I am a Microsoft engineering manager and am gathering articles, roughly categorized, that may be helpful/beneficial for your career. Some resources are only available to Microsoft employees as that was my primary audience but most are public links. The mslibrary is a great resource for getting access to more content and access to many journals and services such as the Harvard Business Review while on corp net. I tried to rank these articles with a 1-Great! to 5-OK rating (I did not even bother adding articles I thought were not helpful).
Diversity and Inclusion is a core part of Microsoft culture, and I believe vital to any company's success. It is critical to creating a safe and effective team where everyone's thoughts are heard. Listening to a diverse group of people leads to better products and a better bottom line but it takes effort. Diversity is a fact; Inclusion is an act.
I love the Code Switch podcast from NPR. It covers a wide range of diversity topics while being fun and insightful. I strongly recommend subscribing and listening to past episodes.
I recommend signing up for the Better Allies 5 Ally Actions newsletter. The letter comes every Friday with a quick read of 5 topics. Past issues are available and worth going through. This weekly newsletter reminds me to give space for others, promote but don't over introduce, speak up and many more.
1 - Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case (December 2020) Diversity without the effort to include, does not have the business impact often touted. It may be that trying to tie diversity to bottom line improvement can backfire as being insincere or rejected later if the bottom line is not improved. Instead of focusing on the bottom line, focusing on including will build a better workforce and is reason enough. To reap the benefits of diversity, leaders must build trust, work against discrimination and subordination, and embrace a wide range of styles and voices. "A first step for leaders is to learn about how systems of privilege and oppression—racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, heterosexism—operate in the wider culture." Leaders then must investigate "how their organization's culture has reproduced those systems of oppression." Finally, leaders must root out these systems of discrimination and subordination, and they must spur collective learning and systematic change.
1 - Visualizing Health Equity: One Size Does Not Fit All Infographics (June 30,2017) If you get confused on equality versus equity, the graphics in the link may help. I really like the last one about crossing a street and dealing with the curb. Thinking about equity and meeting people where they are will help others succeed - customers or employees.
1 - Tips for Allies of Transgender People (Updated March 2021 / Adapted from MIT’s “Action Tips for Allies of Trans People.”) The title says it all. Quick read and a good reminder of the many actions and things to avoid to more inclusive. I especially liked the part on understanding the differences between “coming out” as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and “coming out” as transgender.
2 - The Value of Belonging at Work (December 16th 2019) "If workers feel like they belong, companies reap substantial bottom-line benefits: better job performance, lower turnover risk, and fewer sick days." This article shares studies on inclusion and exclusion of coworkers and the impact of exclusion, specifically excluded people working less for team benefit. Suggestions for countering inclusion - 1. Gaining perspective, 2. Encouraging Mentorship, 3. Finding empowerment - are discussed. For leaders and managers, "serving as a fair-minded ally — someone who treats everyone equally" can prevent exclusionary behaviors. Being included is critical!
I.M. Wright’s “Hard Code” – An opinion column for developers. Brutally honest, no pulled punches. Up until September 2020 (Fond farewell to Microsoft), Eric Brechner wrote these articles within Microsoft, and you could get a monthly email from him. Most of these are very Microsoft focused, and throughout my career have come up or been shared. While sometimes his writing is a little harsh, it is honest and insightful. The following are a few that came up in discussions in my past that I thought were worth calling out.
- Work politics with integrity
- When to ask for help
- Self-centered service - What makes us happy and helping others
- Good engineers - Customer focus and impact
- The little things - Work-life balance
- Meaningful versus mundane - Project management
- Solving the whole problem - Senior to Principal jump
1 - All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people The insights in this article are useful to both ICs and managers. It touches on assumptions, impostor syndrome, collaboration, and more. I liked all the points with my current favorite being "Thinking is also work".
1 - Want to Be a High Achiever? Be More Generous Short article emphasizes working together and "not by vanquishing rivals". Being generous and helping others will build friendship and increase your network. Your chance of knowing who to go to when solving a problem will increase.
1 - Learning This Simple Skill Will Make You an Exceptional Leader, According to Science Quick read with some good guidance - clear your head or meditate before a big meeting, ask follow up question, repeat back summaries. Good listening builds trust and is worth working on!
1 - 7 Zoom mistakes you might still be making — and how to raise your video skills I love the points in this article as I see these mistakes all the time and make them myself. I was recently watching and virtual Employee Town Hall and saw Satya and Amy looking right at me - clearly they know to look at the camera. Follow the tips in this article and improve your virtual presentation skills.
2 - 12 Life Lessons From Mathematician and Philosopher Gian-Carlo Rota As a former, very short term mathematician myself, I feel obligated to share this one. My summary of the 12 points with a Microsoft work skew to them: Every talk should focus on one point, Stay on time as folks are busy and have limited attention spans, Connect with your audience by recognizing others work/contributions, Focus on a single memory or phrase you want people to remember, Presentation matters, Simplify your message as folks won't go back and review your deck, Share your work at different levels and in the context of your audience, Build on others work, Use your strengths, Don't worry about small mistakes, Always be thinking about problems to solve, Write informative introductions (don't leave your audience guessing).
2 - How to get a big project done when you're already feeling drained Pandemic and working from home can be tough and even tougher when you have a big long term project. This article offers some simple actions to take to help keep the project and yourself moving forward. Take small steps, write something down, don't let the hope of being flawless stop you from doing something, mistakes are okay, record yourself (get your thoughts out), and literal get moving (go fo a walk).
2 - Better Brainstorming Ask questions for a short period (4 minutes) and don't worry about answers. This may energize and reveal different approaches then going after answers.
2 - Playing Office Politics Without Selling Your Soul Short and easy to read. "To paraphrase Plato, the risk of refusing to participate in politics is that the big decisions that affect you wind up being made by those with less experience, less insight, and fewer honorable intentions." The four dimensions of politics: Social astuteness, Interpersonal influence, Networking ability, and Apparent sincerity. The last one, Apparent sincerity, I found most interesting - basically the perception around have secret, self servicing motives versus being honest and transparent.
2 - Box’s VP Engineering on Biohacks For A Better Career Lots of advice in this article that can be applied to meetings, problems, handling email, taking sleep seriously, and more. I really liked the statement "The Antidote to Stress Isn't Happiness. It's Resilience." Long article but will get you thinking on actions you can take to see if they make a difference in your life. Definitely don't try to do it all at once!
2 - I went from sedentary academic to 100-mile marathon runner—thanks to the science of self-control Fun article about developing self-control which can apply to all aspects of life.
2 - Being Busy Is Killing Our Ability to Think Creatively This short article does a good job of arguing for disconnected downtime. Life today has so much input and busyness that we may become "antsy and irritable when you don’t have that input". Seems like a good article to support having a ping pong table in the office!
2 - The More Senior Your Job Title, the More You Need to Keep a Journal "The best thinking comes from structured reflection — and the best way to do that is keeping a personal journal." Focus is very senior leaders (CEOs), but the idea of structured reflection and thinking through problems applies to any problem.
2 - The Brain Hacks Top Founders Use to Get the Job Done "the people who have the mental fortitude to be fearless who survive and enjoy the ride". It is a long article but has some great points about checking your energy levels and working according to them. The final focus is on fund raising but if you just sub-in a hard project/problem it generally applies.
2 - The Boss Who Assigned Her Son’s Homework to an Employee This is a good article for both mangers and reports. For managers, being aware that you may not always see the workload of your directs and you should ask. For reports, realizing that your manager may not know all the items on your plate and you should call them out and share trade-off thoughts on new work opposed to always saying yes.
2 - The Power of Saying 'I Don't Know' Quick read that reinforces not knowing everything is okay and being open about what you don't know may lead to better decision and trust on your team. Generally good advice for anyone.
3- The Science of Speaking is the Art of Being Heard List interesting models for interacting/communicating with others. Interesting read as it causes you to question what model/style you are and those you work with.
3 - This Matrix Helps Growing Teams Make Great Decisions Simple but useful approach to decision making when multiple choices exist. Basically call out the benefits, cost and mitigation to each.
3- Master the Art of Influence — Persuasion as a Skill and Habit Long article but lots of intersting points. I plan to internalize: “Always, always, always phrase what you want to have occur as the thing that will happen if nobody does anything.” If you send an email asking your team, “Should we ship the widget?” you’re putting the onus of the action on them. They have to proactively say yes. But if you instead say, “We’re going to ship the widget. Any objections?” the default will be to do what you want.
3 - The Ladder of Inference - How to Avoid Jumping to Conclusions Good article if you find yourself jumping to action too quickly, which was my case. Stop and check where you are in the decision process. Have you considered all the facts? What assumptions have you made? Have you jumped a rung? Pretty quick read and gives a visual to help you navigate through a decision process.
3 - You’re Never Going to Be “Caught Up” at Work. Stop Feeling Guilty About It. Covers the feeling of Guilt and Shame. Guilt can be good because it can motivate at work, but be sure to leave guilt (over not getting work done) at work - ruminating over guilty thoughts outside of work can cause a very negative spiral directed at your job - this has definitely happen to me. Shame is basically never good. What would you tell a friend feeling guilty about work not getting done? Probably that it is okay and happens to everyone, so give yourself the same compassion. Quick read and worth it.
4 - How Perfectionists Can Get Out of Their Own Way Some good advice on approaching common perfectionist issues.
2 - Empathy-Driven Development: How Engineers Can Tap into This Critical Skill Article quotes worth remembering: "Leaving communication artifacts in your code is an exercise in empathy." "Commit messages, pull requests, naming, tests, error messages, those are all fundamentally about communicating with empathy”, “If there’s anything that working with legacy code has taught me, it’s that code isn’t written in a vacuum; it’s reviewed and revisited constantly.
5 - The Tenets of A/B Testing from Duolingo’s Master Growth Hacker Interesting for different stages in your product funnel to attract customers. No details on how to implement A/B testing.
Our 6 Must Reads for First-Time Managers to Hit the Ground Running A good collection of articles. I recommend reading one a day so you don't overload.
1 - Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? Feed your own monkeys! I thought this article was entertaining and had some great concepts on owning and driving your work. The basic idea is ensure the actions stay on the report and not on your plate. For me, I also internalized that I should not pass problems to my boss but think through next actions, and when needed seek advice but push to keep the next action on my plate.
1 - Don't solve problems if you want to be a great manager Let your team solve the problems! Ask questions to help them or get the answers they already have out. You hired them to solve problems so don't do it for them.
1 - If You Multitask During Meetings, Your Team Will, Too Great advice on meeting management and how your actions may affect your team's behavior. One thing this article has taught me is be aware of what emails I send to the team after-hours, because if I work nights and weekends and they all see it, they will feel pressured to check for my emails after hours too, which I don't want!
2 - How to Handle Conflict on Remote Teams Clear guide to understanding causes of conflicts and ways to address them. One of my favorite lines "You can’t solve a conflict alone; you need the other person on board."
2 - How Facebook’s VP of Product Finds Focus and Creates Conditions for Intentional Work What are your intentions? Does your calendar and activity match those? Aligning your work and meetings with your intention allows focus for you and your team. Has good pointers about how to schedule your calendar proactively and setting time aside to double check yourself.
2 - To Get People to Embrace Change, Emphasize What Will Stay the Same When re-orgs or charters change, leaders emphasize why the change is good or going to make things better, but some studies show including details on continuity (especially of the orgs identity) help employees accept the change.
3 - How to Decide Which Tasks to Delegate Master delegation. Good ideas and quick read.
1 - Leadreship on a Submarine (July 2024) Short video about empowering your team to make decisions based on intent/goals. This is how I strive to lead but find it challenging to not give orders.
1 - Why Leaders Can’t Ignore the Human Energy Crisis (Sept. 15th 2022) Worker energy is critical to success, both our energy and our co-workers. Work has changed since 2020 and hybrid and working from home is now normal but brings new challenges. This article goes through details on worker energy issues and provides six areas to focus to help fuel everyone. I really liked the call out of 'Anne Helen Peterson calls “LARPing your job,”—Live Action Role Playing—looking busy by instantly responding to every IM, holding unnecessary meetings, logging on early and staying late, and more.' as I have done this myself. Definitely worth reading and asking how you can take action to fuel yourself and your team.
1 - The Better You Know Yourself, the More Resilient You’ll Be Quick to the point read. Understand your strengths so you know where you should push, understand your weaknesses so you know when to reach out for help. Changes are happening all the time today, and strong leaders are resilient and aware of how change affects them and thus their team.
3 - The Keys to Scaling Yourself as a Technology Leader I read this one quickly. It had great ideas about team and company structure, clarifying role & responisblities and reviewing progress on a cadence, and managing tensions. Worth a skim if not a full read.
3 - Speed as a Habit "All else being equal, the fastest company in any market will win." Interesting article on decision making. Good motivation to keep the product/features moving.
4 - How to Handle a Disagreement on Your Team Good recap on mediating conflict between people but nothing unexpected.
4 - How to Handle Conflict on Remote Teams Walks through good steps/approaches for solving your own conflicts and outlines the different forms of communication we use and the drawbacks
1 - A neuroscience researcher reveals 4 rituals that will make you happier 1. What am I grateful for? 2. Label negative emotions. 3. Make decision, and it is fine if it is just good enough. 4. Hugs!
1 - To Find Meaning in Your Work Change How You Think about It Good article that may help you focus your energies better, more positively. Pretty quick read