Software Lead Weekly

Writing Well
24 minutes read.

There are very few people who know how to create both beautifully designed and written essays like Julian Shapiro. If you've been following my newsletter for some time now, you know how much I value and recommend people to practice writing. "To write well is to think well." -- Writing also helps you put the reader first, and adjust the message for them. Read Julian's essay to take a few steps forward in your ability to inspire others, create buy-in for projects you want to promote and sharpen your thinking.

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Watching in Horror as You Witness Users Try Your Product for the First Time
1 minutes read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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Definite Optimism as Human Capital
17 minutes read.

"When I say “positive” vision, I don’t mean that people must see the future as a cheerful one. Instead, I’m saying that people ought to have a vision at all: A clear sense of how the technological future will be different from today. To have a positive vision, people must first expand their imaginations." -- One of the best posts I've read this week. Think about this concept in the context of your organization. How can you expand your leaders' creativity and imagination? How can they form a vision of the future your company needs to have in order to establish sustainable success?

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Generative Team Design
4 minutes read.

Dara Blumenthal takes us a few levels deeper when aiming to foster psychological safety in our work environment. It made me think a lot about my group: how we vulnerable enough with each other? Are we allowing people to shift and fit their role to their core skills?

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Positive 30X Greater Than Negative 2 of 2
3 minutes read.

The framing around leveraging each other's strength is important as our brain is wired to look for faults or dangers (survival mindset). This is why most of us pay attention to shortcomings in others rather than their unique strength. Look at your team - can you clearly say what is the super power each teammate posses? Is that being leveraged today in the team?

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Developing a Management Philosophy
4 minutes read.

Excellent advice by Ryan Rushing on structuring your managerial philosophy. My favorite takeaway was the section "Consider the phrasing" as I didn't give it a lot of thought when choosing my words. Try it out, write it down, and share it with people to get their feedback.

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Name One Weird Activity That You Enjoy That Other People Find Painful to Do.... For Me, It's Talking to Lawyers About Contracts. (Thread)
3 minutes read.

A thread that fits well Naval Ravikant's definition for unique strength. Try it out yourself. Share it with your teammates as I'm sure it will lead to some interesting discussions. Mine is: Recommending others what to read for their personal growth.

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How to Motivate Yourself to Change Your Behavior (Video)
17 minutes read.

Tali Sharot with fun and pragmatic talk to listen to on your next commute to work. The biggest takeaways for me are to think of ways I can create (1) Immediate rewards and (2) Progress monitoring for myself.

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@thomasfuchs: "Technical debt" is a term made up by people who don't understand that writing and maintaining software is a lot more like caring for a garden and not like building a house. Stuff is organic and will grow and die and wither and be replaced by new stuff.

@thogge: It’s really really hard, maybe impossible, to build truly delightful software unless you genuinely love your customer.