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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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.
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
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,
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
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
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
