My name is Zef Hemel. I use writing as a tool to structure my thinking, to reflect, and adapt as a result. I’m transparent by nature, and have found that sharing the things I’m reading and thinking about — generally around the topics of technology, management and leadership — is not only helpful for myself, it can helpful for others as well. And often, in response, people point me to things I wasn’t yet aware of, or challenge my ideas or conclusions. Now, that sounds like win-all around. Welcome to Zef’s Musings.
Recent Musings
An Ode to the Mattermost Mug
Writing about the detrimental effects of rewards in No More Rewards, one thing kept nagging at me. A few weeks earlier we had held a virtual conference for our company and community called MatterCon. One of the highlights for me was a video prepared by our community team. In the video they interviewed some of the top Mattermost contributors. People not employed by the company, but contributing at a purely volunteer basis.
read moreNo More Rewards
In 2008 the world went through a severe financial crisis. A large part of our economy collapsed, in large part because financial institutions had created a pretty unsustainable system of mortgage-backed securities.
It was pretty bad.
Fingers were pointed; new rules put in place; people yelled at.
“Oh them financial folk, they’re all the same!” we said. “They only care about the money. Evil, evil people! They will be the ruin of us all!
read moreLead with Context
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
― Steve Jobs
Any book that covers management at some point has to mention Frederick Taylor’s Scientific management, often simply referred to as Taylorism. At the end of the 19th century, Taylor closely studied how physical workers in factories performed their manual tasks.
read moreNo More Boxes
Think of the three people in your organization that you consider your top performers. The three people that if they’d tell you they’d quit, they would leave a significant hole in your organization.
Got them in mind?
Alright, now pick one of them, and compare them to their job description, and the the level in your organization’s competency matrix where their current role and seniority level fits. Does their job description and competency matrix level accurately describe what you appreciate in them the most?
read moreNo More Buts
“I think what you’re attempting to do here is really great…”
“But…?”
“Right… but I think it’s not going to work.”
This is one of those classic aha moments when people first learn about it during some communication training: if there’s a “but” in your communication, people will fail to hear whatever preceded it. People have become so used to the omnipresence of buts that they can see one coming a mile away.
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