This week has been difficult but very rewarding

One of my clients is a unique company in the Polish IT market. When it comes to working culture, people and strategy, they differ from 99% of companies I know.

Recently, their COO boasted of something that is a unique achievement from my point of view. At least one person came back to them every month throughout the year. I mean people who left the company themselves and after some time decided that it was not better elsewhere. I admit that I was in quite a shock. I have encountered returns to the old rubbish many times, but not so massive.

The company focuses not only on technical aspects. They firmly check whether a given candidate is well suited in its philosophy and values. This is their secret ingredient. This is why there is an extremely low percentage of people who are dismissed, and at the same time, the average time after which an employee decides to leave is longer by nearly 36% compared to other companies I know.

Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, no process is perfect, and even the most accurate sieve will sometimes slip by a person who should not be in the company. Then the supervisor has an unpleasant duty to say goodbye to such a person. If this is a task that you are not comfortable with or are constantly trying to improve, this article will be helpful for you.

3 Lessons on How Not to Fire People, Using better.com as an Example

Development is key

One of the truths that every manager grows up to sooner or later is understanding that we need to grow as managers. Without personal and professional development, not much awaits us in this profession. Just as engineers learn new programming techniques, more effective solutions, or patterns, we managers must improve our existing skills and gain new ones. The claim that you already know all the “tricks” or that you have had dozens of difficult conversations are just excuses to cover up laziness.

Relax, I will not start persuading you to take my great online course (I do not even have one) or too expensive one-on-one training. What I want to offer you is an ordinary book, precisely three. They’re not even mine. I won’t even give you an affiliate link. Why? Because a book is one of the most powerful tools in any manager’s arsenal when it comes to development. If you search well, you will find a Christmas promotion, each of them can be bought for a few bucks.

In the article I am pasting below, you will find three books that I read this year (2021) and have had the most significant impact on me and my career.

Have you not read these 3 books in 2021? You definitely have to make up for it!

Speaking of development… it’s time for your company

It will be a little more complicated here. It’s easy to learn new things yourself. It is much more challenging to teach your team or company something new. In this case, we’ll talk about Scrum.

Scrum is probably the most distorted method of building products I have come across. This theoretically simple technique causes countless problems that are not easy to correct yourself. No wonder that there are companies that specialize only in consulting in this field and have great financial results.

This week I put on “Definition of Done.” A seemingly simple, even trivial thing. Theoretically, everyone knows it, knows what it is for, and understands why you need to have it, but not quite.

Definition of Done Is Like a Unicorn. Everyone Is Talking About Him, No One Has Seen Him