Managing Up
The Easiest Way to Get a Yes at Work
Why most career asks fail (if you even ask) and how making your requests smaller, clearer, and time-bound dramatically increases your odds of getting a good response.
Dave Anderson
Late Career
Your Strength Got You Here, but Doing The Opposite Will Take You Farther
Your natural tendencies work brilliantly in the right context, but real growth comes from learning when to flip them.
Career Growth
Twelve Career Lessons They Don’t Put in Onboarding
A few hard-earned lessons about people, politics, consistency, and the parts of work we pretend aren’t part of the job. But really are.
Late Career
Confidence: A Legal Performance-Enhancing Drug for the Office. 7 Manipulation Tips for Winners.
You don’t need permission to lead. You just need to look, sound, and act like a person others instinctively follow. Because, yes, we're all sheep.
Managing Up
Please, for the Love of All That’s Holy in Corporate America, Stop Saying These 8 Things at Work
Doing your work absolutely matters. But you can easily sabotage yourself by saying the wrong thing. These are a few phrases that quietly sabotage your reputation.
Managing Up
Think Your Skip-Level Is for "Visibility"? That’s Cute. It’s Not.
Levels in an organization garble communication. A skip-level meeting is an opportunity to communicate clearly. Most importantly, it helps low-level employees see past their blinders.
Early Career
5 School Habits That Make You Worse at Your Job
Being a good student might make you a poor worker. Here are a few habits and behaviors that might serve you well in the classroom but poorly in the workplace.
Organizations
If Your System Never Fails, That’s the Real Failure
Investments in operations should be at a minimal level that maintains the systems in an acceptable state forever. Poor operations are clearly bad news. But perfect operations are a waste of money.
Mid Career
The AWS Outage—Lessons on Worst-Case Scenarios
How bad is the worst-case scenario of your systems? I suspect it's not as bad as the DynamoDB system.
Early Career
8 Ways to Stop Being Crushed by Infinite Work
The better you get, the more work finds you. These skills help you survive success without losing your mind. Plus an early life lesson from my Dad.
Organizations
The 4 Major Impacts of Amazon's Decentralization and Ownership Model
Amazon is decentralized and has a strong focus on ownership. This causes various positive and negative impacts. Let's walk through those impacts, and how you can navigate them successfully.
People Managers
4 Problems Managers Run Into - and Practical Solutions
The management job comes with interesting people challenges. Here are four I've run into more than a few times and what to do when they land in your lap.