“I don’t often do this,” my boss said, “but I’d almost insist on you watching The Last Dance [https://www.netflix.com/title/80203144?s=i&trkid=0]. Let’s talk about it afterwards.” My boss used to be a pretty serious basketball player. He often makes
No More
Some years ago I had an important feature to develop. I assigned Martin, an engineering with ten years of experience to develop the feature. While the feature seemed relatively straight forward, it took Martin three months to fully deliver it. When the feature finally was ready to ship, the team’
No More
I have a core belief. One that even when I mention it to people makes myself think: “Oh, that’s so cute Zef, I hope nobody will ever burst that cutesy little bubble of yours!” Ready? Here goes. People are decent. I know, right? So cute! Now I know, there
I only heard the term “GoLD stack” a few weeks ago. As far as I’ve been able to trace it back, it was coined in a tweet [https://twitter.com/smartinezqu/status/1269764595813683200?s=21] (of course) by Santiago Martinez Q. It stuck with me for two reasons: 1.
Feedback
In April I wrote about the No More Feedback [https://zef.plus/musing/no-more-feedback/] book. Ever since it’s been in the back of my mind, and I’ve played with and researched some ideas on this topic. Let me share some of my musings and insights. A brief recap
Decisions
Sorry for the link bait title. It was either this or “27 ideas on how to make better decisions,” and I've developed a spam filter in my brain that filters out titles with numbers in them. Ok, let's go on topic. A while ago I wrote
In a previous post I wrote about the "No More Feedback" book [/musing/no-more-feedback/]. I'm not done with this topic yet. In fact, I skipped a concept Carol Sanford focuses on quite a bit in the book: your essence . I realize how hippie this may sound,
No More
Last weekend I read Carol Sanford’s “No More Feedback” [https://amzn.to/2S2OZ2C] . It’s an intriguing book, and resulted in a “falling of my faith” type of situation. She challenges many “core beliefs” that I hold (or have been taught to hold). As a means for me to
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> “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti Some years ago I shared feedback with a customer on our cooperation thus far — all with very constructive intentions. However, I made a mistake. I slipped in a piece of judgement, and that ended up
Decisions
I sometimes joke that one half of my job is approving things, the other half is asking questions. Of course, asking any question isn't all that hard, asking the right question is a skill. However, there are a few tricks. There are a couple of questions that prove
One thing I learned to do before giving a talk is to practice it beforehand. I figured this out in high school after blacking out fairly consistently during presentations in front of the class. A harsh start to my career as a speaker. To avoid this from happening again, I
A few years ago I wrote Reading for Busy People [/musing/reading-for-busy-people]. Last week somebody asked if I cannot write something similar, but about writing. While it may not be visible online, I actually have been writing a lot recently, but most of it is internally focused (we use Facebook’
