Author Archives: Jeffrey

How big is it?

Recruiting for a role can be a powerful tool to let your people grow and mature in their abilities by delegating to them certain tasks and responsibilities to stretch themselves. It can also be cause for resentment, especially in “volunteer”… (read more)

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Breaking up the team

Last month I wrote about Team Development and the four stages a team goes through reaching high levels of performance. There are some who would add a fifth stage, Adjourning, that would follow the previous four. This stage covers what… (read more)

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One variable at a time

For the past five weeks I’ve been troubleshooting an issue I encountered when I added a well-known hard drive manufacturer’s drive to my system. It’s taking so long partly because it requires seven-to-ten days to reproduce, but also because there… (read more)

Posted in System Administration | Tagged | 2 Comments

Becoming a team (quote)

[T]hey became a team, a family of two. There had been times before . . . when they had acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn’t mean the end… (read more)

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References

As a hiring manager, I always call a candidate’s references. I always ask for them and I always contact them (with a candidate’s permission). These references tend to give the shiny version of the stories and so I also use… (read more)

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Theory and Experience

The torch of theory must illuminate the lessons of experience. André Roubo, 1790

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Emacs versus vi

I have the ThinkGeek t-shirt with the little boy and his dad peering around the corner at the cop car and the boy asking “Why are hiding from the police, daddy?” to which Dad responds “Because we use emacs son,… (read more)

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Lead Diligently

I read a lot. I read to find answers, to receive encouragement and to stay sharp. I read old things and new things, popular material and hard-to-find stuff. Yesterday I was reading a particularly ancient text which says (in part):… (read more)

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Accidental Leaders

Michael Norton over at Doc on Dev brings up some interesting points today in his post on leaders. I’d like to focus on just one. “Leaders are chosen”, he says, and he’s right. A person can be assigned to your team… (read more)

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Yes, and . . .

How many times have you said “Yes” to a request, only to regret it later? Many of us like to please our coworkers (and especially our bosses), but always saying “Yes” to a request puts you on the fast-track to… (read more)

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