- Looking Back at Career Decisions
I’m currently doing a massive export of all of my Gmail messages, dating back to mid 2004, and it has been a bit of a trip down memory lane. The export isn’t even done yet but as I watch subject lines fly by in the console, sometimes something jumps out at me.
For instance, I’ve been working at very small startups since around 2007 (after I decided pro photography wasn’t the career for me). And at one point in 2008 I explored working for a more established, profitable and growing technology company. I interviewed with them for the position of Software Architect which would have been a leadership position in the company, reporting directly to the CTO and taking over direction of two product development teams. It would have been an opportunity for me to shape the future of the company and how they used technology to achieve their goals.
The email I just noticed was the offer letter.
- Engineering Management – Technical Leaders
This isn’t breaking news, but it’s a good explanation of why having technical leaders is so important. Especially at a startup with a small team (in my experience). Otherwise the tech team hears a lot of my least favorite question ever, “That’s not hard to do, right?”
All external management hires must be able to write code and show a high level of technical proficiency, up to and including the head of the technical department. If the company is a technology company, this should also include the CEO.
There is an odd misconception that this is not a necessary requirement for an executive or manager, as though programming were just a fancy form of typing. No other specialized industry seems to feel this way: banking executives are expected to be able to read a balance sheet; an automotive executive would never be hired if they didnt know what a catalytic converter did.
- Psychology Research: How to Apologize
An interesting article looking at several different types of apologies and which apologies yield maximum effectiveness among differing groups of individuals.
Ryan Fehr and Michele Gelfand at the University of Maryland have drawn on research in other disciplines, including sociology and law, to explore the idea that apologies come in three forms and that their impact varies according to the character of the victim
The three apology types or components are: compensation (e.g. I’m sorry I broke your window, I’ll pay to have it repaired); empathy (e.g. I’m sorry I slept with your best friend, you must feel like you can’t trust either of us ever again); and acknowledgement of violated rules/norms (e.g. I’m sorry I advised the CIA how to torture people, I’ve broken our profession’s pledge to do no harm).
The message, the researchers said, is that when apologising you should consider your audience. ‘This need to meta-cognize about what a victim is looking for in an apology is particularly important when victims’ and offenders’ worldviews diverge,’ they added. Of course, if in doubt about the character of your victim or victims, the researchers said that ‘detailed apologies with multiple components are in general more likely to touch upon what is important to a victim than brief, perfunctory apologies. Offenders should therefore offer apologies with multiple components whenever possible.’
I could see research like this leading to additional analysis modules in our Talent Scan product, since we already measure for things similar to empathy, individualism and teamwork to help companies communicate and understand their employees. Not a far leap to helping companies apologize to their employees (and maybe even customers) when things go bad.
- What Makes a Great Employee?
“So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action.” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is human nature to think that we truly understand the world around us. This is especially true of our individual perceptions of human interactions. We believe that we understand what motivates our employees. Likewise, we think we understand what is important when placing an employee into a new position, trusting our intuition. But, it turns out that in many cases, the most important factors based upon behavioral science in employee selection are counter-intuitive.
- TalentScan – it’s like mint.com but for your employees!
We’re in beta testing and preview period for our new product at Humantelligence that we’ve dubbed TalentScan. Simply put, TalentScan makes it drop-dead easy for any business owner or group leader to analyze their people and find ways to improve efficiency as well as foster communication and understanding among their workforce.
If you picture a cross between Mint.com and Google Analytics, but instead of looking at your bank accounts or your web stats, we’re looking at the motivators and behaviors of the people you work with. TalentScan gives you really interesting information about your employees that you probably didn’t know. It discusses their dominant workplace motivators, workplace behaviors, ideal workplace and life priorities. And that’s just for starters. Plus, it’s totally free to try it out and get quite a lot of useful information without even giving us your credit card info.
Planning to unveil all the details over the next few weeks as we march towards the public launch, but you can get a quick peek and register for notifications over at TalentScanApp.com and we might even squeeze you in to our beta test group!
Update: It’s now a public beta open to the public!
