20k of headache
April 30, 2025
If one more exec pastes one more link about workplace dips in productivity, the managers are going lose it.
World's Best Newsletter Archive
Was the Future of Work a ZIRP?
May 15, 2024
You can feel lucky to have a job and still want your work to have reasonable hours, pay equity, and the flexibility to deal with family matters on a Wednesday afternoon.
If you’re doing their job, who’s doing your job?
April 17, 2024
The cure for a structurally overwhelmed team is a better structure. It’s clarity about what matters most, and permission to hand off or put down the work that doesn’t.
If it’s urgent, call my cell
December 27, 2023
We tell bosses that if they choose management as a career, every aspect of the human condition will at some point show up for someone they manage.
What to do with the muchness
November 1, 2023
Either, we’re running as fast as we can toward clear targets. Or we’re running as fast as we can without clear targets.
The sign of a good compromise
June 28, 2023
The past few years we’ve swung wildly between utopian and dystopian visions.
You don’t have a culture problem, you have a management problem
June 14, 2023
Culture handbooks don’t produce culture, people do.
This will only take a minute
March 8, 2023
You can’t live in hypervigilance. Well, let’s rephrase that. You can, it’s possible. But it’s unpleasant to be around someone who has stayed in that state for too long.
Behind the scenes at the magic kingdom
November 16, 2022
We don’t need it to be all doom and gloom. But what does it mean when there’s no longer space to talk about what’s working and what isn’t?
What to do when you’re all out of puffins
October 19, 2022
The bullshit is supposed to be in service of something. Ideally, say, work that you’re proud of, whose impact matters to you, and which allows you to live a life you enjoy.
The little con and the big con
August 24, 2022
This Quiet Quitting thing may be the topic du jour, but it’s not universal. There are people out there doing engaged, enthusiastic work. There are organizations shining bright and without burning out. If you’re sweating it, worried that it’s happening with your team, here’s our advice.
Smile more?
June 15, 2022
If you start from the assumption that you need to make your team happy – that happiness is an input to work that you need to maximize – you reach for one set of tools. Tools that reduce stress, remove discomfort, avoid conflict. And maybe at a birthday party, or a summer camp, those would be appropriate.
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