Posts from Awesome Folks #18

Author

Emily Webber
July 08, 2022

Hello all,

It's been quite the week in the UK. This week in politics has kept me glued to the live news feeds. With so many former colleagues and friends working in or adjacent to the civil service, it's been the hot topic of conversation, speculation and pulling apart what's been happening. I'm sending thanks to those civil servants who are keeping things going amongst it all.

Culture and leadership are significant parts of the national conversation as it continues to be in my weekly blog post round-up.

Enjoy and happy Friday

Emily

People and culture

It’s Time to Reimagine Employee Retention

By Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis

"This is a challenging time for managers. Alongside their day-to-day roles, many are facing a never-ending cycle of reskilling and recruiting on their teams."

TBM 27/52: When Is Change More Likely?

By John Cutler

"When I’ve noticed actual change happen, it is most often accompanied by this list of things"

Monitoring Employees Makes Them More Likely to Break Rules

By Chase Thiel, Julena M. Bonner, John Bush, David Welsh, and Niharika Garud

"In April 2020, global demand for employee monitoring software more than doubled... recent research suggests that in many cases, monitoring employees can seriously backfire."

3 Mistakes Dealing With Difficult People While Changing A Quality Culture

By Vernon Richards

"My boss came to help the organisation change, and he hired me to take on some of that work... I failed to make the change stick, and the practice remained! Here's why."

Organisations and systems

Everything you need to know about scaling an engineering team

By Lilach Ritter

"The scale-up was a perfect example of hypergrowth, taking place within a short period of time around an aggressive deadline. When welcoming new talent and building new teams, we were trying to cram a year’s worth of experience into a couple of months. It was a crash course in what to do and not to do as you scale."

How long should we keep the team together?

By Jeff Gothelf

"One of the best teams I’ve ever worked with was a small, dedicated, self-sufficient software development team at a high-growth startup. You may recognize those descriptors as the same ones we call out in our book, Lean UX, as the key components for a successful, continuously learning team."

'How Haier Works'

By Emma de Blok

"Today we launch another course in Corporate Rebels Academy: "How Haier Works." This inspirational case study shows how an organization with over 80,000 employees can readily adapt to sudden contextual changes. This course is sure to inspire you for your own Rendanheyi-inspired transformation."

Setting and measuring goals

What Are Vanity Metrics and How to Stop Using Them

By John Cutler

You’re so vain (you’re so vain), I bet you think this metric is about you. Don’t you don’t you?

Tools and approaches for teams

Three ways to run inclusive meetings

By Pat Kua

"Back in my consulting days, I remember joining a client where we built software for a new product line. We had a project manager – let’s call them Steve (not their real name) – who was responsible for delivery. Steve would regularly run our team meetings, from standups and planning sessions to retrospectives."

Some sketches about using User Stories to facilitate shared understanding: bad, better, best

By Jason Yip

"Shared documents aren’t shared understanding."

Monotasking – To become more productive, stress-free and happy

By Staffan Nöteberg

"Concentrating on one task at a time increases our ability to be productive. To do so, we must be exceptional at focusing, which requires a suitable environment. We must create favorable conditions that encourage us to focus – that is, monotasking by design."

Other things

Eight Recent Business Books to Challenge Your Thinking

By MIT

"Reading recommendations from MIT SMR’s editors on managing hybrid work, embracing change, and finding fulfillment as a manager."

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