This is a heartfelt and brilliant book.
If you, like me, have been reading the blog Rands in Repose for many a year -- or whether you're completely new to the mind of Rands -- a.k.a. Michael Lopp, you're in for a treat. I've been following the blog for something verging on 15 years but every "small thing" in this book is brand new.
The "small things" are like finely crafted gemstones -- faceted and polished to focus their light of wisdom. Each small thing manages to capture and distill an “unspoken truth” about what makes effective management and leadership (as well as the difference between them!)
The prose is direct, honest, and warm. Think of an old friend or mentor offering you advice for different stages of your career. The author spans the range: starting out as a manager, to a manager of managers (director), to a manager of manager of managers (executive). The description of the New Manager Death Spiral (Small Thing 9) is eerily accurate and worth the price of the book alone. The insights into and explanations of the thoughts and worries of directors (Delegate Until It Hurts, Small Thing 11) and executives (why they always seem to be fire-fighting and How to Build a Rumor, Small Thing 24) are incredibly valuable, whether you’re an executive or whether, like most, you (eventually) roll up and report into one.
There is much to learn from in this book -- it can be read straight through, but it also demands to be returned to, drawn upon in the movements when the poignant lesson of one of its “small things” might just what is needed.
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Sharing the knowledge of experts
O'Reilly's mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 40 years, we've inspired companies and individuals to do new things (and do them better) by providing the skills and understanding that are necessary for success.
Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help them do just that.
From the Publisher
How to Use This Book
There are two ways you can approach reading this book: randomly or linearly. Let’s talk random first.
Like in my previous books, many of the chapters of this book are standalone. Coming from decades of writing on my blog, I have a penchant for self-contained chapters. Each of the chapters of this book contains at least one small thing.
To help you pick a small thing, I provide a list in the introduction of all the small things contained within the book. If you're looking for help on a particular small thing, you can skim this list and jump to wherever inspiration strikes.
The linear path within this book provides a more narrative structure. The book is broken into three acts, with each section representing a key leadership stage in my career: manager, director, and executive.
Each of these sections begins with a very brief history of the company where I truly learned about the role—Netscape, Apple, and Slack, respectively. These openers also contain brief descriptions of the responsibilities of the leader as a manager, a director, and an executive.
For any given chapter, you might start it and think, “Good idea.” Or you might think, “Well, that’s dumb.” You have the mutant power of knowing the time without ever looking at a clock. I wish I did, but I don’t, so whenever I enter a meeting my first move is to move a clock to face me—this is because I want to respect both the human I’m meeting with and the human I’m meeting with next.
Skip a chapter if it doesn’t speak to you.
This book is a comprehensive list of small things I've compiled over three decades of leadership, but I’m not actively using all of them. As each company culture is different, so is each team, and each team member. 1:1s are nonnegotiable in my book, but in some company cultures every meeting starts five minutes late, no matter how many times I show up two minutes early.
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| The Engineering Leader | Leading Effective Engineering Teams | The Art of Leadership | The Engineering Executive's Primer | The Manager's Path | The Staff Engineer's Path | |
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| Price | $32.99 | $39.99 | $25.49 | $28.90 | $25.49 | $30.99 |
| What is it? | A practical guide to becoming a well-rounded, career-minded, and resilient engineering leader. | A research-backed guide to the essential principles, tips, and frameworks for building highly effective engineering teams. | A collection of short essays providing simple, memorable leadership acts and practices. | A primer on how to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive roles. | A guide to successfully navigating the different steps involved in transitioning from engineer to manager. | A guide for growing as a technical expert and leader beyond the management track. |
| What you'll learn | How to rethink career goals; tips on self-management; how to create healthy, diverse, and autonomous teams. | What traits relate to engineering effectiveness; how to build trust and accountability within your team; how the most effective engineering teams work. | How to uncover what's blocking your team, deal with information overload, find a mentor, delegate, find time for what matters, and much, much more. | How to get an executive job and what to do you in your first 90 days. How to run a planning process, conduct core meetings, create a tech strategy, and manage yourself effectively. | How to manage individuals, teams, multiple teams, and managers. How to be thoughtful about the culture of your engineering team. | How to understand your role, master strategic thinking, drive big projects, and make everyone around you better. |
| Who is this book for? | Managers looking for a model for how to balance personal and team needs. | Technical leaders and managers who want to build effective software engineering teams. | Managers, directors, and executives looking to improve their leadership acumen. | Anyone in an engineering executive role, or anyone attempting to reach their first executive role. | New or aspiring managers who need to get situated in their new role and learn, for the first time, how to lead teams. | Staff and principal engineers looking to better understand and grow in their roles. |
| Who else is it for? | Aspiring managers and individual contributors who want a better understanding of how things work. | Individual contributors who want evidence-based guidance to improve their effectiveness. | Anyone looking to develop their leadership skills. | Anyone trying to better understand the engineering executive they work with. | Experienced managers looking for guidance on how to deal with common problems in engineering management. | Junior engineers interested in career growth on the individual contributor track. |
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James Osborn
Build trust and respect with principled consistency
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2020