SWLW #523: Hiring for additivity, How to pull off a Personal Annual Review, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​A Daily Run, Part One
5 minutes read.

"The story is about how we choose beliefs because they’re useful, not true." -- I highly recommend reading the two parts by Derek Sivers. I hope it will make you think about the emotions and beliefs you set for yourself to drive the actions you want and need now.

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Product [sponsored]

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Culture

Client: We Have a Tight Budget and Need This by the End of the Day. The Task:
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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The Angel’s in the Details: Make a Big Deal About the Little Things
5 minutes read.

Andy Dunn is spot on: "Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time. Recently someone pointed out that it is a rare human who is both a great leader and a great manager. A leader who is so busy that he cannot manage his own calendar proves to be one of the two." -- which small things do you insist on doing and get others to do?

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Quentin Tarantino Says He Makes Movies With a Very Specific Audience in Mind (Video)
2 minutes read.

It's not always possible, but magic can happen when you build products you want to use yourself. When you cannot, developing a skill to interview and get to know your users is essential. Falling in love with their problems and motivation. Learning their language. Being fully immersed in their world.

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The Five P’s of Agility: A Model for Framing Agility at Different Levels
5 minutes read.

This is the post people should read when thinking about Agile and applying the right mindset. Don't talk with me about Scrum or Kanban. Don't talk with me about Lean Startup. Everything is a tradeoff. Stick to People and Principles until you nail that. Practices are over-rated and too context-dependent to follow so blindly.

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Jobs [sponsored]

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Peopleware

How to Pull Off a Personal Annual Review
4 minutes read.

As we near the end of the year and want to reflect and plan how to invest our energy and time next year, Yi Shun Lai's framework is a wonderful inspiration.

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How to Quickly Eliminate stress.The Lion's Breath Technique (Thread)
3 minutes read.

I tried using Lion's Breath technique, and it did wonders which really surprised me at first. Breathing techniques are something I want to start learning and practicing more often. Anything to recommend? Feel free to reply or reach out over Twitter (orenellenbogen) to share your tips with me.

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Hiring for Additivity
4 minutes read.

Aaron Lerch shares how the team at Netflix deals with avoiding echo chambers, keeping doing what the team has done for years. The "Team talent map" is a powerful exercise to analyze what’s missing in your team for future hires that can complement the team.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@itsNickPayne: The journey of designing a life really started for me with this realization (Life is short. Make it an adventure). Prioritize your values and unapologetically pursue them.

@Carnage4Life: Because of the fact most tech jobs don't promote you until "you are operating at the higher level," getting the opportunity to actually demonstrate that you can is often more important than the actual promotion. Since the latter won't happen without the former. Sponsors matter.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know. If you're leading a team, consider writing your Manager README (it's free) or getting my e-book and interviews Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook. You can also support me by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.