This is OK on Friday

Get an exclusive weekly dose of food for thought, tools, tips, resources and more.

Every Friday, I send out an email with the most intriguing or cool things I found and enjoyed that week.

“This is OK on Friday” is a free weekly newsletter that gives you tiny bits of food for thought that I personally like or find interesting and thought-provoking. Typically, these are useful tools, tips, techniques, and thought-provoking portions of information to enhance your well-being at work and in life in general.

Q&A: Should I fire this employee?—Approach, Framework And Full Decomposition

“On the Plains of Hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions, who, at the Dawn of Victory, sat down to wait, and waiting…”—Sam Ewing, writer

OKonFriday: How To Decide Whether To Fire Someone

Before we dive into the topic, please note that this article is for people who manage other people. It’s like a “doctors only” warning in a medical article to avoid wrong consequences. 

Q: Should I fire this employee? 

The short answer I would give to this is, in most cases, “Yes”. Simplified. An additional question to ask would be “When”. But let’s break down the question and look at the framework so you see where I come from.

Continue reading →

Closed Doors Week — How Introverts Recharge and Where They Get Energy From, By Personal Example

Closed doors week

It took me years to accept the introverted nature of myself. And my partner, as a true introvert, played a lot in this process. Therefore, being true introverts, we often see confusion on the faces of our friends when they hear about our “exciting holiday” during which the two of us played A Way Out on Sony PlayStation.  

A common time for such confusion is, for example, my birthday or vacation. ‘Cause it’s just the time of “Where are you going?” and “How many people?” questions. 

In the past, when I heard these questions, they shaped my idea of ​​what my birthday should look like. I tried to live up to expectations. It was fun and exhausting at the same time. After such a birthday or vacation, I always needed more rest. So I eventually began to distinguish between these activities – those that energize me and those that consume my energy – and balance them in my schedule. 

Continue reading →

Buy time when returning to a task by using zanshin

Have you ever caught yourself at the beginning of a task and you have no idea where you left off? This can be especially true when you have multiple tasks and need to split them up by time. 

Buy time when returning to a task by using zanshin

I am sure many can recall such cases. And at the same time, what often happens when we are working on a task is we think “No, I will not forget this” or “I will work on this tomorrow, I will clearly remember everything.” 

Unfortunately or fortunately, life has a very annoying habit of not following our plans, and sometimes literally anything can happen between part 1 and part 2 of your task. More days before you can reconvene, an unexpected trip, other major distractions, and so on. And here we are at the beginning of the second part, again having no idea where we left off. 

Continue reading →

2 things that will make you a better listener

Become a better listener by active listening during one-on-one meeting

Today I came across an article on how to become a better listener. The author says that in any conversation, in addition to being able to hear what the opponent is saying, we also need to convey interest and involvement. The article covers some tips on how to convey that interest, including repeating what the person said, nodding, etc. And while all of these things can be in the conversation, just trying to do it on purpose feels fake to me. 

But nodding really works, you might say. Yes, if it’s real or looks real, otherwise it might convey something else, like an attempt at manipulation or that you’re pretending to be an active listener but thinking of something else. It doesn’t help the conversation.    

I have a better idea, which is also much simpler, because you don’t have to remember all the “tactics” of an active listener, but instead just be. It works for me most of the time. 

Continue reading →

Q&A: I want to be a PM, should I?

Question: “I want to be a PM, should I?” or other variations of this question, like “Should an engineer move to the role of a project manager?”, “I’m in my late 30-s and I want a career change, is it too late to become a PM?”

Choice: I want to be a PM, should I?

Q&A is a section where I answer frequently asked questions about project management, work relationships, business development, career management, team management, and other topics. In most cases, these are questions that I usually receive on a daily basis.

***

If you are asking this question, it means at least the following: 

Continue reading →

Wartime Diary Notes — the privilege of long-term planning, adaptation and what really matters  

* Written in April 2022, during the russian invasion of Ukraine. 

What if you ‘switch off’ the long-term planning? 

For me it was down for about a month because of the need to make decisions right now without any chance to know what comes next. In fact even short term planning was limited, because the other day you would not even say about one hour of perspective. 

Continue reading →

Do you have a “toxic” team? I’ve got good news for you

What is a toxic team? Toxic people? No, Not really. 

Better way to define it as toxic relationships between people in a team. And it’s important, because if we say that people are toxic it is impossible to change, but if we say behavior is toxic, this is a whole different story. 

And the good news is that it is totally under a team manager’s area of influence. So if you are managing a team, and it now behaves in a “toxic” way, it is not hard to fix. I’ll tell you four simple steps to take so you can improve it right away. 

Continue reading →

4 Steps to Effective Change Planning within Change Management

How to plan a change in 4 steps?
Effective change management planning in 4 steps

You’ve probably heard this phrase or the so-called first rule of programming: “If it works don’t touch it”. I believe there is something about this joke, at least to the point that you shouldn’t change for the sake of change. And when you decide to change something you clearly understand why and what you want to achieve. 

If you simply ask yourself these four questions you can ensure you are good to go with your change management program:

Continue reading →