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Team Communication
How to Decline a Meeting With a Co-Worker
You're owning your calendar—blocking off time for deep work, working asynchronously with teammates, and spending uninterrupted hours on work that matters. But then your coworker schedules a one-on-one meeting right in the middle of your deep work time. What do you do? Rebecca Fishbein outlines steps you can take to politely decline a meeting with a co-worker, allowing you to stay focused and productive while keeping your relationship intact.
Asynchronous Communication: What It Is & Why You Should Care About It
Amir Salihefendic goes deep on the topic of asynchronous communication and its advantages over more common synchronous communication methods like chat and meetings. Learn how working asynchronously is leading to happier and more productive employees, higher quality communication, better planning, and increased transparency.
If you've been feeling the crunch of near-constant communication and disruption, then you should definitely give this a read and look for ways to incorporate more asynchronous communication into your work.
How to Talk to an Engineer
In this edition of her weekly advice column, Jessica Powell coaches a non-technical person on how to communicate with their technical counterparts in engineering. If you're more on the business side than the engineering side, you'll appreciate this article. The most important thing is to leverage facts and data, not opinions, to explain the problem. Let people process the information, come to their own conclusion, and then start the discussions.
Leadership & Management
Managing Remotely: Part I
Stella Garber, manager of Trello’s remotely distributed marketing team, shares what she's learned about 3 critical connection points remote team members need in order to function at their highest level. Learn how to build and strengthen the connections with the manager, the team, and the self.
Why All Engineers Must Understand Management: The View from Both Ladders
Most people are aware of the concept of dual ladder career paths - one management and one technical. It's become pretty standard as companies look for ways to keep and grow strong individual contributors that aren't interested in people management. Osman (Ozzie) Ahmed Osman explains why, regardless of which ladder you choose, you should understand the skills needed to excel in each.
Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit
Too many workplaces have rule-driven cultures, intended to keep management feeling in control but ultimately resulting in a culture of mediocrity. Lolly Daskal discusses how too many rules stifle the creativity of the team, pushing the best people to other companies and leaving only the average ones. "If you have mediocre people doing mediocre work, you are going to have a mediocre company."
A Machine May Not Take Your Job, but One Could Become Your Boss
Kevin Roose examines how AI is being used to replace management in various roles, evaluating people on everything from empathy, to interview skills, to productivity. You'll be surprised at how much can be (and already is) automated by AI. Could your boss be an algorithm someday?
Productivity & Estimation
Makers, Don't Let Yourself Be Forced Into the 'Manager Schedule'
In Paul Graham's famous "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" essay he argued that people who make things operate on a different schedule than those that manage things. For managers, frequent interruptions in the form of meetings and Slack messages are normal. People on the maker's schedule, however, need long stretches of uninterrupted time to be most productive. Securing and protecting those stretches of time can be very difficult when the majority of your colleagues are "managers". In this article from the team at Nuclino, they discuss the approaches you can take to keep your maker's schedule safe.
Productive Business Meetings
Rajiv Pant shares a set of tips and recommendations for holding productive meetings. Check it out for tools to help you decide if a meeting is necessary, templates for staff and 1:1 meetings, and tips for how to decline meetings.
People & Culture
Can gaming become the happy-hour for remote teams?
While there are many advantages to remote work, there are some clear disadvantages. The lack of socialization is one of the big ones. How can we encourage "happy hour" type interactions on remote teams? Franco Petra thinks that video games could be the answer we've been looking for.
Only Slightly Off-Topic
Harnessing the Power of Shower Thoughts
Sometimes the best way to work through a problem is to take a break from it. Alex Ellis explains his system for tackling difficult problems: take time to focus entirely on the problem and then take some time to not focus on any problem. Sounds simple enough, right? Not always. Learn the best ways to distract yourself from a problem so you can allow your subconscious to work through it.
Three Thousand Years of Algorithmic Rituals: The Emergence of AI from the Computation of Space
What does an ancient religious ritual have to do with modern-day AI? In this enthralling article, Matteo Pasquinelli takes a look at the Agnicayana ritual and its use to transmit algorithmic techniques. "Agnicayana is among the most ancient documented rituals still practiced today in India, and a primordial example of algorithmic culture."
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