So you want to build an engineering team in Spain?
/ Management
Lessons on culture, trust, and leadership from setting up a remote hub in Spain.
Hello there!
This blog contains various things I find worth sharing. Enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts.
How startups ship value quickly
/ Management
We spoke with two Barcelona startups, Dealcar and Webel, who are shipping fast and effectively. Their approaches differ, but both show how culture, clarity, and strong leadership can drive real delivery speed.
Why Transparency Matters at Work and Personal Life
/ Management
I've realized I'm on a personal quest to become much more transparent than I've ever been. Being open about our values, goals, and challenges at work creates trust and enables teams to tackle problems together, attracting opportunities that truly resonate with who we are.
Letter to self: Read Tribal Leadership
/ Management
Organizational culture unites people, but can also divide them. This is something I reflected on while reading Tribal Leadership, and I would have loved to know it earlier in my career.
Hiring Manager Lessons Learned
/ Management
This blog post is to share some lessons I’ve learned as a hiring manager: Participate in Sourcing, Always Be Planting Seeds, Build Trust with Recruiting, and Set the Bar High with Candidate Experience.
What do we lose if we don’t make this decision?
/ Management
This question brought clarity and alignment to a hard-to-follow discussion. I was so surprised about the result that I wrote this blog post.
Getting others to act with No-Oriented Questions
/ Management
Asking no-oriented questions has improved my ability to influence others. Also, applying this technique to myself has pushed me to get done tedious but meaningful tasks I felt lazy about.
Growth Framework for Direct Reports
/ Management
I defined a baseline framework to manage growth of my direct reports. Not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a starting point.
Adoption of New Tools and Processes
/ Management
Have you ever feel frustrated that a process or tool you rolled out didn’t get adopted? I surely have. I’d ask myself why the heck the team wasn't doing that thing I asked them to do and made so much work for. The problem? My mindset.
How to hand off a direct report without stress
/ Management
Handing off a direct report to another manager can be stressful for the report and the new manager. It’s better to explain the process to both of them before, and then run with it.
How To Communicate And Roll Out Changes: Change Rollout Documents
/ Management
In the day-to-day of the organization, do you know what we don't want any of? Surprise organizational changes. How can leaders roll out both planned and unexpected changes in the least surprising way possible?
How to deliver the manager review part during performance reviews, as a manager
/ Management
This format enables the direct report to have more clarity on each aspect. They can process each bullet point separately. It sticks better.
How to deliver the peer review part during performance reviews, as a manager
/ Management
This year, I've followed a more structured approach with some reviews. Now, my summaries are more accurate with what the peers wrote, as I don't feel tempted to add extra words to glue the different answers. The best is that, during the meeting, it focuses the conversation on the specific topic of the question. It allows pausing, reflecting and discussing each of them.
How to deliver the self review part during performance reviews, as a manager
/ Management
In the past, I've spent many hours preparing each performance review. This year, I've followed a more structured approach. Now, my summaries are more accurate with what the direct report wrote for each question. Which leads to a better mutual understanding. And sets the right stage for the peer and manager sections of the performance review.
Team Building with Abstract Contemporary Art
/ Management
One of the teams I manage has 5 members distributed between 5 cities. Wow! How would you go about making such a team start getting along? Here comes Team Building With Art, one of my tactics for creating a space to connect as a team.
What do collaborative teams have in common? From a Psychology student
/ Management
The very nature of organizations consists on collaboration, which means two or more people working together towards shared goals. We know collaboration is a good thing. However, both personal experience and scientific studies tell us that it isn’t as simple as putting a group of people together for the positive effects of collaboration to happen. In fact, working together can also be detrimental.
[Podcast] Building a team from scratch with Splash
/ Management
Guillermo de la Puente, Engineering Manager at Splash, shares his story of moving from New York to Madrid to start building an engineering team from scratch.
About company priorities
/ Management
How often have you seen companies working on the wrong things? How often innovation has taken resources over the main value proposition of the business, causing it to fail? My answer: too frequently.
Persuasion techniques by email: Your Expertise is Requested
/ Management
LinkedIn showed an excellent example of applying persuasion techniques on the last email I received from them, in September 2018.
You're managing at least one person
/ Management
You’re continuously managing one person. You manage their time, energy, motivation and frustration.
Tell-Show-Tell Method
/ Management
Since I learned about the Tell-Show-Tell method, I’ve used it almost every day at work. It’s a recipe to articulate explanations successfully that involves showing the usage of a product. Its beauty lies in its simplicity and effectiveness.