Leadership
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Why lying is easier than most people think
—- A quick reference manual for becoming the best liar —- In this world, we value the truth. Being honest is a venture, and lying is perceived as an unacceptable behavior. But then again, we lie more often than we dare to recognize. It is easier than most people think, and if you take into account…
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Everybody is good at their own job, and at everybody else’s job
We are all good at our own jobs. We had extensive training, education or are autodidacts. Unfortunately, we sometimes are depending on other people – I refuse to call them experts – to do some things for us. This is where it gets frustrating. Since we know what we want, and if everybody around us just…
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Stop teaching our children career skills; Teach them life skills
The rise of robots, algorithms, and machine learning will free us humans from mandatory labor. Ultimately, we will be able to enjoy life without the burden of work. We need to prepare the next generation for this era of creativity and abundance of free time, and teach them life skills rather than career skills. Like all…
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Stop being so Agile !!!
Last week I visited a customer of mine. He showed me around in his new office and explained to me how his business unit was doing agile. He introduced me to agile team members and showed me around in the agile room where all four walls were covered with post-it notes. His goal for this…
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11 Laws That Explain Why Work Gets Messy
Some things I know before I can explain them. I sit in a project meeting and feel that adding more people will probably make things slower. I see a deadline with too much room around it and know the work will expand to fill it. I look at an architecture diagram and quietly suspect it…
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Why the Myers-Briggs Test (MBTI) Is Misleading, Harmful, and Poorly Suited for Workplace Decisions
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the best-known personality tests in the world. It is widely used in corporate training, team-building sessions, and career development programs. In some cases, it has even been used to influence hiring, promotion, and leadership decisions. During my university education, I learned about MBTI. I fantasized about being…
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Treat Your Team Like Children, and They’ll Start Acting Like Children
I’ll share an example from my own experience as a micromanager. I was organizing an event about a new and innovative methodology that, in my view, could revolutionize the engineering of complex systems. Preparing for the event meant creating in-depth expert content and developing targeted marketing communications. I assigned myself the task of delivering the…
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Why Static Specialization is the Silent Killer of Your Career
For decades, the golden rule of career success was simple: Specialization. Becoming a specialist was your moat. It differentiated you from the masses, gave you ownership of a niche, and provided a sense of security. Whether you were a master carpenter crafting bespoke lounge chairs, an administrator navigating complex insurance claims, or a developer mastering…
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Fuel Your Innovation: The Rebel’s Manifesto
Innovation is not an automated, neat, step-by-step process. Being innovative requires a different mental mode. You need space to be inspired, investigate, discover, experiment, and sometimes accidentally fall into a good idea. The old saying still holds true: if you want to discover something new, you have to do something unexpected. That sounds useful, but…
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What is Slow Management?
Henry Mintzberg: “I’m not a human resource, I’m a human being!” Slow Management is a reaction to the cold, Anglo-Saxon management style, aimed at maximizing shareholder profit, supported by model-driven optimization, output maximization, cost-cutting, and short-term goals. Slow management advocates a new form of management that emphasizes quality, job satisfaction, trust, creativity, and authenticity. Slow…
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How to Write a Better Resume Using the STAR Method
I read a lot of resumes. “Enjoy” would be a generous word. Too often, a CV turns into a puzzle. The project is described in detail, but the candidate’s own contribution is hidden somewhere between the lines. Or the resume lists skills without context: project management, stakeholder management, Agile, cloud, leadership. Useful words, but not…