Posts from Awesome Folks #30

Author

Emily Webber
September 30, 2022

Hello folks,

This week, as I continue to spend a lot of time ringing various companies to fix things around the house, I am thinking about where we put our investment. Top of the list is two big jobs repointing the sea-facing side of the house and asbestos removal from the garage - the joys of home ownership and what you learn after you move, despite the surveys.

Both will add no monetary value to the house, but they will add value to us. Regular repointing is part of living so close to the sea, and the previous owners just left it; getting it done will give us peace of mind. Removing the damaged asbestos insulation boards from the garage will be expensive, but then we can use it as a workshop without fear of health risks. Both will make our lives better. Framing our decisions around the value we care about helps us make better decisions to get to that value earlier.

I hope you enjoy this week's links; let me know by using the thumbs up.

Happy Friday

Emily

People and culture

How to Fix a Toxic Culture

By Donald Sull and Charles Sull

To address toxicity in the workplace, research shows there are three critical drivers companies should focus on: leadership, social norms, and work design. More than 90% of North American CEOs and CFOs believe that improving their corporate culture would boost financial performance.

Is A Four-Day Week The Future Of Work?

By  Henry Stewart

At Happy, we are three months into a six-month UK-pilot of the four-day week. It involves 70 organisations and 3,500 people. This is the key concept. It means you get 100% of your salary for working 80% of the time, as long as you maintain 100% productivity.

Five Ways Managers Can Help Prevent Quiet Quitting

By Ally MacDonald

Researchers discuss the factors underlying employee disengagement, and what managers can do to help restore people’s commitment to their work. By now, you’re likely acquainted with the term quiet quitting.

How Companies Should Set — and Report — DEI Goals

By Alexandra Kalev and Frank Dobbin

Can setting workforce diversity goals and posting progress reports help companies move the needle on diversity? This approach has spread like wildfire in the last two years.

Organisations and systems

How Sustainability Efforts Fall Apart

By Elisa Farri, Paolo Cervini, and Gabriele Rosani

The combination of accelerating climate change, rising income inequality, the Covid pandemic, and geopolitical conflicts have created a perfect storm of challenges to how businesses and economies are run.

The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business)

By Charity Majors

My friend Molly has had an impressive career. She got a job as a software engineer after graduating from college, and after kicking ass for a year or so she was offered a promotion to management, which she accepted with relish.

Setting and measuring goals

Percentages or absolute numbers for OKRs?

By Jeff Gothelf

The critical difference that makes Objectives & Key Results different from current goal-setting frameworks is that the key results must be outcomes. Outcomes are measurable changes in human behavior.

SUNDAY REWIND: Product roadmaps in five easy pieces

By Eira Hayward

This week’s Sunday Rewind takes us back to a 2018 post from product leader Scott Colfer that digs into five elements that make up a good roadmap. The five elements are, says Scott: Context Set the context for your product, considering things like product lifecycle stage, organisational needs, and audience. Scott says his product roadmaps often [...] Read more »

Tools and approaches for teams

3 Types of Meetings — and How to Do Each One Well

By  Amy Bonsall

Meetings are broken. Something happened when work moved online in 2020, and opening up the office hasn’t fixed it.

Q&A: How to Convince Management to allow first steps?

By Dominica Degrandis 

Prodacity conference attendees asked me a bunch of great questions at the end of my talk. Convincing others to do things differently means asking them to change the way they work – a difficult task indeed. I believe that kind of change begins with:

Learnings from London: Critical thinking for product teams by Teresa Torres

By Louron Pratt

We are four weeks away from our flagship event, #mtpcon London. What’s more, it’s 10 years old this year, with the first-ever #mtpcon happening in October 2012.

Other things

I have a couple of upcoming conferences. Will I see any of you at these?

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