Many people are conditioned to say Yes to every request that comes their way. I met a CIO like that. He told me his policy was to never say No to the business. So he always said Yes, and the business was always angry because things he agreed to didn’t get done, or got done
When I talk to people about making the transition from technical work into a management role, one of the recurring questions is whether managers need to know a language. There are strong opinions on both side of the argument: On one side, people say: “You must know a language if you are to understand the
We all have coworkers who rub us the wrong way, get on our nerves, and generally drive us crazy. Let’s consider these examples of three people who have difficult coworkers: 1. Ted finished working on a difficult bit of code and headed for the team meeting. When he got there, Sandy looked at her watch
A good idea is a valuable asset, and a lot of good ideas are a treasure trove. But what do you do with those ideas? Here’s a little story about an idea maker who isn’t very good at getting his ideas accepted…and 4 tips to keep your own ideas from withering on the vine. ***
Tom looked up to see Jonathan, who had just transferred onto the team, standing in the doorway to his office. Jonathan looked red and flustered. “What’s up, Jonathan? Looks like you’ve got something on your mind,” Tom said, waving Jonathan in and pulling up a chair for him. Jonathan slumped into the chair. “You know
© Esther Derby 2001 – 2010 This article originally appeared in STQE May/June 2001. As test and development managers, we pay attention to developing technical personnel, but what about managers? Do we do enough to help manager and team leads develop and improve their leadership skills–especially when we are those managers? Some companies, GE for
(c) 2001-2010 Esther Derby Let me tell you a little story, a true story, about how our beliefs influence what we see in the world and affect our ability to solve problems. Two years ago my friend Julia, who was forty-four and a bit portly at the time, starting experiencing troubling physical symptoms. She was
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness A few months ago, I began writing a “Technically Speaking” column for this issue and just couldn’t make myself finish it. I started over on another topic, but couldn’t work up much energy for it. I