To Retain Your Best Employees, Invest in Your Best Managers
Summary: Managers are really having a moment. Between the Great Resignation, a lingering pandemic, employees demanding flexibility, skyrocketing mental health challenges, a looming recession, and general uncertainty, more and more employees are turning to their direct supervisors for direction and support. Unfortunately, managers aren’t always prepared to meet their moment because they’re woefully under-trained and overworked while tasked with leading their teams during heightened turbulence. To retain your managers — and the employees who report to them — you need to invest in their development. The author presents three ways to do it.
ADJ: I think this is the number 1 thing holding back many companies, so well worth a look at!
Just-In-Time Project Management: A Digital-First Framework for Modern Projects
Technology has transformed every aspect of business, from the tools we use to communicate and collaborate, to how products and services are built and delivered, to how we conceive of organizations and communities.
But it hasn’t yet transformed the heart of how we manage and execute work!
^ADJ: I am a big fan of Tiago's work, and are actively using his "Second Brain" methodology - I have some spare copies of his book, email me if you want one
Quick Takeouts from Books this week
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter: With the New Year approaching, you don't have actually to start a new job or role; in order to reshape how you approach your work, use the start of the year to reframe. This is a really practical guide to approaching a role and links nicely in with Marshall Goldsmiths' work (What got you here - won't get you there). Definitely well worth a read.
Born to Build: Good book for anyone thinking of going out on their own and or building a startup.
The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self: How to juggle, a good webinar that covers book at: https://hbr.org/webinar/2020/02/the-leader-you-want-to-be
Leading with Emotional Courage: Looking at my notes, the one big thing that came out of this book was the discomfort of follow through, having the hard conversations and what we need to do to have those conversations. Two other really well-covered topics: Handoffs and Accountability. Definitely worth a read.
The Angel’s in the Details. Make a Big Deal About the Little Things
^ADJ: Importance of being on time, or even better early - some ways to think about it.
Inhumanity of Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis (RCA), a common practice throughout the software industry, does not provide any value in preventing future incidents in complex software systems.
^ADJ: Big takeout for me was: Faultless Learning Reviews are a better step in the right direction, since they reinforce the fact that you can’t fault a person for an outcome that they did not intend.