Lead Kindly by Focusing on Your Environment
10th edition
I have several wonderful articles for you, including thoughts on one of my favorite productivity tips, and the idea of “consistency before intensity”. This week is also Hackathon at Yelp, so in next weeks article I’ll share whatever crazy project I end up working on!
📚 Read This Week
Be Unfailingly Kind by
Okay I admit that I saw the title and added it here before I even read it. I mean come on, this newsletter is called Lead Kindly! Having now read it I can say it’s an incredible tale of leadership. I have been thinking a lot about what my principles are as a leader, and I think this article is going to be where I start. Here are some interesting thoughts from the article (lightly edited):
Leaders clearly explain the situation. As many times as possible. Calmly.
Leaders have a insightful answers ready to any question. They’ve done the research to become an expert in their field.
Once work begins, they monitors the situation, provide real-time feedback, and updates to the other players in a helpful and educational manner.
In the face of disaster, they never lose composure.
Another from
This was a really vulnerable share! Micromanagers are often demonized and we try really hard not to be one. But you know what? After reading this I have to admit I have some micromanaging tendencies! These are great things to work on. For me it’s asking for updates because I have not set clear expectations with my team on how and when I need information. Thank you for being vulnerable!
Scary Chess by
I think the theme of this week is being vulnerable. Here is another article from
where he shares a story about being afraid to play chess, and how he eventually (spoilers) overcame that fear and how it grew into a new hobby! Michal talks about how this relates to his learning and leadership journey. It’s a quick read but a nice one!
No Meetings! Another Way to Lead Kindly
Your engineers need more focus time. Today we will discuss the most useful method I use to give my engineers that secret sauce gurus won’t stop talking about, “flow state”. That method is called a “no meeting day” or “maker day”. First, why should you care?
I wrote my first one off article! 🥳 So I will shamelessly plug it here. I learned a ton trying to write this, and it was hard to not delete it and start over. I experimented a lot with this one, and I’d love to hear what worked for you and what didn’t.
🎧 Listened or Watched This Week
How to Change People’s Minds with [39 minutes] from Coaching for Leaders
I am going to have to keep relearning this over and over, but you can’t have a logical conversation with someone coming from emotional standpoint and expect to change their mind. All my facts and reasoning fall flat to someone who feels correct. This podcast is a quick primer on how to persuade in these situations. Here are a few key points I stole from the podcast page (not my wording):
Our tendency is to convince to the inquiring mind, but we’ll do better if we speak to the instinctive mind first.
Help others lessen loss and maintain dignity by preserving titles, language, and symbols in things that are new.
Instead of trying making an argument, ask a question that allows the other person to listen to themselves.
Ask questions that clarify points of resistance or misunderstanding.
Speak like you’re right, listen like you’re wrong.
🧠 Productivity Tip of the Week
Focus on your environment.
I’m honestly not sure if there is a more impactful productivity tip than this. If you can make your environment good, the spice will flow.
Trying to bulk up? Make healthy food available. Put non perishable snacks all over the house. Put some in your car. Prep food in advance so it’s easy to say yes to food. Put reminders on your phone that tell you to eat. Make it easy to log calories to hit your goals.
Want to improve your Python skills? Make sure each of your devices has the same python environment setup, with the IDE configured. Have your projects always pushed to source control, and make it easy to pull down the latest. Have a laptop in the bathroom. Curate a playlist of YouTube videos you can watch at any time related to python development. Have a few kindles lying around (bathroom, bedroom, office) so you can pick it up and read your latest Python book.
Feeling scattered at work? I take 5-10 minutes everyday (I set a timer) at the start of my work day to declutter, tidy, vacuum, etc. I don’t try to make my office pristine, but I know that if things are organized and easy to find, I’m going to have a much more productive day. If I can calm my environment, then my mind is more calm.
💡 Quote of the Week
Consistency before intensity.
This has been my philosophy this year, and is how I focus on building sustainable habits.
Starting with intensity always lead me to failure:
Every time I started a workout routine, I would stop once I got sick or life got in the way. The start up cost for intensity was so high it became easy to put off one more day until I felt my best until I completely forgot I even had an exercise “routine”.
Every game project I started with my brother never went anywhere. I’d try so hard to have the perfect design doc or the best possible platform, that we’d never get anywhere before life got in the way. This was my fault, he always tried to get me to just work on it, sorry bro.
I’d set aggressive reading goals like “I’m going to read 100 pages a day” as if this would inspire me to greatness, but it really discouraged me when I couldn’t do it or missed a day.
This year I started with “read 1 page a day”, and now I’m finishing my 12th book this year. I started going to the gym 3 days a week with the goal to just show up. Even if I just go there and go home, the goal was just to go. Still intense, but less than previously. Yesterday I just did my 16th workout in a row; we have not missed a day!(But even if we missed a day, that’s okay, we’ll just pickup where we left off and focus on being consistent. Life is going to happen). I wanted to write more so I committed to releasing 1 article a week, and this is my 10th weekly! I try to make the quality high and learn from each one, but my goal is just to show up, to share what I’ve learned this week.
What could you start doing that would pay dividends by being consistent, even if you aren’t intense? If you read 1 page a day, that’s about 1 book a year.
📖 What I'm reading
I’m almost finished the Millionaire Fastlane! I need to pick a new book. I have 74 books in my to read list, and I’ve received so many recommendations lately! You’ll have to wait til next week to see what I pick ;)
🏋️♀️ What I'm working on
I added weight to my hack squat!! When I got to the gym I wasn’t planning to, but with Cass’ encouragement it was time. It was so hard. I added a 25lb plate to each side. I was able to do both of my remaining sets with the weight. I did pause at the top more than I typically do to catch my breath, but I got through it. My quads are feeling very strong today (they’ll be sore tomorrow), and I’m looking forward to stabilizing at 50lbs before I move up.
This week is going to be Hackathon at Yelp! I haven’t finalized on a project yet, but I’ll have 3 days of not doing work where I can do anything I want. I am leaning towards making my own Android app, as I started my engineering career as an Android developer for what I believe was 7 or 8 years, and I haven’t touched app development in a looooong time. Might be fun!
📈 State of the Newsletter
We’re at 2^6=64 subscribers as of writing. That’s pretty neat! If you’ve enjoyed the content, please write me a comment or share it with a friend!
> Micromanagers are often demonized and we try really hard not to be one.
Haha if you want a fun contrarian topic for your backlog, try a post on “good reasons to micromanage” 😊
Micromanaging without knowing that you are is def bad. (I guess for *everything* it’s better to be self-aware and deliberate!)
But a lot of the time behaviours that might get labelled as micromanage-y are actually really good and functioning as an apprenticeship, extended onboarding, etc. It’s not something only a manger can do; but it’s something that might be right for them to do, at least for a while, depending on the team. Fear of being labelled a micromanager can get in the way of good, focused investment in your team.
Of course it all depends on the people involved. So just ask! I’ve said, “I feel like I’m micromanaging you, is this too much?” and heard “You absolutely are micromanaging me and please keep doing it; ask me again in a month to see if I still want it.”
Having a laptop in the bathroom caught my attention! - I'll wait for waterproof ones :)
For the crafting environment part, my trick is to use specific music for specific tasks. I have a dedicated playlist for writing, which acts as a task reminder for the brain.
Good luck with your sustainable habits.
'On Scary Chess' is one that I wasn't sure should be published, but it serves as a good reminder to face our fears - Thank you Coltin, for sharing it!