31–40 of 43 posts
Based on some of your comments, you’re kind of gunning for the CTO role and trying to manage upwards. The best approach is to stop doing this, and quickly! Deal with the problems that are facing you and your team, and leave the leadership to deal with the CTO. “Not my monkey, not my circus” - as I understand they say in Poland. If you need more resources, work with your leadership to get that help in-place. If you ne…
I have been in this situation (I was burnt out and knew it) as CTO (and co founder) and suggested to my right hand to replace me and find something better for me. I personally think you should discuss it with him, maybe first over a drink in a more casual setting figuring out how he will give up his role (to you for instance) and what he will do after, leaving his ego intact while putting the company first. He can th…
This is a pretty classic "managing up" scenario, some notes on stuff IME: - To convince yourself if this is criticism is any way _only_ self-serving, (not saying it is), ask yourself "would I feel this way if he was doing a great job but I was still underwater in areas XYZ?". If yes, great, proceed - Note: the above implies you could feel this way even if he was doing an awesome job. The solution would just be to hir…
I could also reframe that as concrete requests like "It would help me if you gave us more of a heads up if you aren't going to be around", "It would help me if you made more of an effort to join meetings that we schedule where your input is needed", "It would help me and the team if you provided more regular updates on work that is in your hands so we can better plan work", etc
> you seem checked out, you're often absent and we don't know why - we can't rely on you for any concrete work because you aren't accountable to anyone - the rest of us are working 10x as hard as you are - part of your job should be to teach people, but you don't I am sure that there is a more positive way to approach this. Maybe something along the lines of: "I think that there is some uncertainty regarding roles an…
This is a pretty classic "managing up" scenario, some notes on stuff IME: - To convince yourself if this is criticism is any way _only_ self-serving, (not saying it is), ask yourself "would I feel this way if he was doing a great job but I was still underwater in areas XYZ?". If yes, great, proceed - Note: the above implies you could feel this way even if he was doing an awesome job. The solution would just be to hir…
This is a pretty classic "managing up" scenario, some notes on stuff IME: - To convince yourself if this is criticism is any way _only_ self-serving, (not saying it is), ask yourself "would I feel this way if he was doing a great job but I was still underwater in areas XYZ?". If yes, great, proceed - Note: the above implies you could feel this way even if he was doing an awesome job. The solution would just be to hir…
In the kind of conversation you're proposing, do you think that, in addition to the very concrete asks I would have, there's a place to say something along the lines of "I just generally want to feel like you have our back, that you're fully present, that you're accountable, etc" or is that just too general and too close to coming across like a personal attack? I could also reframe that as concrete requests like "It…
It's read by the author, which is a good move I think. Really good stuff that I think can help you map out where you're trying to go.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the kind of conversation you're proposing, do you think that, in addition to the very concrete asks I would have, there's a place to say something along the lines of "I just generally want to feel like you have our back, that you're fully present, that you're accountable, etc" or is that just too general and too close to coming across like a personal attack? I could also reframe that as concrete requests like "It…
https://www.audible.com/pd/Nonviolent-Communication-Audioboo... It's read by the author, which is a good move I think. Really good stuff that I think can help you map out where you're trying to go.
This is a pretty classic "managing up" scenario, some notes on stuff IME: - To convince yourself if this is criticism is any way _only_ self-serving, (not saying it is), ask yourself "would I feel this way if he was doing a great job but I was still underwater in areas XYZ?". If yes, great, proceed - Note: the above implies you could feel this way even if he was doing an awesome job. The solution would just be to hir…
Second on the NVC thing. A coworker who was an underwater CTO put me on that because he was having a really hard time being under water and dealing with me being an acerbic dickhead. It is really, really effective at making difficult conversations much easier. In general, applying it in daily life makes me a happier person too. Not that I'm a fantastic practitioner or anything. When dealing with sticky situations lik…
If a junior employee was to write up job descriptions for all of the roles on the org chart, what would the CTO's role and responsibilities be? They hired you to run the engineering department, so the CTO could focus on other work. What is that other work? Is that work enough to keep the CTO fully engaged? Is the CTO the right person for that role? The CEO has acknowledged there is a problem. If the CEO understands w…
This is a fantastic question and good way to think about the issue. It may very well be that if I were to write down what I think he ought to be doing, that it would differ greatly from his own perception of what his role. But at least by identifying the divergence, we can work to rectify the situation.
Slow down a bit. Give yourself time to enter his world learn about his experience and meet him there without passing judgment. I like translating such interactions into kindergarden-emotion-language to distill the intention. “You checked out! Explain self!” Will raise defenses. “Hi human. I human, you human. I friend. (Stay here for a while) I notice thing. How you? You human. I friend. I help. What happen? I worry.…
I know you’re not trying to be, but this is very childish. The top two or three answers on this post are the way to go - talk, explain the issues, sure, see if there is something that could be done to help, but ultimately just look after OP’s own and OP’s organisation’s interests. It doesn’t matter if CTO is put out or not.
We are all very very clever, but often miss the emotional part.