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A Personal Story of a Mistake, and My Evolving View of Diversity and Inclusion
It has taken years for me to realize that not being overtly biased is not the pinnacle of inclusion, and hiring as many women engineers as possible is…
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Dave Anderson
6
Finding an Explanation vs. Permanent Resolution of Issues
If we're not careful, we default into defensiveness when issues arise. And everyone involved will be tempted to avoid blame, and keep things simple…
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Dave Anderson
A Few Days of OP1 — Perspectives From Middle Management
OP1 is a massive bureaucratic monstrosity, where billions of investment and over a million employees are allocated to projects across Amazon. And this…
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Dave Anderson
Write That S**t Down. The Importance of Taking Notes.
In organizations, you will continually re-litigate decisions and agreements if you don't carefully document them.
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Dave Anderson
Tales of Unintended Side Effects
We act with good intentions. But those actions often lead to an equal and opposite side effect. Are you thinking about what those might be?
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Dave Anderson
The Four Ingredients to Create a Positive Team Culture
Team culture impacts productivity, retention, and happiness. This can be a positive or negative influence, depending on how you create your team's…
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Dave Anderson
How Companies Incentivize Layoffs—A Study of Corporate Career Incentives
Managers at growing companies are incentivized to do one thing more than anything else. Grow their teams. Is it mysterious that most tech companies seem…
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Dave Anderson
Dealing with Negative Internal Politics.
Dealing with negative politics doesn't mean making your enemies wail in terror.
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Dave Anderson
4
7 Tips to Build a Mission-Driven Organization—Even at Big Tech
We tend to throw up our hands and assume that big companies mean big politics. It doesn't have to be that way.
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Dave Anderson
How to Win at Politics in Big Tech - A Tongue in Cheek Examination
How a manager at a big tech company (not necessarily Amazon), can succeed in playing the political game. Not entirely tongue in cheek.
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Dave Anderson
2
How to Improve the Cognitive Diversity of Your Organization
Cognitive diversity (vs. protected class diversity) is about finding people who think differently. How can we encourage different thinkers in our…
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Dave Anderson
Creating Process is a Dangerous and Expensive Option. Anecdotes and Guidance for Leaders.
Building processes is a mechanism for resolving issues. However, processes are also bottlenecks which slow your organization down. How do you choose…
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Dave Anderson
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