Tag: Essays
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Do You Speak German?
German? Why would I speak German? I never had that kind of time. I lived in Vienna for ten years; when I left, I spoke the same German as I arrived: zero, nada, niet! Vienna was never Austria to me. Vienna was the world, which was way more significant than the 8 million people strip…
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Maximize Meeting Productivity: Streamline the Process
Do meetings drag on while your other work piles up? Many organizations suffer from ineffective meetings. Here’s how to make your meetings more effective: define the host, share the goal, announce a customized agenda, and adopt the right process. Define the Host Know who is running each meeting: the host. Clarify who’s in charge of…
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The Importance of Leadership in a Rapidly Changing Industry: Lessons from My Time at Automattic
Today I announce my departure from Automattic. After almost nine incredible years of professional growth and development, I have decided it is time for me to move on and take on new adventures. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that Automattic has given me over the years. From the moment I joined the team…
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Forming the Foundation: Understanding the FSNP Phases of Team Development
When assembling a new team, expect to go through Tuckman’s FSNP phases. They are Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. The FSNP phases are a well-established model for understanding the different stages of a newly formed team. For a manager, it is paramount to understand these stages and accept that although the order and length of…
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Avalanche Week: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Skiing at Forty Years of Age
As I’m packing my gear and getting ready to spend eight days skiing in the Alps, I want to reflect on the series of events that took me, born and raised at sea level, to get on the slopes and enjoy this great outdoor activity with my family. “Come on, go faster! You need speed…
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On Privacy, Transparency, and Trust
Transformational leadership inspires positive changes in those who follow. Transformational leaders are vibrant, enthusiastic, and inspirational. Not only are these leaders committed to the process, but they help every member of the group succeed as well. In modern organizations, especially in distributed environments where most work happens online, we cultivate transparency as a crucial cultural…
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What Really Drives Us
When I was in my twenties I spent a couple of years at the ticket office of a dance club. Young men and women ready to sweat their Saturday night off used to line up in front of me, and purchase their entrance to the hall. Every Friday, the owner of the club used to…
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Decide Fast, Revert Faster
When I was 25, I accepted a job at a local company as a software developer. I had a desk on the ground floor of a condo that served us as our headquarters, and it had reinforced windows with steel bars. I remember spending 8 hours at my desk looking at those bars and asking…
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On Being Human
The global pandemic hit me while I was visiting my spouse’s family in Udine, Italy. At that time we were expecting a baby and we decided to stay put near our family, rather than going back to Vienna, where we used to live, and being on our own for the following months. In 2020, Italy…
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Elevate your appreciation and deliver better feedback
A couple of years ago, my engineering team, which happens to be distributed over four continents and works asynchronously around the clock, was struggling to provide valuable weekly updates. Most of the updates were too generic, some too specific. A few were too verbose, and others were too superficial. Shall we write down every single…