Yesterday, I read an article on NPR about performance reviews titled "Yay, It's Time For My Performance Review! (Said No One Ever)." As you might expect from the title, the piece detailed where current annual performance reviews are falling short and how they need to adapt with the future of work. The annual performance review has quite a few problems: They're too infrequent. Trying to summarize a year's work in one meeting is insane. They're often lopsided with feedback flowing only …
Team Lead
How do you push people without killing morale?
I recently read a piece by Christian Bonilla over on Smart Like How about pushing people without killing morale. I particularly enjoyed this bit about energy and enthusiasm as a bank: Think of the energy and enthusiasm of your team as a bank with high interest rates. When you borrow from the energy bank, it takes time to pay off that loan. You have to let reserves build back up. Borrow too much or for dumb reasons, and the bank will cut you off. The whole article is worth a read. Christian …
Looking Back on Year One as a Team Lead
It's been a little over a year since I took on a team lead role at Automattic. The past year has been both fun and challenging. I'm fortunate to work in a culture where mistakes are viewed as opportunities and learning can happen rapidly. Last week, I was thinking back to everything I've learned over the past year, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of those ideas here. One caveat I'll mention before we take off: I share these ideas not because I've mastered the concept of …