recognize and celebrate instances where Radical Candor has positively impacted the team, reinforcing the value of open and honest communication.

What about the other quadrants?

Ruinous empathy:

It refers to a communication style where individuals prioritize being kind and avoiding any form of criticism or confrontation, often at the expense of giving honest feedback. In ruinous empathy, people hold back from providing necessary feedback or challenging others because they fear that it might hurt their feelings or damage the relationship.

While empathy itself is a valuable trait, when it becomes "ruinous," it can have negative consequences in the workplace. With ruinous empathy, important feedback or constructive criticism is withheld, which prevents individuals from recognizing areas for improvement or addressing performance issues. This lack of honest feedback can hinder personal and professional growth, negatively impact results, and create a culture of complacency.

Manipulative Insecurity:

Without direct challenges or open conversations, individuals may resort to manipulative tactics to get their way or advance their own interests. This can involve using deception, manipulation, or political maneuvering instead of honest and transparent communication.

The absence of caring personally and providing constructive feedback can leave individuals feeling insecure about their roles, performance, or standing within the team. They may lack clarity on their strengths, weaknesses, or areas for improvement, hindering their growth and confidence.

This builds a lack of trust. When people do not receive direct feedback or feel that their colleagues are not invested in their success, trust erodes. This can lead to a culture of skepticism, where individuals are hesitant to rely on others or openly collaborate due to a lack of transparency and genuine care.

Obnoxious Aggression:

A communication style that is high on challenging directly but lacks the necessary balance of caring personally. When individuals exhibit obnoxious aggression, they prioritize delivering feedback or criticism in a blunt, harsh, or disrespectful manner, often without considering the impact on others' emotions or well-being.

In the workplace, obnoxious aggression can create a hostile and toxic environment, hindering collaboration, trust, and productivity. Instead of fostering growth and improvement, this communication style often demoralizes and alienates individuals, leading to disengagement and decreased motivation.

It's important to note that obnoxious aggression is not an effective application of Radical Candor. While Radical Candor encourages directness and honest feedback, it emphasizes the significance of pairing it with genuine care and empathy. Without the element of caring personally, feedback loses its constructive nature and can become a means of exerting power or belittling others.

That being said we’re not perfect, and we’re all on a continuum when it comes to caring personally and challenging directly. Here are some tools to help you get there with your teams:

1. Show Empathy and Support: Put yourself in the shoes of others and try to understand their perspectives and emotions. When someone is going through a tough time or facing challenges, offer your support and lend a listening ear. Show compassion and kindness, and be willing to help when needed. Small acts of kindness, such as offering encouragement or providing assistance, can go a long way in showing that you care personally.

2. Recognize and Acknowledge Individuality: Everyone is unique and has their own strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. Take the time to recognize and appreciate the individual qualities and contributions of your colleagues or classmates. Celebrate their achievements and milestones, and offer praise or recognition when they do great work. By valuing and respecting each person's individuality, you demonstrate that you care personally about their growth and success.

3. Provide Specific Feedback: When giving feedback, be specific about what you observed or experienced. Focus on behaviors, actions, or results rather than making generalizations or assumptions. Clearly communicate what went well and what could be improved, offering concrete examples to support your feedback. This specificity helps the person understand what they need to work on and provides a clear path for growth.

4. Encourage Open Dialogue: Create an environment where open dialogue is welcomed and encouraged. Foster a culture where people feel comfortable expressing their opinions, ideas, and concerns. Be open to receiving feedback yourself, demonstrating that you value and respect the perspectives of others. Encouraging open dialogue allows for constructive conversations where challenges can be addressed and resolved effectively.

5. Offer Support and Resources: Challenging directly doesn't mean just pointing out problems; it also involves providing support and resources to help others overcome challenges and improve their performance. Offer guidance, share knowledge, or suggest training opportunities that can help individuals develop the skills or competencies they need. Show that you're invested in their success by offering assistance and being a source of support.

6. Set Clear Expectations: Challenging directly often involves setting clear expectations and holding people accountable. Ensure that everyone understands their roles, responsibilities, and the standards of performance. Clearly communicate goals and objectives, providing clarity on what success looks like. By setting clear expectations, you create a framework for individuals to measure their progress and make improvements.

7. Foster a Growth Mindset: Emphasize the importance of continuous learning and growth. Encourage individuals to see challenges as opportunities for development rather than failures. Help them understand that feedback and constructive criticism are essential for personal and professional growth. Foster a growth mindset by praising effort, resilience, and the willingness to learn from mistakes.

As always, keep learning and growing!

Boothby describes an incident at a cafe where she had a conversation with a potential collaborator. She believed the interaction didn't go well, while her partner, who overheard the conversation, thought otherwise. This experience led her to investigate the gap between how people perceive their social interactions and how others perceive them. She coined the term "liking gap" to describe the phenomenon where individuals underestimate how much their conversation partners enjoy talking to them.

What are Social Illusions?

• The ways in which we misjudge how other people think of us.

• The illusion of transparency is the belief that other people can see through our thoughts and feelings.

• The illusion of the invisibility cloak is the belief that we are not being observed by others.

• The illusion of the lingering conversation is the belief that other people are thinking about us more than we think they are.

• Social illusions can have a negative impact on our self-esteem and our relationships with others.

Social illusions can manifest in high-pressure situations, such as dating, where individuals place extra pressure on themselves to impress others and may hyper focus on perceived shortcomings.

Boothby and her colleagues conducted experiments in personal development workshops and among college roommates to study the liking gap. They found that people consistently underestimated how much others liked them in initial interactions, and this discrepancy persisted over several months. However, the liking gap decreased as people got to know each other better.

The discussion expands to highlight the broader concept of social illusions, which refers to the many ways we misjudge our social lives and relationships. She suggests that there are numerous social traps and mistakes we fall into, leading us to have a more negative perception of our social interactions than is warranted.

The Cone of Invisibility…or not

Additionally, the episode explores how our perception of being watched by others can lead to the illusion of invisibility. We tend to overestimate how much others observe and judge us while underestimating the attention we give to others. This discrepancy arises due to limited access to others' thoughts and emotions. Age and personality traits, such as shyness or narcissism, can influence the extent of social illusions.

Boothby's research shows that we tend to overanalyze our own behaviors and assume others notice and judge them as much as we do. However, people form general impressions rather than focusing on minor details. They conclude the episode by acknowledging that social illusions are common and highlights the possibility of these illusions being amplified in high-stakes situations.

Recognizing these illusions and seeking external perspectives can help us see things more clearly. Directly asking others about their thoughts and feelings, shifting our focus to the other person in conversations, and expressing compliments can counteract these distortions and foster genuine connections. Understanding and addressing social illusions can improve social interactions and reduce self-consciousness.

How we can overcome Social Illusions

• Recognize that social illusions exist. The first step to overcoming social illusions is to recognize that they exist. We all have a tendency to overestimate how much other people are paying attention to us and how much they care about our thoughts and feelings. Once we recognize that this is a common phenomenon, we can start to challenge our own thoughts and assumptions.

• Ask for feedback. Another way to overcome social illusions is to ask for feedback from others. This could involve asking your colleagues for their thoughts on a presentation you gave or asking your boss for feedback on your performance. Getting feedback from others can help us to get a more accurate picture of how others see us.

• Pay attention to the other person. When we're in a conversation with someone, it's important to pay attention to the other person. This means listening to what they have to say, paying attention to their body language, and trying to see things from their perspective. By paying attention to the other person, we can start to get a better understanding of how they see us.

• Give compliments. Complimenting others is a great way to build relationships and make people feel good about themselves. When we compliment others, we're essentially telling them that we see them and that we appreciate them. This can help to break down social barriers and make us feel more connected to others.

As leaders and managers, we have a strong tendency to be self critical and that can manifest itself outwards to the people we work with and/or below us. Let’s shift some of that focus to accentuate the great things going on and give out compliments in the ways those people find meaningful.

As always, keep learning and happy Thursday!

Shankar shares his own personal experiences of how he has changed over time, from being a soccer fan to a podcast host. He also tells the story of John and Stephanie Rinka, who made a promise to each other that they would not prolong Stephanie's life if she ever got a terminal illness. However, when Stephanie was diagnosed with ALS, she changed her mind and wanted to be put on a ventilator. This shows how our future selves may not share the same views and preferences as our current selves.

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He shows that it is really hard to plan for the future, whether it’s the extra dessert you down or the decision you make to cut a corner because time is of the essence at work. We are also making large decisions today that will directly impact our future selves tomorrow. As a result we should be aware of the illusion of continuity and make conscious decisions about the kind of person we want to become. He also suggests that we should be open to change and be willing to adapt to new situations.

Some self-awareness we can take on to help our future selves out are:

• Our current selves may not share the same views and preferences as our future selves.

• We should be aware of the illusion of continuity and make conscious decisions about the kind of person we want to become.

• We should be open to change and be willing to adapt to new situations.

The story also raises some interesting questions about the nature of identity and the relationship between our current selves and our future selves. It is a reminder that we are not static beings, but rather that we are constantly evolving and changing.

So the next time you are going for that extra dessert, planning on skipping a run or building a feature that you know will incur tech debt in the future, it will be good to ask ourselves, what will future us think of that decision? How can we be better to our future selves?

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For part 1, read it here:

Part two of building a lego sports car

The second half for our agile method proved both easy and challenging. As we got back into it, both kids were now used to the motion of gathering up the supplies and then building, so we had a great continuous motion going. So page by page, one kid gathered the materials and the other built with my role moving to facilitating the gathering and coaching the kids to follow the excellent directions built out in the lego guide:

Three year old finds the right blocks → 5 year old builds → 5 year old finds the right blocks → 3 year old builds; rinse and repeat.

Resources started to get busier when other household priorities got added to the mix. Our three year old saw mommy folding laundry and then true to her helpful nature, went over to help fold.

O, no, we’re down a dev resource! Not to worry, with our agile process firmly in place, I pivot to looking a page ahead in the directions and help gather the pieces to ensure our 5 year old is queued up and has the pieces needed to continue on. I also made sure to coach him on looking at the instructions as was placing the pieces so that we didn’t introduce any “bugs” into the car and ensure there was no motion waste and rework needed.

Once the three year old got back, we had a new challenge, boredom! A three year old can only hold attention for so long, so the project had to work with our junior engineer to help keep her motivated and on track. The three year old was coming and sitting in my lap, playing and putting together pieces that were needed in the main design and generally being silly.

In these cases, you need to work with the junior engineer on their level. So while helping the five year old stay on pace with his building, I had to embrace part of the silly with our three year old and then get their help for gathering pieces or building whenever they wanted it. Overall, the goal here was flow and the developer experience, if we wanted more lego cars in the future we all needed to have a good time!

And finally, the last wheel was put on, success! We built the Koenigsegg!

It came out great and the kids were super happy. We come to the next part of our process, user testing. To make sure this product was good to go, we needed to take it for a test drive and do it with a previously made car, a Toyota Supra. In the initial testing, the Koenigsegg drove like a beaut side by side with the Supra and passed all the kids' stress testing until…a catastrophic failure.

Along the way while we’ve been building these cars, which are fantastic toys, I’ve been helping the kids to understand while these are awesome cars, they are more fragile than their hot wheels and other toys, so while we can play with them, we really need to be careful with how we do it and smashing them/crashing them will probably lead to it not being usable anymore. 

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Catastrophic Failure

Queue, present day and time when the 5 year old decides that the box the Koenigsegg came in would be a garage. Awesome imagination and reuse for the cardboard! But, that garage became a flying one and then the feature did not pass the biggest stress test of all, falling three feet to the floor, BOOM! The front bumper flew off, went one direction and the tail shattered into several pieces and went another. 

Now we’ve entered the space of catastrophic failure and recovery. We don’t have a script now for how the pieces go together, where all the pieces are to make sure that we can recover and how to make sure we come together as a team so that we can learn from this.

How do we recover?

First off, just like on my engineering teams, we have an on call engineer who once an issue is identified moves to a role of issue lead. This engineer is working to identify a root cause for the defect and then pilot the team to recovery. This role also is the focal point of communication in and out of the team. The goal here is to captain a fix through to recovery and not to do everything themselves.

This role also helps keep things calm in a high pressure situation. It’s important to have someone in this seat during a fix, because they will have the birds eye view of what’s going on and the knowledge of the issue to help direct other engineers towards a fix. 

In this situation, I put my Issue Lead hat back on and finding the root cause was easy here, the lego car dropped from three feet up, so then it moved to gathering up the team and starting to swarm for a fix.

The Swarm

Swarming during issue triage and fix resolution is a path that I promote on my teams and has taken hold industry wide as a standard because it helps with a few things. First off, it aligns all your engineers to get on the same page that there is an issue happening and alerts them that there is a critical defect being worked on.

Secondly, as the fix is going into place, it allows them to check more of the code base and application for impact, which helps the team gain knowledge of the full scope of impacted systems.

Thirdly, it allows for better communication outside of the team to other teams and the business. Lastly, when everyone swarms on a critical defect, it allows everyone to gain knowledge of that defect to help identify and fix issues like this in the future and work towards hardening the application so this defect doesn't happen again. 

In our case, we started to get our swarm on by helping to calm everyone down by saying, “It’s ok, accidents happen and now we learned lego cars can’t survive a three foot drop. Let’s start gathering all the pieces up.” Given that we needed to swarm, the five year old went north of the crash site to gather up all the pieces there and the three year old went south. Once we were reasonably sure we had all the pieces we needed, we started to build the fix.

We found that the two impacted areas were the front bumper and the back tail fin. Working with the five year old, we went back to the design to make sure we had an understanding of where all the pieces should go even though the script for how to put them together was different.

The Fix

He started to put the bumper back together, but when it came time to reattach, we couldn’t. Luckily, just like in a resilient software architecture, legos easily come in and out of place so we were able to decouple a few more blocks  and reattach the front bumper.

Next we examined the tail and started to reassemble it. Since it was simpler, I was able to work with the three year old on it and we had it reattached in no time…with one problem, there was a missing piece left out of the fix?!

We then went back and reviewed the design and found this was part of the back bumper, found the place it belonged and voila, we had our car fixed!

Testing

At this point in defect resolution, once a fix is in, testing the system to make sure that not only is the defect resolved, but just as importantly you did not introduce any regression or new bugs into the platform.

This is where building automated testing is very helpful. End to end testing, with tools like Cypress or Browserstack, will allow you to make sure there are no front end regressions. Building out a mix of integration and unit testing will also help speed up the testing process. The goal here is to test as quickly as possible to get a fix for a defect out to production.

For our testing, we had the following test plan, since it had to be a manual smoke test in our case. We made sure the car matched the spec. After we reviewed the fix against the spec, the five year old took it for a test drive and the three year old took the Supra again so they could race and success, the Koenigsegg drove like it should! Lastly, we didn't drop it from any height (that usage is out of scope and unsupported for lego cars).

Issue Resolution & Communication

The last parts of issue resolution are communicating out to stakeholders the defect is resolved and the fix is in production, so that they can all have peace of mind that there are no issues and it’s back to business as normal. Communication and regular updates are critical to issue resolution for a couple reasons.

1. It helps prevent panic from the rest of the business, because they are receiving regular updates and knowledge of what the issue is.

2. The more you communicate in these situations the more it builds trust that when these issues come up, they will be handled in an expedited manner.

It also builds trust in the application and engineering team that these issues will get surfaced when they happen and looking over the history of them it will hopefully show that they don’t happen frequently so they as the business teams shouldn’t be nervous that there will be constant outages. For this reason, tracking DORA metrics, specifically Change Failure Rate (CFR) and Mean time to recovery (MTTR) are critical in building trust and confidence in your platform. 

Post Mortem

The final step in the process is an after action report called a post mortem. A post mortem in software engineering is a retrospective analysis conducted after the occurrence of an issue or incident. It involves gathering relevant stakeholders, including developers, testers, and project managers, to review the problem, its impact, and the actions taken to resolve it. The post-mortem aims to identify the root causes of the issue, assess the effectiveness of the response, and extract valuable lessons for future improvement.

By analyzing the incident in a structured manner, documenting findings, and implementing corrective measures, the post-mortem facilitates continuous learning, enhances system reliability, and helps prevent similar issues from recurring in the future.

In our case, we realized that dropping a lego car from almost any height will cause a catastrophic failure and we will not have an amazing car to play with. We also extended this unsupported use case to trying to roll it down the stairs as well.

Thanks for learning with us today and would love to see any cars you build in the future!

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One way to start communicating more effectively would be adding the "What, So What, Now What" methodology to your tool belt to help bridge the communication gap. Today we will dig in on what it is, how it can help you and contrast it with ineffective communication practices. We will understand why this methodology is especially important in a business setting and how it helps overcome common communication challenges.

What, So What, Now What

What:

The "What" stage involves identifying and presenting the facts, information, or situation that forms the basis of your communication. This is the objective and neutral part of your message, where you provide the necessary context and details. By stating the "What" upfront, you set the stage for effective communication by establishing a shared understanding of the topic.

So What:

The "So What" stage focuses on the significance, implications, or analysis of the information shared in the previous step. Here, you answer the question, "Why does this matter?" or "What are the consequences?" This stage adds depth and meaning to your communication by highlighting the relevance and impact of the information being presented.

Now What:

The "Now What" stage outlines the next steps, actions, or recommendations based on the previous two stages. This is where you provide a clear call-to-action or propose a solution to address the situation or capitalize on the opportunities identified. The "Now What" stage ensures that your communication is actionable and prompts the recipient to take appropriate measures.

Let's explore how it solves common communication challenges in your work today.

Clarity vs. Ambiguity:

Effective communication is characterized by clarity, ensuring that messages are understood accurately. By starting with the "What" stage, the methodology provides a clear and concise presentation of facts and information. In contrast, poor communication often lacks clarity, leading to ambiguity and confusion. Ambiguous messages can derail projects, impede decision-making, and breed frustration among team members. The "What, So What, Now What" methodology promotes clarity, reducing the risk of miscommunication.

Relevance vs. Irrelevance:

In your work, it is essential to communicate the relevance and significance of information to engage stakeholders effectively. The "So What" stage of the methodology bridges the gap between information and its impact. By explaining the implications and consequences, it adds meaning to the message. Conversely, ineffective communication often fails to establish relevance, resulting in disengaged audiences. Without understanding why information matters, individuals may overlook critical details or fail to take appropriate action. 

Actionability vs. Inaction:

One of the primary goals of communication in a business setting is to drive action and facilitate progress. The "Now What" stage of the methodology focuses on providing actionable steps, recommendations, or solutions. By outlining the next course of action, it empowers recipients to make informed decisions and move forward. In contrast, ineffective communication lacks clarity on what needs to be done, leading to confusion and inaction. Unclear directives and lack of follow-through can impede productivity and hinder the achievement of organizational goals. 

Engagement vs. Disengagement:

Engaging team members and stakeholders is essential for effective collaboration and successful outcomes. The structured nature of the "What, So What, Now What" methodology maintains audience engagement throughout the communication process. By guiding them through the different stages, it keeps their attention and encourages active participation. On the other hand, poor communication often fails to engage listeners, resulting in disinterest, disengagement, and decreased productivity.

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Let’s make it real

You’re on a combined product team building a new feature that has gone off timeline and it’s looking like it will miss a critical time to market window.

What:

Start the communication by stating the facts and the current status of the feature delivery. For example:

The delivery of the new feature for our product is behind schedule. The product team has been late on a few requirements, the engineering team has encountered technical roadblocks, and there have been delays in receiving design specs from the UX team. As a result, the expected release date has been pushed back by four weeks.

So What:

Next, explain the significance and implications of the situation. For instance:

This delay in delivering the new feature impacts our ability to meet customer expectations and maintain a competitive edge in the market. It also affects the overall product roadmap, potentially impacting other planned releases and customer satisfaction. Additionally, missed deadlines can lead to frustration among stakeholders and hinder revenue growth.

Now What:

Finally, propose actionable steps and recommendations to address the issue and ensure timely delivery of the new feature. For example:

To mitigate the delays and get the project back on track, we need to implement the following measures:

Schedule a status meeting for key members of the team to identify the technical challenges and design requirements in detail that focuses on breaking down the feature into smaller and more manageable tasks.

Set up a meeting to specifically identify bottlenecks and challenge the team to come up with a solution for getting by them

Define and document the technical specifications, design guidelines, and requirements and place them in an easily accessible and updatable space so everyone can be on the same page.

Regularly review progress, address any emerging issues promptly, and adjust the project plan as needed to keep everyone aligned and on track.

In your ever increasing fast-paced world and environment, effective communication is vital for your success. The "What, So What, Now What" methodology offers a lens that addresses common communication challenges. By prioritizing clarity, relevance, actionability, and engagement, this methodology helps overcome the pitfalls of ineffective communication. 

Adopting this approach can foster collaboration, drive productivity, and ultimately contribute to achieving organizational objectives. So the next time you have an ask, a really important need, reach into your communication tool kit and use your new found “What” powers to help the person you’re working with see why it’s so important and bring them along with you.

Happy Friday and Keep Learning!

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One way to help you get there is a concept that Simon Sinek has identified called the Golden Circle he came up with in a Tedx talk and then a book, Start With Why - how great leaders inspire everyone to action.

The Why

Here’s an example of starting with why.

We love technology and are immersed every day in learning and building new things, it’s given us the opportunity to build this amazing personal organizer platform that will help users optimize their day in an intuitive way to let them get to the core work they need to do. 

Versus

We have built this amazing personal organizer platform that allows users to optimize their day through answering common email questions, surfacing calendar invites via push notifications, automatically sending calendar invite requests when times don’t work, it summarizes notes for you, etc.

Can you spot the difference?

In the first example, we start with the why behind the builders and their passion for learning which led them to working on ways to optimize their day and then create a platform to help others solve that problem. In the second we focused on what the tool is and features it could do.

Which do you find more meaningful?

Which platform are you more interested in using?

The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle consists of three concentric circles: Why, How, and What. The Why represents the core belief or purpose of an organization, answering the question of why it exists beyond making a profit. The How represents the organization's unique approach or value proposition, explaining how it fulfills its purpose. Lastly, the What represents the tangible products or services offered by the organization.

This frame can easily be adapted to you! What is your why? Why do you do what you do in life? Why are you a software engineer and not a painter? Why are you a kick-butt Sales Executive and not a doctor?

Starting with why means identifying and understanding your core beliefs, values, and passions. It involves reflecting on the deeper purpose and meaning behind your actions and decisions. By clarifying your why, you can gain a sense of personal identity and direction, making it easier to set meaningful goals and make choices that align with your values.

The Golden Circle framework can guide personal decision-making. Begin with your why—your core purpose or belief. Then consider the how—your unique strengths, talents, and approaches that can help you achieve your why. Finally, determine the what—the tangible actions, goals, and outcomes you want to pursue.

To help you get to your why, it might be helpful to identify your core values:

And for how you’re doing overall, here is a small exercise that I do with myself every couple months or so and my direct reports to see how fulfilled or not I am currently:

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The Exercise

Timing: 15 - 20 minutes

Goal: See how you are doing in your work life against your why and your fears.

What’s your why?

• Why do you do what you do and why are you in the profession you're in? 

  • Write down a couple sentences or a few bullets

  • (Strongly recommend surfacing your core values before answering)

• Why are you at X company and what do they do that aligns with your personal why?

  • Write down a couple sentences or a few bullets

What do you run away from?

• What are the things that you really don't like that provide you a lot of discomfort so much so that facing them is like torture.

What do you fear losing? 

• What are the things in work and/or life that are the types of things that keep you up at night or are that little bug in your head that's in the background

Now take 5-10 minutes and evaluate how you are doing against all three right now and write it down.

• The last part of this exercise is the fun part. If you’re totally aligned with your why, you are far away from your “runaways”, and your fears are not being actualized - Congratulations you are rocking it! 

• If you are finding that your current job is not aligned with some of why and/or you are hitting some of your “runaways” or fears - Also, congratulations! You’ve now identified areas that you need fulfillment in and created some binary questions to help build yourself up and address to get yourself back in a good place. Because at the end of the day, if you are not fulfilled in your why, you are hitting your runaways and your fears, guess what you will be miserable and you will move on from the things causing you these pains.

This knowledge now gives you the power to dig in and change your situation, and guess what? If you are a manager, your direct reports have the same things going on too. I would recommend doing this exercise with them and putting on your multiplier hat for helping them reach their fulfillment too.

Until next time, keep learning!

Welcome back to part two of the Multipliers framework, “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter" by Liz Wiseman, and how it can help you build up your team to maximize everyone and stay away from diminishing your team or those you work with closer.

Let’s start by digging into the traits shown by Talent Magnets, those that bring in and search for talent inside and outside an organization while giving them the room to do their best work, and Empire Builders, who hoard resources to create their own power center.

Talent Magnet

A Talent Magnet is a type of leader who has a unique ability to attract and maximize the intelligence and capabilities of the people around them. They create an environment where talented individuals are drawn to work with them and are inspired to contribute their best efforts. There are four key traits that Talent Magnets portray.

1. Look for talent everywhere

Attracts Top Talent: Talent Magnets have a reputation for creating exceptional teams. They possess a compelling vision and are able to effectively communicate it which attract talented individuals who want to be part of something meaningful and impactful. Their ability to articulate a clear direction and create an engaging work environment makes them a magnet for top talent.

Recognizes and Utilizes Intelligence: Talent Magnets possess a deep appreciation for the intelligence and expertise of their team members. They actively seek out diverse perspectives and value the contributions of each individual. They leverage the unique strengths of their team members, assigning them challenging and meaningful work that aligns with their abilities and interests.

2. Find the Native the Genius

How to find it: A native genius is something that a person is the best at and they do it better than everyone else around them. It is also something they do willingly without being paid to do it.

Look for what is native by answering the following questions:

• What do they do better than anything else they do?

• What do they do better than the people around them?

• What do they do without effort?

• What do they do without being asked?

• What do they do readily without being paid? (read this as things outside of their normal job description)

Label it! Once you’ve answered the above questions and found a person’s native genius, add a good label to it so that it has some meaning and can be understood more easily by the person whose genius you found.

Let’s use me as an example (coming from past managers and my wife):

• What do I do better than anything else I do?

  • I have the ability to see the details and big picture in a very broad way which allows me to push for new ideas and the optimal outcome, while also focusing on the current place where the team is.

• What do I do better than the people around me?

  • Have an in depth understanding of multiple complex projects and work streams all at the same time.

• What do I do without effort? and without being asked? Out of the scope of my job description?

  • Optimizing the best way forward based on the above and creating ideal systems to support it. Pushing for positive change.

• Label: The Catalyst

3. Utilize people to their fullest

Invests in People: Talent Magnets invest in the development of their team members. They provide opportunities for growth, offer challenging assignments, and provide ongoing coaching and feedback. They actively support the professional and personal development of their team members, enabling them to continuously learn and acquire new skills.

Amplifies Others' Intelligence: Talent Magnets have the ability to amplify the intelligence and capabilities of their team members. They act as coaches and mentors, helping individuals stretch beyond their perceived limits and in developing new skills. They provide guidance, ask thought-provoking questions, and create an environment that sparks creativity and collaboration.

Provides Autonomy and Ownership: Talent Magnets trust their team members and provide them with autonomy and ownership over their work. They delegate responsibilities, granting individuals the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of their outcomes. This sense of ownership instills a strong sense of accountability and motivates team members to perform at their best.

4. Remove the blockers

Creates a Safe and Empowering Environment: Talent Magnets foster a culture of psychological safety where team members feel encouraged to take risks, share ideas, and challenge the status quo without the fear of negative repercussions. They create an environment that supports learning, growth, and innovation, empowering their team members to reach their full potential.

Get out of the way: A lot of times you as a manager or leader can be a blocker for a teammate as they level up and start to build out new skills. In order for them to have the ownership they need to build it, you as a manager need to step back and let them own it.

Remove the prima donnas: Prima donnas are individuals with exceptional talent but often exhibit negative behaviors that disrupt team dynamics. By removing them from the team, you give everyone else the space to do their best work.

How do you know you’ve made it to the rarified air of a talent magnet? 

You’ve made it once you start “Supersizing it”, Naming the genius and letting the superstars go. “Supersizing it”, means you are giving them the right stretch tasks that enable them to be challenged and get to their next level. You are adept at naming the genius of everyone on your team and then pulling them in to work that helps accent their native genius.

Lastly, when someone on your team has grown to a place where they are ready for a new challenge and role, let go of that superstar and help them find their next landing spot! It sounds a little counterintuitive to let your best talent go, but in the long run it’s about your people and the culture you are building. The name recognition you and your company will get from your team being outstanding will more than replace them.

This framework will help you build towards a growth culture and attract the A players to your team:

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Empire Builder

In contrast, an Empire Builder is a type of leader who tends to focus on accumulating power, resources, and control for themselves, rather than maximizing the intelligence and capabilities of their team. Empire Builder’s, like Talent Magnets, attract top talent and in contrast often exhibit behaviors that diminish the overall effectiveness of the organization and the people within it. Here are the key characteristics of an Empire Builder:

Hoards Resources and Control: Empire Builders are inclined to amass resources and decision-making authority, consolidating power within themselves. They are reluctant to delegate responsibilities or share information, creating a culture of dependency and limiting the autonomy of their team members. They prioritize their own control and status over the growth and development of others.

Micromanages and Underutilizes Talent: Empire Builders tend to micromanage their team members, closely monitoring their work and limiting their opportunities to contribute fully. They do not leverage the intelligence and expertise of their team, often making decisions unilaterally and disregarding the ideas and perspectives of others. This behavior stifles creativity and innovation within the organization.

Creates a Competitive Environment: Empire Builders foster a competitive environment where individuals vie for limited resources and recognition. They encourage a win-lose mindset, pitting team members against each other rather than fostering collaboration and cooperation. This divisive atmosphere diminishes the collective intelligence and erodes trust within the team.

Creates a Culture of Fear: Empire Builders rely on fear and intimidation to maintain control and compliance within their organization. They use their authority to instill a sense of fear, suppressing dissenting opinions and discouraging risk-taking. This fear-based culture stifles creativity, inhibits open communication, and erodes morale.

Takes Credit for Others' Work: Empire Builders have a tendency to take credit for the accomplishments and ideas of their team members. They seek personal recognition and visibility, often failing to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of their team. This behavior undermines trust and demotivates individuals, leading to disengagement and reduced work performance.

Creates Silos and Dependencies: Empire Builders promote siloed thinking and dependencies within the organization. They discourage cross-functional collaboration and create barriers to information sharing. This isolation hampers the ability of the organization to leverage the collective intelligence of its members and limits the overall effectiveness and adaptability of the team.

All of this leads up to a toxic environment and losing out on top talent, leading to A players staying away:

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The Learning

A players are out there on your team and within your organization. For you as a leader to achieve your goals, you can use the skills above to maximize your people and get the best out of your team. Use the Talent Magnet tools and create a power house team or organization that everyone wants to come to. Lastly, in a counterintuitive way, it’s great to let superstar employees go and grow, don’t be afraid of it, because it will bring long term benefits if you and your team are known as a great place to learn and work from.

Here are a few exercises to try to help bring out the inner Talent Magnet in you:

Exercise #1: Name the Genius

Above in this article I discussed how you can name the genius and how you should work on identifying each person’s “genius” on the team. 

As a team building exercise, here is something you can do to get some help from the team in identifying everyone’s native genius (adapted from Multipliers): 

Goal: Build up the team through everyone identifying their genius

Time: ~60-90 minutes (For groups of 10 or less)

Exercise:

1. Define the concept of native genius and talk up how it helps the team.

   1. Pause for questions after to make sure everyone understands the concept.

2. Have each person on the team, take 10-15 minutes to write up what they think the native genius of each person on the team is.

3. On a whiteboard or projected from a laptop to a large screen, write up each person’s name and label their genius. Work towards a consensus of that one thing they do better than everyone else and do so naturally.

   1. Ask the team members to give their perspective too.

4. Break out into groups of 2-3 and have people brainstorm how to use their genius and have them send what they come up with to you.

Exercise #2: Build the Coalition

For this exercise, you will need to do some brainstorming. 

Goal: Build a cross departmental team of talent to help get an underperforming project back on track

Timing: ~45 minutes to plan

1. Take a pad of paper or pull up a document on your screen and write out a list of underperforming projects or work streams. 

2. Next write out all the cross team dependencies for how the work gets done and teams that the work impacts.

3. From those teams, ask yourself the question, “Do I know any superstars that can help out with this project/work stream to help achieve success?”

4. Write out that list and then what you think they could help with

5. Build on your current project a plan on how those people can help in the project and the approximate time you would need from them.

6. Lastly, write up a pitch to those people on why they need to be involved in the project and what they will bring that will supercharge the effort

7. Reach out and create the cross functional team!

Exercise #3: Stay Curious

Do you have any amorphous, under developed or undefined ideas? If so, this exercise is for you!

Goal: Find out some creative ideas to solve a problem from places you wouldn’t normally get

Timing: A couple days to a week.

1. Identify a problem to be solved and frame it as a question.

2. Find and poll a large cross section of your team, your company, your friends or your connections on how they would solve that problem.

3. Compare their answers to where you’ve got to.

4. For any specific answers that blow you away, dig in and start asking more specific questions on how they would implement that answer/and or solution.

5. Write it all up and send it over for your team to review, build a plan around it and execute!

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Check out part one of the Multipliers series here!

Little did you know, building a sandcastle with your kids can actually be a lot like agile software development! So grab your buckets and shovels, and let's dive into the world of sandcastle building, agile style, sprinkled with some dad jokes along the way!

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The kids started out trying to make a tower with our big bucket and closer to where we were sitting, further from the water. They learned through that POC (proof of concept) that the bucket was a little big for towers and the sand was not wet enough that far away from the water. We learned that we needed to get closer to the water and needed to use a smaller bucket to build our towers.

The next iteration we started by building a moat closer to water and taking the sand to build up a wall so that water could stay in the moat. Next we picked up a smaller bucket and filled it up with the wetter sand to start to create the towers. Based on the tools we had and where the castle was, the kids made a design decision to make a longer sand castle with moat in the middle instead of a square. It was also easier for them to build that way instead of a traditional square.

• Learning #1: Embrace the Iterative Process

  Just like in agile software development, building a sandcastle is an iterative process. It starts with a basic foundation, and as you progress, you continuously add new features. Each iteration brings improvements and adjustments. In both cases everyone on the team has their own ideas of how to build it and iterate. Remember, it's all about embracing the journey, not just the final castle!

Dad Joke #1: Why was the mollusk nervous? Because it’s hands were always a little clammy!

In order to keep the build on the move, the kids needed to work together to make sure the castle’s towers were being built and the moat stayed operational. One of the kids started building towers and the other one dredged and improved on the moat to allow water to come in, but not flow out.

• Learning #2: Collaboration is Key

  Agile development emphasizes teamwork, and building a sandcastle is no different. Your team needs to actively participate, making decisions together, and dividing tasks. Working together promotes communication, problem-solving, and strengthens team or family bonds. Plus, it's much more enjoyable when everyone contributes.

There were tons of shells around on this beach. The gulls were really eating well. Given the amount of shells around, the kids started to add them as a decoration atop all the towers. It wasn’t what we originally planned for, but they looked great! A few minutes later during our build, the tide changed and water wasn’t coming into the moat. What could we do?

As an emergency patch, we started to bucket the water in, since the tide didn’t move the water too far away. Next we dredged more of the moat towards the water and at the end it was filled again!

• Learning #3: Embrace Flexibility

  In agile development, flexibility is crucial. Similarly, when building a sandcastle, you must adapt to unexpected challenges, like sudden waves or collapsing structures. Embrace these moments as opportunities to learn and improve. Remember, it's not about achieving perfection, but rather adapting to change and having fun along the way!

Dad Joke #2: Why don't oysters donate to charity? Because they are shellfish!

Throughout the process, the kids asked me how it was going and how it was looking. Lucky for us we had three other customers in the form of mama, an auntie (my sister) and their grandpa. Every so often they went back and asked how it was looking. I was also asking them questions on if we needed more towers, were they the right height? Did we need to add anything else to sand castle?

• Learning #4: Continuous Feedback

  In agile, regular feedback is essential for improvement. Likewise, as your kids build their sandcastle, provide positive feedback and suggestions for enhancement. Encourage creativity and make it a collaborative learning experience. Constructive feedback and encouragement will boost their confidence and keep them motivated.

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So how did we do?

(Please let us know in the comment section!)

What I learned today is how to align what you are doing and how you are doing it with your core values and you can too.

In my pursuit of learning, there are a few great podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis that help me grow my understanding of the world and how to work towards being my best self. In the working world side one of them is Lenny’s Podcast (you should all subscribe, it’s fantastic!) where Lenny Rachitsky, a former founder and Product Manager at AirBnB, has on some of the top tech and growth minds out there.

A few weeks ago he had on Ada Chen Rekhi, COO and cofounder of Notejoy and an executive coach, and she among other great things taught about finding your inner scorecard (core values) and has a free exercise on how you can find and surface yours.

What are inner core values and why are they important?

Life is is never black and white and it is not binary in the general sense, but there are tools you can use and build that allow a person in smaller chunks to use certain frames to help with the overwhelming world and this is one of them.

Inner core values are the things that are the most meaningful to you, these are not external validations like a promotion or a raise. If these values are fulfilled, you will be satisfied and living your best life. It allows you to move the external validation away and focus your decisions and how you move through the day towards meeting your inner values.

For me, life was getting to a place where it was running me and I was overwhelmed.

So here is my inner scorecard:

1. Learning every day of my life.

2. Create a positive impact on the world with work that is making a difference.

3. Don’t take yourself too seriously, live with playfulness.

4. Collaboration is how we get to better solutions and answers.

5. Resilience in the face of challenging times.

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Ada brings two questions that allow you to use this scorecard every day:

How well are you living your values? 

How well does your decision align with your values? 

Here were my answers:

• One of the things I truly love about software development and engineering is that you learn something every day, so I made a shift -

  • I am reading or listening to a podcast for an hour every day and coding/building for at least an hour a day. I had been off with my most important value and that needed to change.

• I was at a wonderful company that was making a difference in helping student’s achieve their goals, so that was a check.

• The stress of life had gotten pretty heavy and I was super overwhelmed. My playful side had taken a back seat, so I made a shift -

  • I love watching really silly comedy that incorporates quick thinking and dad jokes so I started to watch some Game Changers (College Humor) and YeahMad on Youtube to help bring the wonderful silliness back into my life.

• At work, where I was spending the most time, there were parts of my day that I worked and pushed my team towards some really great collaboration, but there were some larger parts of my job where that just didn’t exist.

  • This lead to a really good inflection point of how/if this core belief really fit the organization where I was.

• Lastly, life is hard no matter where you are or what you do. Resilience in the face of that, the ability to face it or bounce back is something that I need in order to find my own fulfillment. I was finding that I was not as resilient as I wanted to be, so I made a change.

  • I started doing yoga, running or biking every day and working to fulfill my other four core values so that I am able to get emotional energy back to be more resilient. I also started talking to a therapist and working on building tools to allow for that resilience to build up.

Now, things are not perfect, but I am more aligned to what I need and things are on the right track.

What I Learned

Finding and surfacing your core values so that you can build an inner scorecard to live your best life.

Please take the time to do this exercise if you haven’t already, the mindfulness that it brings will help you get to where you need to be starting from inside and working outwards. To learn a little more on finding your inner scorecard, check out Ada’s original post here.

Also, please check out Lenny’s Pod and Ada’s site, you’ll love what you find.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

These are fantastic questions.  Why would we want someone to replace us and do our job? Aren’t  we afraid that our managers will see our direct reports uplevelling and look to actually replace us with them? If they start to do the work we are currently doing, what will we do? 

These questions expand beyond management as well. If the junior engineer or associate on my team starts to do the tasks I currently do, will they replace me? 

My answer is that I want my team to take my job.

There is too much work on my plate, and really most leaders’ plates. In order to prioritize my time effectively, I want to build up my employees’ skills, ultimately to replace me, because I don’t want to do this job forever. I would like to focus on the most meaningful work that I can do. I can’t do that if I can’t make my teams effective to the level that they don’t need me in their day-to-day responsibilities.

To get to that answer, I asked myself the following questions and you should as well: 

• What work do I really want to be doing? 

• What role do I really want to have?

For how to get there, we come to the bedrock of my leadership philosophy, Multipliers - How the best leaders make everyone smarter by Liz Wiseman. We’ll delve into a seven part learning series, based on the concepts and how to start to use them so you can be a multiplier too!

"Multipliers" by Liz Wiseman breaks down the concept of leadership into two archetypes: "multipliers" and "diminishers." Multipliers are leaders who amplify the intelligence and capabilities of their team members, while diminishers tend to stifle creativity and potential. There is also a variation of diminishers, named “accidental diminishers” that we’ll delve into a little later on in this series. Through research and real-world examples, Wiseman demonstrates how multipliers unleash the full potential of their teams, resulting in higher performance, increased engagement, and overall organizational success.

The table below illustrates the main attributes of Multipliers and Diminishers:

Wiseman describes specific behaviors and practices of multipliers that set them apart. These leaders are characterized by their ability to create a safe environment where people feel encouraged to contribute their best ideas and stretch their capabilities. Multipliers ask challenging questions, provide autonomy, and promote a growth mindset, fostering a culture of continuous learning. 

The book describes practical strategies for aspiring multipliers to develop their leadership skills, such as conducting talent audits, providing stretch assignments, and giving ownership to team members. We’ll dive deep into a few of them, so you will be able to start using them too!

Here is a multiplier exercise that I do on a regular basis to start with on your path towards being a Multiplier:

• Write out in three columns or sections on a pad of paper or type out in a document:

  • Work Only I can do

  • Work I like/prefer to do (can be work only you can do)

  • Work someone else on my team could do

• Take 5 minutes and write down all the work and tasks on your plate right now.

• From the “Work someone else on my team can do” column, identify a task that would be a stretch for someone on your team or a junior team member to do. This task should be generally within the scope of their job description or work and something that takes up around 2 hours or more every week.

  • If you are a manager, write out the task and what it takes to get it done, then schedule some time with a direct report who could step up to do it and give them that work with you supporting them as a backstop

  • If you are an individual contributor, talk to your manager about the work you would like your junior teammate to do and why. 

    • Pending approval, write out the task and what it takes to get it done.

    • Set up time with them and give them that work with you supporting them as a backstop.

• In a two week period, log the time that you have gotten back in your schedule and what you’ve been able to do with that time.

• Let me know how it goes! 

What I Learned

The perspective gained is that you need to build up and train your team and junior people to replace you so that you can get the job or do the work you want to do.

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Stay tuned for part 2 where we delve into the concepts of the Talent Magnet and how to build up a diversity in thought on your team and into your day to day.

Let’s keep learning!

This kicks of a short form series that will focus on smaller, bite sized learning. Hope you enjoy it, and if you do, please subscribe and share!

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“the “egoic mind,” which is his collective term for all the Saboteurs, is like a giant snowman that melts away under the light of conscious awareness.” - Shirzad Chamine

We have the ability to constantly shift our perception and as a result how we interact with the world. When things are hard, we move to a very binary good & bad/black & white. When things are easy, more color gets added to the world and we see the different vibrant shades that exist. The wonderful thing about this is that we have the ability to shift towards adding more color and context to the world, even when it’s hard.

Shirzad Chamine in his book, Positive Intelligence, provides an excellent exercise to help you center yourself and even when times are hard and stressful, to help shift away from black & white to the vibrant colors that exist in your world.

What I learned

When you are feeling that black & white, close your eyes and for three deep breaths focus on one of your senses and in particular one focus with that one sense:

• touch

• smell

• hearing

• taste

For example, right now my feet are on the ground and i feel the smoothness of the wood under my feet, I’m going to focus on that.

This small meditation, Shirzad recommends these PQ reps 100 times a day, will help you get back to center.

Hope this can help give you some of the direction and clarity it’s given me. Please let me know how it goes!

Most of us have moved at some point in time and been so frustrated by the packing process that by the time you get to loading up, you just throw it in, you might have tried to maximize the space, but probably ignored the ideal location for the boxes you want first in the attempt to be done.

Today I learned how to pack a truck and how it’s a great metaphor for how to organize a project.

This morning, I was lucky enough to have a meetup with Gordon Wong, a premiere data architect who has helped many companies implement the right database and data model solution. I asked him what his super power is and what his super hero back story was. His super power is the knowledge of how to pack a truck.

Let’s start with the basics and break down the problem of packing a truck. A truck is a defined space that you can practically figure out an area for what you could put in there through the height, length and width of the carrying space (Geometry FTW!). There is also the defined knowledge of what items need to go into the truck, which also have defined dimensions. Then you have the equation of items and area of what needs to go into the truck relative to the area of what the truck can carry.

The problem

Now comes the challenging part and what makes logistics so hard. What is your optimal packing strategy?

Based on this space, what items do you pack first?

What items build up to others?

What time do you have to pack the items?

What time do you have to unpack the items?

If you maximize the carrying space, how do you get everything in? And if you can get everything in, can you realistically get it out?

Here’s where we get back to Gordon. As a younger adult, he worked jobs in both roofing and catering and needed to maximize his hours. This presents an interesting problem. The timing for the jobs meant that he had to be in early in the morning, a lot of times before sunrise to find and pack trucks to be ready for the day. He also wanted to maximize the time he would be on the job and ensure that nothing was left behind. He learned how to ensure all the inventory was there, what items were needed first, second, third and onwards to reverse pack the truck. Lastly, he needed to understand his goal and the project or event goal to align them so his working hours would match up.

This superpower is wonderful, because for any work project that a person or a team is on, this thinking can be applied!

What is my and what is the project’s end goal? Based on that, what needs to be built or put together in what timing? What questions need to be answered before we start? When does the project or feature need to be delivered?

The answer hear and the super valuable lesson is that project management is just like packing a up a truck. You need to ask and answer the right questions on the size of your truck (timelines for your project), what materials are needed to do the job (resources and technology going into the project), how can I maximize for my and the teams outcome, and lastly how can I prioritize all of the above to achieve project success.

Today’s learning - prioritize like you are packing up a truck.

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Thank you and looking forward to learning more with you tomorrow!

I also pride myself on being a great leader who is empowering my people, not micro-managing and setting the right expectations so they can grow in the ways that are meaningful to them. Now, let’s see those skills put to the test. Can I empower my five year old son and three year old daughter to work together and build the Koenigsegg sports car? Will everything go up in flames and will this end in a fight where we lose pieces? Let’s find out!

To compare this to software engineering, we’ve got a built in product designer (thank you lego for the refined instructions aka wireframes!) and product manager who have given us a clear vision for what we need to do (build the car). In my role as engineering manager for this project, I need to help facilitate both kids working together in the somewhat difficult tensile task of putting all these small pieces together and their attention span in it enough that they see progress and don’t get bored so it’s just me building the car!

As we get into it, we have our first clear roadblock, both kids want to build and my son thinks it’s his car, which does not go over well with his younger sister. I need to think fast and an idea comes from a tried and true software development practice, one kid will “refine the user story”, finding new pieces to put together from the page of instructions for the other one to build! We start with my daughter gathering all the pieces for page 1 and needing to help her as the junior engineer on the project along with gathering them and then coaching her older brother on patience and following the instructions (the high fidelity design) on putting them together. We continue this process back and forth between the two of them for “refining the user story and building the feature” and I am having to be a little more interventionist with my “QA and direction” than I’d like, but we get really humming and the car is coming together. Unfortunately, all does not stay humming as the little one gets a little bored and starts playing with pieces and deciding she’s not close enough to the action and needs to sit on my lap. The older one pulls a tried and true this is my baby and you can’t touch it (love those engineers who build a feature, start up building a new application or service and it’s suddenly theirs) with the car. Thus we have a meeting of the minds where our daughter moves to a less in the way part of my lap, we reorient that this is a shared car that we are building together and what we want to accomplish tonight is to finish the first part of the sports car.

Around an hour after we started, after our daughter got bored and I help our son finish off the last part of part one, my nerves are a little frayed. But we got there!

So what did I learn in this exercise?

We accomplished the goal… no TV and we built something!!!

I still need to work on my leadership skills. It’s really hard to lead 3 and 5 year olds on a project together. Giving them both a part to do helped them complete the work, but I need to do a better job in creating the environment where they can do more themselves and are less reliant on me.

Stay tuned for part 2 and if I can implement more of my work leadership in lego making…

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