SWLW #616: Contribution as legacy, Building aggressively helpful teams, and more.

Like always, sharing my best findings for the week.  

 

This Week's Favorite

Legacy
5 minutes read.

I love the framing of Legacy as a way of leaving ideas others can take forward: "It means we should worry less about “content” for the sake of “eyeballs” and more about creating ideas that are worth repeating—ideas that are so important and true and compelling and repeatable that people wish to repeat them, even if our names aren’t attached to the broadcast and our tweets aren’t the ones being retweeted. We should worry less about the attention we bring to ourselves, and more about how we can positively influence others, how we can help others become better versions of who they already are. [...] Which of your ideas deserve repetition? Which of others’ ideas deserve repetition, with your own take, your own style, your own exposition? What will you do with your influence? What are the behaviors you wish to encourage in others? What are the lessons you wish humanity would heed?"

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Culture

The Person Responsible for Buying the Software Isn't Using It in the Way the End Users Are
1 minute read.

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

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Building Aggressively Helpful Teams
3 minutes read.

Looking for ways to get teammates to work more together while doing it authentically without getting people to feel intellectually incapable is smart. Britton Broderick shares a tip you can try next week with your team to see how it works for you.

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It's Time to Build... But Build What?
12 minutes read.

Kyle Harrison wrote a wonderful post that made me think a lot about where I contribute and which missions I want to lead or be part of. Some of my favorite takeaways: "Profitable growth is growth with a purpose. Purposeful growth. [...] My idea of purposeful growth is one that attempts to account for an "all hands on deck" approach to solving problems, rather than a "get out of my way" mentality," "Define yourself by what you contribute, not what you contest. "

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Unblock Your Weekly Team Meetings
6 minutes read.

Running "The Unblock Meeting" can be another tool you can use as a manager to try out with your team. It can be a valuable format to align the team every 2-3 weeks, collect wins, and spot opportunities to find areas where teammates can help each other succeed.

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Peopleware

"I Am Happy but I Want to Be Happier" Is a Path to Misery — In Career & Life (Video)
5 minutes read.

"When X happens, then I'll be happier." (or happy) can be an effective short-term motivator but is often a disaster for sustainable career growth and overall happiness. Remember "The Peter Principle," where employees rise through a company's hierarchy through promotion until they reach incompetence.

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Andrej Karpathy on How to Learn (Thread)
3 minutes read.

Andrej Karpathy's takeaways on learning are spot on: execute a project, capture learning in my own words, and compare to my younger self. Thinking about learning from the perspective of intensity helps me understand how important it is to really understand and apply what I learned. How do you think about it? Share it with your team and have a discussion.

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“Go Do Something Great and Your Network Will Instantly Emerge.”
1 minute read.

Naval Ravikant is my favorite person to listen to and read. He has this unique ability to speak in quotes, where every sentence should be framed on a wall.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@jaltma: Often the most helpful thing you can do for people is to push them to be more ambitious or encourage them to hold themselves to a higher standard.

@hnshah: People often won't directly tell you what they want, and you need to discern their intentions through careful observation.



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.