Many people think leadership is a higher calling that resides exclusively with a select few who practice and preach big, complex leadership philosophies. But as this practical book reveals, what's most important for leadership is principled consistency. Time and again, small things done well build trust and respect within a team. Using stories from his time at Netscape, Apple, and Slack, Michael Lopp presents a series of small but compelling practices to help you build leadership skills. You'll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted. Lopp has been speaking and writing about this topic for over a decade and now maintains a Slack leadership channel with over 13,000 members The essays in this book examine the practical skills Lopp learned from exceptional leaders-as a manager at Netscape, a senior manager and director at Apple, and an executive at Slack. You'll learn how to apply these lessons to your own experience.

Managing Humans is a selection of the best essays from Michael Lopp 's web site, Rands in Repose. Drawing on Lopp's management experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland, this book is full of stories based on companies in the Silicon Valley where people have been known to yell at each other. It is a place full of dysfunctional bright people who are in an incredible hurry to find the next big thing so they can strike it rich and then do it all over again. Among these people are managers, a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account.

Whether you're an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you. What you'll learn What to do when people start yelling at each other How to perform a diving save when the best engineer insists on resigning How to say "no" to the person who signs your paycheck Who this book is for

This book is designed for managers and would-be managers staring at the role of a manager wondering why they would ever leave the safe world of bits and bites for the messy world of managing humans. The book covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build a lasting and useful engineering culture. Table of Contents Don't Be a Prick Managers are Not Evil The Monday Freakout Agenda Detection Mandate Dissection Information Starvation Subtlety, Subterfuge, and Silence Managementese Technicality Avoiding the Fez Your Resignation Checklist Saying No 1.0 Taking Time to Think The Soak Malcolm Events Capturing Context Status Reports 2.0 Trickle Theory A Glimpse and a Hook Nailing the Phone Screen Ninety Days Bellwethers NADD A Nerd in a Cave Meeting Creatures Incrementalists and Completionists Organics and Mechanics Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics Free Electrons Rules for the Reorg Offshore Risk Factor Joe Secret Titles

Is it time to become a manager? Nest and vest? Join that start-up? Tell your boss he's a liar? Or resign in disgust? As a software engineer, you'll face many important decisions such as these, and when you do, you realize there's much more to your career than dealing with code. Author Michael Lopp recalls his own make-or-break moments with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple, Borland, Netscape, and Symantec in Being Geek, the insightful and entertaining book that may help you manage your career better. Through a series of entertaining stories, Lopp walks through a complete job lifecycle, starting with the job search and finishing with the realization it might be time to look again. Plenty of books teach you how to interview for a job, or how to manage a project more successfully, but only "Being Geek" will help you handle all the baffling circumstances you experience at work, including how to: understand your boss with the chapter on 'Manager Management'; boost your career through networking with 'We Travel in Tribes'; deliver effective presentations, with 'How Not to Throw Up'; manage and actively participate in meetings, with 'What's On the Agenda'; and, realize when you should be looking for a new gig, with 'The Itch'.

In this fourth edition of the bestselling business book Managing Humans, author Michael Lopp continues to draw leadership advice from some of the most important software companies of our modern age. Educational stories from companies such as Apple, Slack, and Pinterest detail the experiences of bright software engineers in an ever-changing industry. This revised edition of Managing Humans expands on the previous editions' explorations of management essentials including handling stress, building diverse teams, running inclusive meetings, and how to lead in times of crisis. The education of a great leader never stops, and Lopp applies crucial insights to help continue your never-ending leadership education. Whether it is approaching a myriad of engineering personalities or handling unexpected conflict, you will come away with the wisdom to handle any team situation. The engineering culture of a company can determine the difference between a product's ultimate success or failure. Managing Humans is here to guide managers and aspiring managers into the intimidating world of people and their vastly different personalities. Handle conflict, infuse innovation into your approach, and be the most confident manager you can be after reading this book. "It is so satisfying to read the work of an author who articulates something we know, but can't put our finger on, and then answers the excitement of fresh revelation with useful solutions or a frame to think about what we've just learned-all done in a breezy, knowing prose, that invites you to constantly write margin notes to capture the new thinking it invites." John Dickerson, author, CBS News correspondent