Writings

Most managers are severely undertrained. I’d like to do something about that.

A good manager creates more engaging work, aligns a person’s goals with business outcomes in a way that leads to everyone winning and is the catalyst to turning businesses into a force for good. These are some tools, essays, frameworks and stories to help.

Making sense of all the moving pieces is hard. Having the right tools, frameworks and knowledge is key

Create a Hiring Process

However, hiring is difficult and time consuming. There are a dozen or more job boards in the US alone that are supposed to help connect employers and employees, but most of them send…

Better Decision Making Under Uncertainty

he reason being, algorithms to find optimal solutions rely on the expected value of the decision. It requires assigning a utility value, a dollar value, or some metric to a possible outcome then…

Smooth Out Operations, Create Flow

The ideal state of a system is that which consumes the least energy. In physics, that looks like the path of least resistance. In other domains, systems that require the least amount of…

Define Communication Processes

By stepping back from the discussion and listening to how people are forming their conclusions, better ideas will emerge. Finally, understanding how information is being interpreted differently will show you how to persuade…

Get Alignment With A3 Reporting

the purpose is to ensure rigorous thinking around sharing the most useful information to get alignment and buy in from cross functional teams.

Celebrate Learning, Not Failing

What matters more than what phrases a business uses, though, is what actions are taken. Setting out to fail, as a strategy, is going to bring failure.

Create a Hiring Process

Looking at similar job postings across companies, it’s easy to see that most JDs are just copy and pasted off one another. The same vague, fluffy language surrounding the duties of the job…

Start With the End in Mind

As the wise Baseball coach Yogi Berra once stated, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” When taking on any new adventure, project, task, job, etc., having…

Put on the Six Thinking Hats

Part of this exercise, known as the six thinking hats, is becoming a character by way of being assigned a “hat.” By playing the part you’re assigned, you’re free from being judged personally…

Kanban Communication

Kanbans are another tool from Toyota’s pull based manufacturing system. Originally, physical cards acted as representation for the need of an engine component, and were passed to the relevant department when

How Managers Can Ensure Changes Last

Creating a culture of continuous improvement, having a change agent, incentivizing new process adherence, giving employees a stake in the decision making, putting the new processes in writing…

Give Away Information, Build Familiarity

If your business can educate customers (and potential customers) for free, you’ll build better relationships and funnel in more customers. If ACME services and installs new HVAC equipment, they should give out free…

Systematically Collect Feedback (and use it)

Capitalizing on the best features by making them even better to use will delight power users. Speaking of delighting users, try and go out of the way to delight 30-50% of customers, especially…

On Quality Management

Quality is as important to manage as it is hard to define. Having the tools and frameworks at the ready is critical.

What Is Management?

The cute one liners that define management leave out all the details of what one actually does as a manager. To be an effective manager, step one is figuring out what you are…

Theory X and Y for Managers

Managers, like employees, can fall into two main buckets, known as Theory X and Y. The challenge for managers, though, is aligning everyone in a productive way.

On Creativity and Management

Creativity is vaguely defined on purpose. Too rigid of a definition would deflate the meaning entirely. Similarly, management is a loosely defined title (or set of responsibilities) within most companies. It follows, then,…

Don’t Automate Yet.

It’s better to understand and eliminate than automate that which does not need to be automated.

Give Away Information, Build Familiarity 

People buy products and services from those they trust. To build trust, you have to build a shared understanding. That shared understanding is easiest to build by giving away information for free. From…

Create a Skunk Team

Excerpt from The Pocket Guide to Making Stuff Better When an organization gets large, it often, by necessity, becomes bogged down by the requirements to keep itself moving. Too much red tape, too…

The Pocket Guide to Writing a Resume

A well written resume is the difference between getting invited in for an interview and never hearing back from the company of your dream. Crushing the resume game is crucial to getting into…

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