Category: books

Very good ebook.

Three types of conversation

• Do you want to be helped? – What’s this really about? Decision Making mindset. Lean into data and reasoning

What does everyone want? How will we make choices together?

How to figure out what this is really about? First, recognize that this is a negotiation. Next determine what does everyone want? Then how will we make choices together?

• Do you want to be hugged? – How do we feel? Emotional mindset. Lean into stories and compassion

Ask questions -> creates vulnerability -> triggers emotional contagion -> elicits connection -> prompt more questions ….

In a conflict, we learn why are fighting by discussing emotions.

In a conflict, we draw out emotions by proving we are listening.

In a conflict, we prove we are listening by looping for understanding: ask questions, summarize what you heard, ask if you got it right.

In a conflict, focus in controlling:

1. Yourself
2. Your environment
3. The conflict boundaries

Check mood and energy!

• Do you want to be heard? – Who are we? Social mindset

We all posses social identities that shape how we speak and hear.

how to talk about who we are:

1. Draw out multiple identities
2. Put everyone on equal footing
3. Create a new group by building on existing identities

Be aware of this loop:

Telling someone they belong to a group they abhor -> triggers identity threat -> causes defensiveness -> prompts counter-attacks -> leads to telling someone they belong to a group they abhor -> loop

Before discussion:

1. What do you hope to accomplish?
2. How will this conversation start?
3. What obstacles might emerge?
4. When those obstacles appear, what’s the plan?
5. What are the benefits of this dialogue?

Rules:

1. Pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring (above)
2. Share your goals, and ask what others are seeking: prepare for the conversation. Ask many questions!
3. Ask about others’ feelings, and share your own
4. Explore if identities are important to this discussion.

The examples of “The Big Bang Theory” (how do you hear emotions no one says aloud?,) the court case, guns ownership, anti-vax, COVID, football team, netflix (no-rules), etc are really good.

I got this book as an offer. I has been long to read and sometimes thought to leave it. I try to take the positive side. I learned about the different Apollo missions, challenges, failures, successes and the people who step on the Moon. Each one with its own peculiar character.

One can think that the huge investment in taking humans in the moon has not been recovered. I think that helped the USA beat the URSS, and get something positive while Vietnam war…

Maybe we need something similar again, a far fetched goal that gets us together and focus in something bigger than ourselves.

This book is about the end of the Roman Republic. How the social tension (abuse of politician taking taxes, slavery, etc), corruption (Senators taking bribes), unequal wealth distribution (few had property, Senator were super rich), immigration (Romans didnt want Italians to have Roman citizenship) evolved to violence, civil wars and finally the dictatorship of Sulla. There are many people mentioned in the book, how the rise to power and how they are killed (most of them). Looks like a routine. Most of them didnt know them. I guess we learn mostly the Emperors in school and not much about the Republic. One example is Marius.

It is striking how things are so similar more than 2000 years ago. I read the book as a recommendation as it shows what can happen to the current empire (USA). It can be pessimistic but you can see patterns, not just in USA but in the rest of the world.

And it is incredible how just one city, had some much influence in that region of the world. The republic expanded to feed Rome, to keep the price of grain low, to keep the population content… it is crazy.

There were a lot orators, but the power came mainly from serving in the legion, wining warns. The army is the base on any empire, old and new.

This book was a gift from Christmas and to be honest, nothing special, I will always remember the “Pillars of the Earth”. The plot is a bit similar but fails to deliver. Still, I have read many really good books from Ken Follet, so no complains.

This is a book brought to the office from one Principal engineer. It is interesting to read to learn from the experience of several people climbing the technical ladder instead of the management one. I have a doubt, as the book was written during COVID and I would like to know if the boom of AI has changed anything.

From the ego side, yes, it is cool to be Staff/Principal but I really want to pay the price for that (working long hours…)? Maybe 10y ago, the book would have helped me to figure out the path although looks more focus to software developers, but as a network engineers, you can learn many things.

Four common archetypes of staff-plus roles:

• Tech lead: focus in one team and report to the team’s manager.
• Architect: as I say, big-picture guy.
• Solver: deal with complex problems, can stay a short or longer time dealing with the problem
• Right Hand: of executives.

Personally, I can see more attraction to the tech lead or solver. The others two look too political and not too “techie”

It is critical to find the archetype that energize you! And something that is repeated often is sponsorship and mentorship. You become “glue”, you don’t code much and the time frames for any project is longer that you are used before and that creates frustration.

Operating at Staff level:

Work on what matters:

• Avoid snacking: after doing the low effort high impact things, you need to do high effort high impact ones. Anything else is “snacking” and just gives you a false feeling of accomplishment.
• Stop preening: This is doing low impact, high visibility work. Unfortunately some companies just care about visibility.
• Stop chasing ghosts: As a senior leader, you need to maintain hold on your ego to avoid investing in worthless work on a grand scale. Take the time to understand the status quo before shifting it.
• Existential issues: If something dire is happening , that’s the place to be engaged.
• Work where there’s room and attention.
• Foster growth: onboarding, mentoring and coaching are mainly neglected, you can give a bit of time to this and leave a legacy.
• Edit: Sometimes projects are nearly done, just one thing pending. Use your power to complete.
• Finish Things: This is a bit more than “Edit”, is unblocking and leading to the end
• What you can only do: if not, it will not be done
• Why it matters: focus on work that matters, do projects that develop you, and find companies that value you for that.

Writing engineering strategy:

Write five design docs (decisions and trade-offs), then 1 strategy doc.

The design doc format:

• Start form the problem
• Keep the template simple
• Gather and review together, write alone
• Good over perfect.

The strategy format:

• Start where you are
• Write the specifics
• Give your opinion
• Show your work to back your opinion

Once you have 5 strategies, write a vision

• Write about 2/3 years ahead.
• Ground in your business and users
• Be optimistic rather than audacious
• Stay concrete and specific
• 1 or 2 pages long.

Managing Technical quality:

Follow best practices, focus in evolution than in mandate. One change at a time. Leverage points: interfaces (contracts between systems), stateful systems and data models (intersection between interfaces and state

You need to measure quality, get your metrics, listen to your users, do few but better.You need to track the progress of you quality program, you need to get a sponsor and show the work, build the tools and documentation to support the work, keep your program lean to cancel if doesnt get results. Be self-critical.

Stay aligned with authority:

Now you are one of the people responsible for company, team and manager success. Staff-plus roles are leadership roles. An effective long-term leader, has to follow first. Listen to questions, define purpose and read the room. You will have to deal with jerks. Relationships are more important than success (hard for me to digest) . Create space for others to show up, make the work theirs. Create a network a peers (again difficult to digest), create an ambient for learning.

Present to executives:

How to communicate effectively: Follow the SCQA format

• Situation
• Complication
• Question
• Answer

Mistakes to avoid

• Never fight feedback
• Dont evade responsibility or problems
• Dont present a questions without an answer
• Avoid academic-style presentations.
• Dont fixate on your preferred outcome.

Path to Staff:

Maybe you will have to deliver a Staff-level project, or work in important projects, you need to deserve to be in the room where the decision are made (and leave it if it is not for you) and you need to be visible (difficult to digest)

There is no a shape match all based on the interviews with Staff-plus people.

Staff = work, timing and luck. Takes time, you need to build relationships, you need a mentor, sponsorship,

Honestly this book reminds me to “Do the work” that I read recently. This is more scientific but easy to digest.

It is about how to deal with being stuck, with its different meanings

• you can’t make progress
• you are fixes in a place long enough to feel discomfort.
• your existing habits and strategies are not solving the problem.

Th overall summary is that action is the bigger unsticker.

It mentions different strategies to move forwards. From breaking down the goal is smaller chunks. We will always face plateaus and lifequakes.

Most of the times, we quit to early, just a few steps from the breakthrough. So just ask you, can I keep going? You are more creative than you think, at the first sight of difficulty, persevere. But, in for me this is the difficult thing, you dont have to persevere forever. You need to make some markers and assess: ie, give you 50% more time that you thought you would need.

Novelty is overrated (Google search, Amazon, etc) Patience and persistence solve poor-timing and allow not-quite-ripe ideas to mature.

If something comes to you quickly, it’s likely to come to other people in your culture just as quickly: question every decision, three times.

Dont let the small or unimportant problems to grow. Do preventive maintenance like the airplanes (ABC + checklists)

Slow down, do less. A threat is a challenge, embrace failure. Think of the worst scenario and you will realise that life goes on.

Maximizer (got the best outcome?) vs satisfacer (good enough?): Maximizer got stuck as they can’t know if they have the best solution. Satisfacer know what is good enough and moves on.

Make it simple, be flexible, less is more, perfect is the enemy of done, 100% original is impossible. And add diversity to your strategy.

So take action (use a noun not a verb), micro-schedule and put some constraints on it, move your body (take walks), be nonjudgemental (failing is ok), be curious and learn.