In other words, when you’re the person in the room silently thinking “I know how this ends”… it’s probably time to move on.

It’s now almost 2 years later, I came back to re-read it, but there has probably not been a month that has gone by where I haven’t thought about this quote.

Mike, you had a big impact on my design skills dating back from a post on how to customize MySpace (ha!) to the Newsvine years to your posts here. I am by no means a “great designer”, but for a single-op programmer/database/designer you really made a difference.

Your words here have also helped again in another area I was needing guidance on. Thank you for everything all these years and I hope you are doing well with whatever you are doing now.

May I add that what you believe to be “guilty of” is has actually been described by Pr. Robert Sutton as “The No Asshole Rule” (book) ?

TL;DR : He makes the case for kicking assholes out of the workplace, even said “top-performers”.

Cheers from Paris, where summer will be great too (fingers crossed :) )

I started my career as a designer, and have transitioned into product management. Indeed, the industry is very conflicted over how technical a PM should be, and in my view there’s generally too much emphasis on this part of the role. I agree that the importance of empathy in the PM discipline is not acknowledged enough, as it is such a key ingredient that adds tremendous value to any team, for the business, and for its customers.

As for the Bay Area and Seattle… The former is such an amazing place, filled with talent, intensity, and opportunity. But the pace of life, the financial pressure, and the general insanity that comes with living there, especially working in the tech start-up environment, is amazing and yet so ridiculous. Looking back on three years into the Seattle experience, it’s been a great move to the PNW, and I look forward to another glorious summer.

Sujal: Yes, outcomes are important, but they are somewhat tangential to taste. I can design a feature that makes us all sick to our stomach that “does well” according to metrics. Taste says that the product you develop is in keeping with what you *believe* is a great experience (sometimes can be proven with metrics and sometimes can’t).

Jash: As others have pointed out, yes, a meritocracy sounds good in theory, but that’s not usually the actual dynamic that is in place. It’s so much easier for well-off, well-connected people to get ahead in the workplace that we end up perpetuating a system that attributes “merit” to circumstance.

Will: Thanks, that sounds a lot like what I am talking about, for sure.

Jeffrey: Yep, situations where a team is working around a leader instead of in concert with a leader can come down to many things. At the end of the day, the team needs to buy into the leader’s vision *and* the leader’s way of operating. If either of these is absent (and they frequently are) that’s when people route around leadership. Additionally, in middle management, sometimes it’s not even the manager who is expected to provide the overall vision, so that makes it doubly tough to get the respect of the team.

Q: Yep, Halo Effect sounds similar as well.

Thank you for this post. I have long enjoyed your writing, and I’m so looking forward to all the “there will be another post dedicated to X”.

I’m so glad you’re back in Sunny Seattle!