Engineering Leader, Father, Meditator, Elected Official, He/Him
Currently, Eng Director @ Honeycomb.io
Ever since coming across “Demanding and Supportive” a few months ago, I find myself thinking about it and referring back to it regularly.
Regular refresher on the distinction between product output, customer outcomes, and business impacts.
I love when Buddhist content crosses over into leadership content. This maps nearly 1:1 with RAIN - Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Nurture
“OARB framework (Observation, Assertion, Repercussion, Benefit)”
Another great framework from Wes Kao, similar to the SBI framework (Situation, Behavior, Impact)
I love this hack - “A useful pattern to apply everywhere is: I’ll document the answer to this question, in exchange for you providing the answer to this question.”
“There’s an order of operations: Folks must be sold, and only then, will they find the logistics relevant and valuable … This framework of “sales, not logistics” applies to any situation where you want to get a person or group of people to take action.”
“To increase the chances of getting a "yes,” try this exercise. Once you’ve drafted your note, ask yourself: What part of this mentions things that mostly benefit me? What parts benefits the other person? Why would they eagerly say yes to this?“
This one hit hard. “framing requests as a favor is … intellectually lazy. When you can’t fall back on framing as a favor, you’re forced to actually think about why your request is important for the business.”
askachiefofstaff.substack.com
How Chiefs of Staff can find the ‘just right’ balance between structure and speed
I’m always looking to find structure without bureaucracy. “Favor principles over rules: Guidelines anchored in principles travel further than rigid instructions. Instead of prescribing every step, set clear expectations and empower teams to adapt.”
(Source: meditatehappier.com)
A great take on going one level deeper with strategy - “Add beliefs to [Rumelt’s strategy] framework. More precisely, separate the diagnosis into present truths and future beliefs.”
Don’t love dunking on execs, but this process of building out KPI trees is super powerful.
There is so much focus put on good KRs that I’ve absolutely fallen into the trap of over indexing on the KRs and ignoring the Os. This is a great reminder to ask “what ‘story’ the numbers will tell when we achieve them?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how OKRs scale with a company. At some point, the style of OKRs starts to differentiate at different levels. There can no longer be a one size fits all approach.