Avoiding Organizational/Culture Debt

I wrote this way back in 2018, after a month at a company. My goal was to flag potential issues that could lead to org/culture debt down the line and proactively prevent these through our actions. Fast forward 3 years, and I’d say, with 20/20 hindsight, that this list was spot-on. And that we were…

Recruiting idea for FAANGs

I have an idea. In brief, FAANGs should partner and invest in small startups to cultivate a future hiring pipeline. It’s such a simple idea. Pharmaceutical companies and other innovation-driven organizations do this with academic research centers — essentially invest in them and have some kind of arrangement that gives them the rights when a…

I’m tired of work “shaming”

People who know me, know that I work a lot. And that I love what I do for a living. This means I think about my work, how to improve, where I’ve messed up, where I might mess up, what else I can contribute, etc., during my ‘free time’ — weekends, early mornings, late evenings….

some thoughts i’ve been having

Over the past 2 months, I’ve been running in the morning instead of commuting to work.  Rather than listen to music, I just listen to the sounds of the street and think about work and my career. Two thoughts I’ve been having a lot these days: “Culture debt is what happens when companies don’t do…

Growth and development framework at Petal

A few weeks ago, I published this blogpost on my company’s Medium site: View at Medium.com   If you’ve read my post about Competency Matrices, I think this one is better.  My thinking has evolved somewhat.  Curious to hear what people think of it? View at Medium.com View at Medium.com

To the lady CEO with the hat

I spoke on a panel regarding Performance Management at early-stage startups yesterday, and there was a question from the audience that I’ve been mulling over since.  The question was, “As a startup CEO whose company just raised seed funding and has a handful of employees, how much should I really care about fostering an environment…

My notes for the Stack Summit panel on Performance Management

I was recently on a panel at Stacklist’s Stack Summit.  Topic was Performance Management.  We were given the questions a few days in advance, and I jotted notes down.  They are below. What’s the measure of a good manager? How do you evaluate yourselves? → The health of their team — health = productivity +…

Story of Petal’s Values

It’s been ages, right? I generally have a hard time writing blogposts while working at a company because a) people automatically assume that I’m writing about my current experience, and b) I don’t really have the time. It’s too bad because I really love writing to think. I arrived at a solution: to make writing…

Top 10: Read This First

My blog is kind of disorganized and random.  For those who want to skip to my favorites and/or the ones that readers have indicated are helpful, here is a list of the Top 10: Why Call It People versus Human Resources? Scope of the People Function Being a PM When Your Product is People Maximizing…

Superpowers as Comparative Advantage

I get a bit irked whenever leadership consultants use the terminology, ‘superpower’, as in “What’s your superpower?” because it builds up the question too much, especially knowing that the answer will likely be a let-down, like, “I’m a great organizer” or “I’m very analytical”.  That’s not really a ‘superpower’ based on my understanding of what…