In nearly every organization, predictions about how others will respond to our ideas have become a form of corporate fortune-telling. We devote hours to anticipating objections, preparing counterarguments, and even shelving initiatives based on assumptions about what someone else might think.
The polymer professional — adaptable, integrative, and perpetually evolving — represents not just a new approach to career development, but a fundamental rethinking of the professional identity itself.
Every company should be looking for ways to grow and nurture their people. However, when companies introduce “mentorship,” it usually takes the form of an internal matching service. But, a mentorship program is different from a mentorship culture, and the latter is where the real impact can happen.
There is a lot that you can do to ensure that you are bringing fairness and objectivity to the way you are leading and managing your organization. Hiring, performance management, and promotions are three main areas to start.
As leaders, we're told that transparency with our teams builds trust and that our values should guide our actions. However, organizational reality often puts these principles in tension, if not conflict.
As leaders, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that we must always be “on” — constantly driving forward, putting out fires, and supporting our teams. But one of the most important skills for any manager or leader is knowing when it’s time to step back and prioritize our own well-being.
If there's a single piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out on their leadership journey, it's this: become unabashedly curious. This single trait, if genuinely approached, will have a profound and emergent effect over the course of one's career.
Realistically speaking, most systems we design and operate are more accountable to Darwin than they are to Newton. But we don't always think to build them that way. Recently, I had an opportunity to write an article for Built In to explore this very topic.
The debate about the importance of technical or “hard skills” versus “soft skills” for managers seems to be a never-ending one, especially in engineering circles.
