J. Timothy King’s Blog

Moving Chairs, and Why It’s Cool

Many people think leadership is about being in charge and making a legacy and doing great things and everyone loving you because you changed their lives. But it’s not. Mostly, it’s about moving chairs and other little victories that no one notices.

Leadership is like Ronny Cammareri’s love, from Moonstruck:

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My Performance Sucks, and I’m Proud of It!

Seriously, this week I had my annual performance review, and my manager pointed out several weak areas, and I have no plans to address these weak areas. In fact, as a professional, my answer to this performance review could even end up getting me fired.

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The Thought-Work Uncertainty Principle

It’s like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can’t see an electron, but you can measure it, to an extent. You can measure where the electron is or how fast it’s going, but not both. Because the act of measuring momentum throws off the position, and the act of measuring position throws off the momentum. (I know this is an oversimplification, but it will serve for the nonce.)

Thought-work is like that. (Read more…)

Short Animation: This Wonderful Life

While looking for something completely different, I accidentally ran across this short animation by Liam Kemp, called “This Wonderful Life.” The animation is a little sketchy, but the artwork is breathtaking, as is the story. You can watch the whole animation on-line at cgchannel, as well as read an interview with the artist Liam Kemp.

At his site are stills of the girl from the animation as well as some computer-generated imagery suitable for Maxim, but which you probably don’t want on you computer screen at work. The site is at this-wonderful-life.com.

-TimK

Better Software Development Seminar

Would you like to deliver software that actually works?

Would you like to deliver it on-time?

Would you like to look forward to release dates, rather than dreading them?

Jay Conne is conducting a 2-day Boston-area seminar and workshop on Agile Project Management. It’s scheduled for May 18-19. So click on through and check it out now.

(Note: I have not attended any of Jay Conne’s events. But I do read his blog, and I heartily recommend Agile development.)

Savoring Our Mistakes

It’s so important to be able to fail. Not just allowing yourself to fail, but allowing others to fail. This is the leadership side of professionalism. Neither blame nor punish those who fail. This will only discourage creativity and initiative. Leaders never assign blame.

In a recent post, Jared Spool talks about how important it is to fail.

-TimK

A Leader You Are, Not What You Are Called

(This is the first in a series I call “Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Manager.” In this category, I’ll post personal stories and lessons I learn on my journey to better leadership.)

I never thought I’d want to be a manager. In fact, I don’t want to be a “manager.” I don’t want to spend all of my time administering the people who do all the interesting, creative work. But I’ve been filling more leadership roles in my life: where I work, where I worship, even in my family. And I want to do more of that. I want to be a team lead.

So what does that mean? It does not mean being in charge. And this fact is actually what makes me long to fill that position.

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Boosting: Laura’s Winning Ideas

This week’s LinkedinBloggers Blog Boost: Laura Ricci’s “Winning Ideas” blog. Interesting recent posts include “How to Prevent Burnout”, “Professional Bloggers”, and “The Ways We Sabotage Proposals (And Other Projects)”. This last begins with a quote: “When you have been working more than 15 hours on the same project, you have the same mental impairment as someone who is legally drunk.”

This blog is now among my subscribed feeds. Be sure to subscribe using her FeedBurner feed, as the WordPress feeds are currently broken and not redirecting to FeedBurner.

-TimK

Thirty Days to Better Software

Reflective Improvement is number 2 of Alistair Cockburns 7 properties of successful teams. Of these 7, Alistair says the top 3 are core properties for success. Reflective Improvement is so important, because it gives such a big bang for the buck.

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Ten Things Managers Wished They Believed

Kathy Sierra has another great post, this time on lies managers tell. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll say these are ten things managers honestly and truly wished they believed. They probably even themselves think they believe these things. They say them because they know these things really are the mark of great employees.

But talk is cheap. If you want to know what someone really believes, look at what he does, not at what he says.

Managers who actually believe these things are few and far between.

You don’t have to go far to see why I agree so strongly with Kathy. Just recently, I wrote about initiative, comments that she now echoes.

-TimK