Leadership
-
2–3 minutes
Everyone in support will become a team lead
In the evolving landscape of support jobs, the emphasis is shifting towards leadership skills. As AI continues to advance, support professionals will not only use AI tools but lead them. The future will reward those who harness AI effectively, becoming team leaders who guide their agents towards successful outcomes. Embrace this exciting change!
-
1–2 minutes
Constructive rejections
In a large team, when vacancies arise, I respond to all applicants with constructive feedback. Instead of vague rejections, I focus on areas for improvement and emphasize growth opportunities. This approach encourages enthusiasm and career development, enabling applicants to better their skills with guidance from their leads for future success.
-
2–3 minutes
Lessons about work from the movie Speed
In the action movie Speed — can we call it a cult classic? — Annie (Sandra Bullock) and Jack (Keanu Reeves) end up together after a rather thrilling bus ride. With prophetic words, Jack admonishes Annie: I have to warn you, I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work. The movie clearly shows they
-
3–4 minutes
Featured images with ChatGPT
For years, I’ve used photos from Unsplash and similar platforms to add as featured images to blog posts I’ve written. When sharing a link or when creating an archive page for my posts, I prefer having a visual element to work with. With stock images though, I find myself either spending too much time or
-
2–4 minutes
Change my mind
The piece emphasizes the importance of being open to changing one’s mind in leadership, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of shared understanding. Effective leaders invite early feedback, focus on arguments rather than opinions, and encourage exploration of diverse viewpoints to foster stronger strategies and collaborative decision-making, ultimately enhancing organizational outcomes.
-
3–4 minutes
Being dispensable makes you a better lead
There’s this lingering idea that if you can’t be missed, it makes you a better manager or leader. This is a faulty idea, and it’s problematic for both the organisation and yourself. Slack on your phone One of the first things I’ll recommend to new leads in our company is to remove Slack from their
-
2–3 minutes
Great leaders have a sense of humour
Our Woo Happy division has grown from 6 to (I think) about 13 leads in less than 2 years. Of the original 6, only 4 are left. That’s resulted in us welcoming many new leads. Next to looking into how to do that (which I wrote about here), it’s prompted me also to regularly think
-
7–10 minutes
New lead onboarding
This is a summary of the presentation I gave at the CMS Africa Summit 2021, a virtual event. In the wake of COVID-19, lots of businesses took their stores online. That resulted in a boom for our product, but also one for our support load. One of the ways we addressed this increased influx of
-
4–6 minutes
“Stepping down” from leadership
Automattic has a fairly flat structure. One of the most evident ways is that there is movement from a team lead position to an individual contributor (IC) without a loss of salary or this being seen as a demotion. What are the advantages? I now have eight team leads reporting to me, with likely quite
-
3–4 minutes
Communicating your workweek to team members
I’m currently in London for a meetup with my fellow happiness leads at Automattic. During our get-together, I led a session on prepping our workweeks. In it, I wanted to tackle two challenges all of us face. Challenges The first challenge is to work efficiently in addressing our todos. We have a lot of recurring
-
1–2 minutes
Amsterdam
I’m not going to lie, when it was first announced that team leads at Automattic were expected to attend leadership training at some point, I was a bit hesitant. I had been already travelled to five countries for work last year and with travel times being at least twelve hours in any direction from Cape
-
2–3 minutes
Ethical Leadership
Peter G. Northouse’s Leadership is internationally considered as a standard introduction of leadership. One thing the book makes very clear is how many perspectives there are on leadership. “Good” Leadership One of those perspectives that is very high to my priorities list is the focus on ethics. While trying to have students and scholars engage for different
-
2–3 minutes
Welcoming & Appreciating
My first month at WooThemes is finished. What a rollercoaster it has been. For the first time in my life I’ve had a look at the company side of customer support, I’ve been involved with tons of ideas, was part of WordCamp Cape Town and am now preparing to leave to San Francisco for WooConf