softuary.net

Sleep is a burden that we endure as a time waster and a productivity killer.

Or is it?

I explore my complicated relationship with sleep, my sleep routine, and what has recently changed my views about sleep.

Have you heard of this ‘meditation’ thing? How about mindfulness? I bet you have. Today we’ll talk about my experience with meditation and the results it’s given me as a professional.

An amazing thing happened to me recently at work: I realized I was failing at an important project. Even though our momentum is good and trending more-or-less in the right direction, I received a lot of feedback from other leaders and project members that the system we (my team and I) put in place is not working, and ultimately will not work in its current incarnation. In short, we are doomed to fail if we don’t change course.

Interviewing for a new job is almost always an uncomfortable experience. By definition, you are being judged by others who don't know you. Some interviewers take it to an extreme and seem to enjoy their temporary leverage over you in an almost sadistic way. Others might be more collaborative, or empathetic, and seek to ease your discomfort.

No matter the temperament of the interviewer, I think most of us can agree that interviewing for a new job is generally unpleasant. So let's discuss how to make your next job interview less miserable, and help you increase your chances of landing that next job.
 

There is no shortage of people willing to give advice in this world. The internet has only accelerated that tendency. I don't want to give advice, but I did receive one tip from a colleague long ago that has stuck with me when all other advice has faded away. Something that 'sticky' deserves to be shared.

Cultivating a Great Culture is Your Biggest Leadership Asset

I sat back in my chair in the conference room amazed at what I heard Reid saying. He was committing to a customer that he and his organization would design and deliver a complex software feature in an aggressively short time period.

Due to my role in the meeting, it wasn't possible for me to contradict Reid's proposal. I recall thinking at the time that Reid was crazy to make such a promise. Our customer would then count on him to fulfill his commitment, and any failure to deliver would endanger our relationship and potential future business.

The true reason I was disbelieving was because I had interacted with Reid's organization before. They had many talented professionals, but their organization's culture was toxic. It was sadly full of blame games, silos, protectionism of people's own resources, information hiding, ass-covering, and lack of a solution-oriented, team-first mindset. More than once, I saw Reid craft a brilliant strategy for his product area, only to have the organization fail to execute due to their unhealthy culture.

Don't be like Reid. Invest in your organization's cultural health and gain the ultimate competitive advantage!

Your Company Wants You to Be Awesome

Your company wants you to be awesome. Trust me, they do. I'm a manager in a large company and I want 100% of my employees to be awesome. And by awesome I mean being so good you continuously amaze those around you.

Receiving feedback well is not complicated, and is a skill that can be learned. So why do so many of us do it so badly?

Let's walk through the four simple steps to receiving and making the most of the gift of feedback.

How to Decide What to Focus on When Improving Your Operations

Picture this scenario: you are appointed to a leadership position in an existing organization. Before taking the assignment, your boss tasked you with the vague mission of "making the operation better".

As leaders, sometimes we are lucky enough to get clear directives. More often, we are expected to simply "make things better". What does it really mean to "make the operation better"? How can you as a leader succeed with such a vague assignment? And how do you know where to start?

Read more to understand a model of organizational maturity and for prioritizing improvements.

Use Research Fellowships to Involve Employees in Your Strategy Definition

In a fast-paced business environment, it can be difficult for us to progress with our strategic work. At times, the best we can do is to survive each day and not let our task lists get too out of control. In fact, if we are not careful, it is possible to go weeks or months without giving any quality time to our strategic agendas because we can't free ourselves up long enough to think strategically.

We will discuss a strategy for how to delegate a portion of your strategic work, to allow you to make progress on your strategic goals, despite all the distractions of day-to-day operations. 

Short-term Versus Long-term Thinking

Recently, a professional friend of mine asked me "How do I know if I'm achieving the correct split of my time, energy, effort between short term needs and long term goals?"

**It's a great question**, and at the time I didn't have a great answer. In this post we step through two questions you can use to guide yourself to a productive split between short-term and long-term thinking.

How to Be More Productive Processing Your Email

For a guy who doesn't like spending time with email, I do seem to be writing a lot about it lately.

My last word on email (for the foreseeable future at least) and the last piece of the email puzzle we need to discuss is how to actually process your email. We should be aware that there is no perfect email system for everyone. People have different work styles and demands and what works well for one person may be a detriment to another person. However, here are a few suggestions that will improve your performance at processing your email backlog effectively.