links for 2009-03-24

Blog 1 Minute
  • Seth’s Blog: Yeah, but he really knows his stuff…
    I think you should fire this person immediately. Okay, maybe give him exactly one warning.

    You’ll find someone else who really knows this stuff. No doubt about it. And firing one intransigent bully is a lot less painful than shutting down an entire division next year because he paralyzed your decision-making.

    Deep technical competency is overrated compared with the ability to make excellent decisions and to create a culture where forward motion is valued and personal initiative is rewarded.

    The good news is that the bully knows this, and the only reason he gets away with being a bully is that he thinks he’s got you bluffed. Call his bluff and odds are you’ll have a much more cooperative team, top to bottom.

    (tags: leadership)

Published by Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D.

Founder & Chief Analyst, Platify Insights — the industry-analyst firm for technology platforms. Veteran product & technology leader.

Published

4 thoughts on “links for 2009-03-24”

  1. Hi

    I find your blog posts with are posted on the Freedesktop and Gentoo’s RSS feeds really irritating.

    I really love reading peoples opinions on things but your posts are just links (like the title says) and no original content

    Could you maybe write why you think it’s important or add some sort of personal input to your posts and if not consider moving them to universe as I’m not sure how these relate to either Gentoo or Freedesktop

    I hope this message didn’t sound to harsh

    Mike

  2. I find these posts on leadership inappropriate for the freedesktop planet, since there is hardly any link to what freedesktop.org is about.

  3. Hi guys,

    Thanks for your comments. I think this content is relevant to anyone involved with leading any open-source project, and this is a good mechanism to distribute it to them.

    Mike, I do specifically choose which posts I’m sending to the Gentoo Planet, and it is not all of them.

    I could add some personal commentary, but I generally agree with the part I quote so it wouldn’t change much.

    Most Planets, however, are not intended to stay on a single topic. They are intended to help you get to know the people involved with the projects by learning what those people care about. Leading and running open-source projects effectively is something I care deeply about.

  4. I agree with others that these posts should not be on planet freedesktop. I really expect technical content when I come there…

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