While everyone talks about Salesforce buying Slack, it is interesting to look at how Slack came to be. Its founder Stewart Butterfield really wanted to make a great video game. He first tried with a game titled Game Neverending. You have never heard of it, because it failed, but putting together a bunch of features … Continue reading No idea
Ramble
Be careful when you speak without having your ideas clear. Particularly if you are in a position of power. Too often half formulated ideas, biased opinions, personal preferences become some sort of a norm in a small, vertical group. And the norm is always difficult to challenge and to change. You owe it to the … Continue reading Ramble
If, when, and how
In life, as in business, it is often not a matter of if. Things will happen that will mess with your plans, disturb your tranquillity, challenge your assumptions, force you to review your ideas. On the other end, it is pointless to make it a matter of when. You can't control change, and timing might … Continue reading If, when, and how
One on one
Following up on a post I wrote a while back about meetings, some top-of-mind rules to make the most out of 1-1s. Short and frequent beats long and sporadic - 30-45 minutes every week is optimal; 45-60 minutes every two weeks is doable; 90 minutes and more every month is ineffective. Commit to being there … Continue reading One on one
Absolute
If we want to grow, we need feedback. And if we want to learn from feedback, we need to stop taking it as absolute. It is human to want to protect one's work, reputation, identity. But that often leads us to see feedback as totally negative (or totally positive). We need to be able to … Continue reading Absolute
Culture
I made a list of the happiest periods in my life, and I realized that none of them involved money. We believe that it's really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you're willing to hire and fire based on them. The ultimate definition … Continue reading Culture
Productivity score
There is no evidence correlating longer hours with increased productivity. If anything, there is evidence that after a certain threshold (that might depend on the type of job), your productivity goes down (some evidence here and here). Sure, you still get something done on your 60th, 70th or 80th weekly hour of work. It is … Continue reading Productivity score
Step aside
Most of the pressure we feel is of our own making. When we manage to take a step aside and ask important questions (why do I want this? what do I need? what is the worst thing that could happen?) we find the space to breath. People in our lives are fine with attention and … Continue reading Step aside
Lapse
What do you do when you miss an appointment, forget about something, fail to do what you promised you would? You can hide, delay the difficult conversation until it gets too late to actually have it, never talk about that again, and miss the opportunity to own your lapse and grow. Or you can say … Continue reading Lapse
Third kind
Some companies decide to keep things loose. They have little hierarchy, initiatives can come from a variety of places as a response to a variety of inputs (customers, markets, intuition, experience, data, trials, mistakes, etc.), and the flexibility of the company makes it so it can adapt to changes and decisions fairly quickly without a … Continue reading Third kind
