Kim

Try hard thing → be bad at it → desire to improve → do work → be less bad. repeat.

Peter Principle acts profound, but its literally just steps 1 & 2 of a process you’ve been through thousands of times in your life.

Don't forget steps 3-5 exist.

When you went up a grade. That calc II class. Every time you changed jobs - boom. You had to confront your own ignorance - but it wasn’t a big deal bc you A) expected it and B) knew with study and work you’d get better.

Why do we drop all that when we hit a leadership role? ⬇️

I’ve grown to dislike the Peter Principle (people are promoted to their level of incompetence).

The smug enjoy their mic drop when they bring it up. The insecure are terrified they’ve hit their limit.

At no point do we pause to consider you have “Peter principled” dozens of times in your life. ⬇️

Don't assume your best people can read your mind.

Acknowledge their situation, give a clear finish line, share the higher quality work you see in future. Ask for their thoughts & listen

Is it YOU pitching in temporarily? Just apply this to *yourself*. Check in, set a finish line, etc.

1. Check yourself for leadership gaps. Are you:

- Over-tolerating low performers at the expense of others?

- Avoiding conflict bc your high performer is easier to work with?

- Reacting frantically to pressure from above?

If you truly can't avoid shifting the work...

2. Communicate *well*...

⬇️

Avoid "rewarding" high performers by overloading them with work from lower performers. I know it's tempting, you need the work done. But it leads to burnout, discouragement, & turnover. No need to coddle, just aim for balance.

When you're tempted to reassign work, do 2 things

⬇️

New to a role? Don’t let people make you feel bad for “copying” mentors. That's how humans learned since the dawn of time. AND

- Don’t expect mentor strategies to always work; ~50% fail rate

- Don’t panic-rush thru strategies. Give time to LEARN

- Let emulation fade as identity/instinct builds up

Trying to decide if my love for chrome tab groups is based on it being truly helpful OR it just enables my open-tab addiction to continue while looking less embarrassing. 🤔

ordering immediately.

It should be a crime these days to call a meeting with a team member but give no hint what the topic is about 😆

Exactly. It's not enough to listen. You need to actually DO something. If you aren't in a position to FIX big systemic problems (a maddening aspect of middle mgmt) you can *acknowledge* you see it, *show* you fight for it, not fault people for work impacted by it. Act.

9. you (or the company) has fired someone recently and you haven’t directly clarified w/ each team member where they stand with you

10. you haven’t directly addressed layoff fears and where you stand for them

4. Your 1:1s are repetitive/low-impact

5. You’re a bulldog for your own opinions

6. You convey as always overwhelmed/confused/annoyed

7. You publicly criticize peers/team members (backstabber rep)

8. You gossip

⬇️

There’s a gap between a leader's idea of team health and the team’s opinion (2020 research). If things are bad, you want to know - but why won’t they tell you? Many reasons aren't within your control, but here's 10 that are:

1. You don’t ask

2. You don’t listen

3. You can’t/won't fix issues

⬇️

I had other things to say today but considering how glib some of these people are about the impact of AI to entry/mid level workers, I just find this to be a delicious little moment.

Took the preteen to her first "mall date" with friends. New parenting-level unlocked! 🏅 Also, my smile muscles are hurting. They are too cute.

I developed a taste for coffee in my 20s simply so I had an excuse to walk with the cool work-friends to the coffee shop. 😆 So... social validation?

Now in midlife I drink it bc it seems to make me a nicer person to be around in the morning. So now it's also about the benefit to OTHERS :) 🤷🏻‍♀️

My life in a nutshell 😅

#buildinpublic #founder #startup

😆 I would rule this leaderboard. 🫣

We imagine this is a prob with “bad” techs or non-technical people, but it's human. We tend to judge only the tip of an unfamiliar iceberg.

So? I guess for me I want to remember this the next time someone says You’re Doing It Wrong on the internet.

Don't toss criticism. Don't jump to believing it.

Caught a podcast where JM Nickels (head/director of product at waymo/uber/etc) talked about brilliant engineers at Waymo not realizing everything involved in building a ride sharing app (like uber had).

My thoughts: even great engineers regularly underestimate the work of other domains. ⬇️

😅 I hear this. Currently aiming for interesting PLUS recharging in 2025. If I'm choosing lots of interesting/uncomfortable, I can't keep skipping fun/recharging things trying to be more "productive."

Love this! A few of my coach friends focused on adhd, it’s a great area. They (and their parents) could use so much support

Try a couple Qs...

* Do you want to explore this yourself or need support?
* How else could this be solved?
* Any concerns about that presentation?

Respect if they pull back. Shift to manager-mode: clarify expectations, set checkpoints, & give space based on experience. Try coaching again later

You can’t coach someone who doesn’t want to be coached.

It may be in your "engineering manager" job desc, but some won't be interested. Trust isn't there yet, they don’t mesh with your style, or they've been so burned they don’t want coaching from ANYONE they work for. Understandable. ⬇️

It’s been a tough weekend, but I return here because I believe in this work.

We spend 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours working. If a third of your life goes to work, it’s worth strategy & support. Otherwise you’ll spend your last third recovering or self-medicating from it.

Love this book!

Pouring rain at 3am
Everyone: 😴 💤

Parents: crap what did the kids leave outside? Which one will wake from that ⚡️??

💀 ☕️ ☕️

This was super helpful to find some of my threads follows over here, thx! I’m also coming from 🧵 trying to find community, I’d love to join the pack!

Tell the team your expectations/concerns, trust them to meet that, verify.

Less of this: Don't use that crap API, we should be using queues and caching.

More of this: Show me a plan gets it done on time and handles 10% heavier activity.