[week 6] Ochronus online

Happy Monday dearest subscribers! I hope you had a fantastic weekend for recharging and are ready to roll this week 💜

This week’s word is Smultronställe - Literally “place of wild strawberries” a special place discovered, treasured, returned to for solace and relaxation; a personal idyll free from stress or sadness.

I hope this newsletter can at least temporarily be such a place for you amidst the turmoil of the week.

I’ll shamelessly start with two of my posts this time. In many companies the review cycle is ending now-ish and goal setting is being kicked off so these pieces will be useful for you both as a leader and as someone who’ll be having those discussions with your manager.

Thoughts on giving feedback

A good, blameless feedback culture is essential for working together efficiently as it forms healthy relationships, fuels personal and professional growth and aligns us with common norms. Feedback is one of the cornerstones of company culture.

I’m giving you an easy-to-follow and effective framework that’ll help you have better feedback discussions.

The 101 of effective goal setting

In which I talk about goal setting frameworks and (how to avoid) clinging to them, plus some advice around what (not to) do when setting goals.

Engineering Productivity Can Be Measured - Just Not How You'd Expect

A really nice take on this highly controversial topic - spoiler: the author argues that the key here is measuring blockers. It’s certainly a fresh approach and a well written article.

The Cult of Best Practice

This is the article I’ve been planning on writing myself - and then someone else did - honestly probably with a much better end result. I highly recommend reading it as this phenomenon influences oh so much in our trade!

Breaking the Taboo – What I Learned from Talking about Mental Health in the Workplace

The topic of mental illness is often shrouded in taboo and stigma which hinders open communication and relationships. This article walks you through key learnings in how to solve this.