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Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (and me)
I was recently asked by a recruiter how they can best support neurodivergent people. The first thing that came to mind was a challenging feature of my neurodivergence: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, or RSD.
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Don't lower the bar to increase diversity
I responded to a post on LinkedIn that asked the question: should hiring managers be more lenient on “diverse” candidates in interviews to increase diversity.
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The best team I've managed
I recently saw an interesting question on a job application:
Describe the “best” engineer I’d ever managed.
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Open interviews are my default now
I’ve been running open, structured competency interviews recently.
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Servant leader traps - being liked
Servant leadership has traps for people who come to management with people-pleasing tendencies.
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Interviewing after AI in Jan 2024
This post is about empathy and adapting as a hiring manager to our post-AI world.
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Podcast - Psychological Safety with Heather Story
I had a video podcast chat with Heather Story, talking about psychological safety.
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Roundtable - Relocating for work
I participated in a roundtable organised by Amicus, talking about some of the experiences of immigrating for work.
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Podcast - The Coder Career
I recorded a podcast with Cameron Blackwood. We talked about career advice for junior devs, working out of if the leadership or technical track is for you, and working on your “soft” skills.
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Roundtable - How to Hire Without Unconscious Bias
I participated in a roundtable about hiring, interviewing and unconscious bias. You can watch it on YouTube below.
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Managing Up I
This is a story about managing up, accepting your manager’s weaknesses and working on your own.
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Ethical Office Politics - Introduction
I want to reclaim office politics. Politics isn’t inherently toxic. Politics is the science of influence. It’s impossible to lead without politics. I believe that through consciously engaging we can do it ethically.
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Put them on a PIP
This is a story about performance management and uncomfortable conversations and difficult decisions.
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Disagreeing with my scrum master
I took on a team that had had frequent manager changes over the previous year, and hadn’t had a manager for a while. Their Scrum Master was the de facto leader, running meetings and doing 1-1s. But her and I quickly discovered that we had a fundamental clash of expectation.
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Over-identifying and burning out
I’ve noticed a pattern that sometimes happens when I talk to burnt out folks:
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Zombie teams
This is a little story about a “zombie” team I was given and how I was able to disband it and save the team members.
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Are you a disillusioned manager?
… if you became a manager because of your values; because you care about people; because you believe that a good manager is a multiplier of a teams’ work: don’t give up. You can end up belonging and thriving.
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Tech Tests and Certainty
Tech tests in interviews: When it comes to choosing strategy, there is no obvious winner. Trying to evaluate a candidates’ technical experience in the relatively microscopic space of time you interact with them means you’re necessarily artificially limited.
Pick your poison.
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How I find a therapist
In my work I sometimes find it useful to talk about my therapy journey, and find folks who want to find a therapist but don’t know how to go about it. This is my standard advice.
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Unexamined Theory Y Management
I had a thought today about the prevailing management theory in my industry—Theory Y—and the conflict that arises in one dimension of that approach.
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PETALs in Engineering Management
Principal Engineers That Approve Leave, or how Engineering Managers end up not managing engineers.
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Learning NVC through expressing praise
I propose that expressing praise and gratitude are simpler and more satisfying ways to start practising nonviolent communication.
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Towards a high view of managers
People management is skill, craft and professionalism.
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A thread about adding a new teamie
A little story that happened a while back, when a woman joined one of my all-male teams. I put it to words because I’ve seen how easy it is to mismanage this important transition. I say the key learning really directly, even though it’s a subtle and challenging one: everyone else can be wrong.
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Facilitation II
Some skills, attitudes and approaches for facilitating meetings.
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Nonviolent Communication Slides 2020
I neatened up my nonviolent communication talk for a presentation recently. Here it is.
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Thoughts On Hiring 2019
I have opinions about the hiring process and how we treat candidates. Here are a few of them.
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Postmodern People Management I
Eighty thoughts about managing people in 2019. In no particular order.
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On Remote Working Teams I
Some writing about how I manage remote teams, and what you do if you’re starting out remote-working or in a beginner team.
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Manager README 2018
Hi, I’m Gavin. I’m a career web-dev. I discovered I’m more into people than tech, so I manage people now. I’m writing this to give you some insights into my approach to work, and working with you. Whether you report to me or not you might find the stuff below applicable.
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