A tragic waste of hope
The awkward question in the room usually isn't cynicism, it's care. Real hope asks hard questions, and a good retrospective is one of the most optimistic things a team ever does.
Who does she think she is?
Voice an opinion as a woman and someone, somewhere, decides you're getting above yourself. This post is on the penalty women pay for taking up space, and the tired trade-off between being liked and being taken seriously.
Repairing damaged peer relationships
Most damaged lateral peer relationships never rupture. There's no row, no betrayal, no dramatic falling-out that you can point to as the moment it went wrong. The relationship just cools - someone pulls away instead of leaning toward. You can fix that - as long as you notice.
But we’re already doing…agile
Daily stand-ups, a Kanban board, Jira, retros, a roadmap, and a lot of complaints. Plenty of teams have every ceremony of agile and none of the results - so what’s missing?
5. Putting this into practice
Realistic optimism without action is just a nice attitude. Here's how to turn the yeah-buts into a plan and the small steps into momentum.
4. What you expect of people is what you get
What you expect of your team shapes what they deliver. The Pygmalion effect has been tested hundreds of times and it's never been debunked. So what are your expectations teaching people?
3. What you see (and what you're choosing not to)
Where you put your attention shapes what you believe is possible. Most of us are doomscrolling our own experience without realising it.
2. The cost of your explanatory style
Your explanatory style is the story your brain tells you before you've had time to think. Here's how to catch it — and change it.
1. Radical Optimism Redux
Cynicism might feel intellectually rigorous, but it's never actually helped anyone get anything done. Here's what I think works instead — and the bit I want to argue about.
Permission, forgiveness and workplace adulting
Grace Hopper said it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. Plenty of leaders wish their teams believed her. But there are good reasons people keep asking, and being frustrated at them doesn't shift it.
Want to lead? Do less.
A leader told me yesterday she was burning out trying to stay on top of everything. The trouble was the everything: she really was trying to do all of it, which is not the job.
A gardening metaphor
A gardener never starts from nothing. There's soil, climate, shade, pollinators, seeds blown in on the wind. You can plan the garden on paper, and you still have to work with what's already in the ground.
Yeah but…I don’t really have anything worth sharing
I've heard this from women I've coached, and I've caught myself thinking it too. It wasn't true for them and it isn't true for you: what's obvious to you usually isn't to anyone else.
Yeah but…what if I embarrass myself?
My (ex)husband is learning to write prose, badly and bravely. It has me thinking about how we dodge the things we're not yet good at, exactly when doing them in public is how we'd get good.
Letter to my future bosses
I'm looking for my next role, among all the openings the Great Resignation threw up. Too many of the organisations I've looked at have a long way to go on gender and race, and this is what I need to see.
Self-care in chaotic times
Plenty of people have asked how I avoided burnout at NHS Test and Trace. The first thing I tell them is that you can do less than you think you can, and certainly less than you plan to.
Reflections on 25 years
An unordered list of things I've learned on the job: hundreds of single malts (since forgotten), that my skin can't take washing dishes for eight hours a day, and rather a lot that shaped how I work.
On rejection
Rejection can be hard to hear - but that doesn’t mean you should manage the hurt by only applying for jobs you’re overqualified for. Women tend to apply for a job only when they meet every criterion - whereas men go in at around 60%. We need to change this - women, it’s a numbers game. Let’s reframe rejection, and get more women into the jobs they' deserve.
Take back control of your diary
You can't run your diary until you're honest about your own priorities. Once you are, whole meetings reveal themselves as optional. Begin by hunting down the pointless ones.
“Social class no longer exists in Britain”
I snorted cornflakes at that one. I grew up in relative poverty - believe me, social class exists. Here's what the people who say it have never had to notice.