Tag: alignment
-
Aligned Autonomy
A friend shared this image with me that wonderfully captures the essence of the “Loosely coupled; tightly aligned” mantra. For more on alignment, please see my posts on Bumper Cars or Go Karts and Leading vs. Managing
Read more...
-
Leading vs Managing
What is Leadership? Too often people talk about managing and leading without being clear about what they mean. This can be particularly problematic when trying to mentor a developing manager. Managers have many responsibilities requiring a variety of skills and lack of clarity in our language can make it harder for managers to learn and improve. In this post, I want to discuss “leading” and “managing” as behaviors (or skills) rather than a particular job (eg “engineering manager”).
Read more...
-
Bumper Cars or Go Karts?
Which is your company playing? Does it feel like your company is playing bumper cars? In bumper cars, there’s typically an open area to drive with no particular direction or order to things. In go karts, there’s generally a track with a well defined direction. In the organizational analogy of bumper cars each person or team may have a goal in mind but they keep getting bumped off course by another team (or person) heading in a different direction.
Read more...