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Reflecting on Our First Year of Co Leadership

“What are some of your favorite peak moments from the last year?” I shared a moment that stood out from one of our workshops. My co-founder Jean and I had just split the

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

3 Impactful Ways to Improve Your Onboarding Process — That Don't Take That Much Time

A few years ago, I noticed that one of the engineers on the team had very quickly gotten up to speed. A few months in, she was dealing with external stakeholders and owning

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
6 min read

A Company is Not a Family

Two years ago, the company I was at went through a round of layoffs. Members of senior engineering leadership met to discuss — how do we engage the people who are left, when they

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

Bridge Communication Gaps to Make Better Tradeoffs

One by one, engineers in the room started to voice some of the tensions they faced at work. One engineer shared that he found it frustrating whenever goals changed mid-way through a project

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

The Impact of Expressing Gratitude and Appreciation at Work

A few weekends ago, I was at Edmond's weekend birthday gathering, lightly facilitating some sharing of impact — what we appreciated in Edmond, what we saw in him that he might not see in

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
6 min read

How to Reprogram Yourself to a Better Version of You

I used to have trouble being in the spotlight, sharing my accomplishments with my friends or with my co-workers. For years, I wouldn't really ever talk about the journey in publishing my book,

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
5 min read

How to Build a Feedback Loop for Your Own Growth

In 2012, Professor Neal Roese made a powerful discovery in the science of happiness and motivation. He surveyed hundreds of people across the United States and asked them to describe, in detail, a

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
5 min read

What a Free Hugs Adventure Taught Me About Leadership

The mom pushing her stroller down Chestnut Street stopped to give me and the person I was with a hug. “Thanks,” she said. “I really needed that.” And then she continued on her

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

Asking Questions to Trees: The Power of Mindsets

A few months ago, I started working with a coach. I had seen her masterful coaching in one of the coach training courses I took, and I was blown away by the ease

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

Retrospectives: The Most Important Meeting You Can Run for Your Team

At the end of every month, we run a retrospective. It's the single most important recurring conversation that we have. We always leave them feeling re-energized and re-motivated for our work, and that

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
4 min read

Finding My Fierce Heart: My Journey in Leadership

When I left my full-time tech job as an engineering manager a year and a few months ago, I had crafted a lovely narrative on why I was going into coaching. When people

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

Understand Your WHY to Boost Your Happiness and Motivation

What makes some people excited to go to work every day while others can't wait for the work day to end? What determines whether you find deep fulfillment from your work or see

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

How to Take Control of Your Own Leadership

Four years ago, I was coming back to work from my first maternity leave, and was working 3 days a week. Week after week, I kept my head down and got my coding

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

How to Have More Impactful Communication with Two Key Skills

I blinked away the tears. Team morale was crumbling. Co-workers, many I considered friends, were leaving the company. I was at a meeting with senior leaders, and I had just expressed concern that

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

The Magic of Co-Leadership: Unlock a More Powerful Way to Work

I was halfway up the four-story vertical ropes course, when my course partner at the leadership retreat decided she couldn't continue any further. We agreed she would energetically cheer me on as I

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
8 min read

How to Get Buy-in for Reducing Technical Debt

I walk past the CEO in the hallway. “Hey Jean, it's been awhile. What are you working on these days?” Scenario one: I reply, “Oh I'm working on this big refactoring project. It's

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

How to Lead by Noticing and Filling in Gaps

Many years ago, I worked at a five-person startup. I brought crackers and cheese and fruit that I had bought with my own groceries over the weekend and put them in the mini-fridge,

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

How to Invest in the Infrastructure of Your Relationships

This important lesson about effective leadership took me ten years to learn: Investing in the infrastructure of your relationships is just as important as investing in the infrastructure of your code and products.

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
5 min read

What Does It Mean to Be an Effective Tech Lead?

The first time I took on a tech lead role early in my career, I had little clue what I was doing. Overnight, I found myself suddenly responsible for the technical and project

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
6 min read

How to Leverage Your Teammates' Strengths More

I sighed at the important email. It'd been sitting in my inbox for over two weeks, and a reply was long overdue. I felt some frustration, as I had the past couple weeks,

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
4 min read

What I Learned About Investing in Myself After a Year of Coaching

It had taken me two weeks to write the email, even though it was on my mind constantly as something I wanted to do. She replied a few days later, attaching a pdf

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
5 min read

How to Build Trust Through Vulnerability

I was walking my 4 year-old daughter to preschool last week, and I was noticing some anxiety I had about a workshop later that day. As we crossed the street, hand-in-hand, I figured

  • Jean Hsu
    Jean Hsu
6 min read

Build Trust in Moments, Not in Years

One of the most meaningful experiences in my career was a conversation where I turned an engineer from an intimidating adversary into a supportive ally. I'd been working with Jon at Quip for

  • Edmond Lau
    Edmond Lau
4 min read
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