Employee-Happiness on Tobi(as Mende)

Organizational Change Leadership

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Change and Leadership — Driving change effectively within organizations

Many people believe that you have to be in an official leadership position with official authority and power to lead change in organizations. This is far from the truth. I would even argue that it is easier to drive successful change if you do not have that formal authority. This is because without formal authority, you have to lead the change right (we will get to that in a bit). With formal authority, on the other hand, you can force the change, which can lead to frustration, resignation, and damage to the organization overall. Even worse, people might not speak up against change that they do not understand or that does not make sense to them. Therefore, whenever being in a leadership position with formal power, be extra cautious about how you drive change. In my article about organizational tension processing, I already tapped into an approach how we can initiate change in organizations without formal (hierarchical) authority. In today’s article, I explore the topic of how to drive the actual change and how to ensure that it becomes a success, in greater detail.

Better Alternatives to Performance Reviews

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Better Alternatives to Performance Reviews

Traditional performance reviews often fall short of delivering the value they promise. Even worse: They can have disastrous effects on motivation, engagement, and performance of teams and individuals. I have explored the reasons for this in detail in my last newsletter. In today’s article, I would like to explore what we can do instead to satisfy the actual needs companies and individuals might have.

Performance Reviews Considered Harmful

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Performance Reviews Considered Harmful

Performance reviews are widely accepted in software companies to provide feedback, justify or object to promotions, and discuss compensation increases. Typically, they occur between an engineering manager and their reports, often cited as a necessary function of management within an organization. They are simply “how the world works.” Big companies do them, small companies do them, and highly paid consultants develop new and better ways of conducting them.

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

Newcomers to self-organization often mistake the lack of a people-hierarchy for complete chaos. The term “flat” can be misleading, as it suggests that self-organizing companies lack any structure. In reality, this is far from the case.

Increase Engineering Productivity by 50% Through Focus and Flow

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Increase Engineering Productivity by 50% Through Focus and Flow

Creating an environment where developers can maintain focus and achieve flow can lead to a 50% increase in productivity, as research suggests. But how do we create such an environment?

Things I love and hate about the state of software companies in 2024

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Things I love and hate about the state of software companies in 2024

Disclaimer: This started as a rant, not meant to be published. But sticking to my “New Year’s resolution” to write about what triggers me most, I decided to publish it anyway. I wanted to publish it as a LinkedIn post, but it got too long. So here is the unshortened, unpolished and authentic original version of this document, most of which I wrote on my phone after waking up on a Sunday at 5:45am. 😬

Collaboration for Introverts: The Myth of the solo-working Introvert

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Collaboration for Introverts: The Myth of the solo-working Introvert

Almost all the teams I met throughout my career were collaborating too little. Productivity, quality, alignment, and the feeling of belonging rose in every team where we increased the amount of collaboration.

Improving Developer Experience: Starting with Psychological Safety, Team Stability, and Work-Life Balance

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Improving Developer Experience: Starting with Psychological Safety, Team Stability, and Work-Life Balance

As companies strive to foster an environment that promotes creativity, motivation, and productivity, they increasingly recognize the role Developer Experience plays in these efforts.

11 Tips to Prevent Survey Fatigue in Your Organization

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

11 Tips to Prevent Survey Fatigue in Your Organization

Surveys are a vital tool to measure and understand the perceived developer experience within a team or organization. People who run surveys often face the challenge of decreasing responses. Survey fatigue can be a huge problem when trying to get meaningful data about the state of the developer experience within an organization.

Default-to-Open: A Principle for High-Performance Organizations

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Default-to-Open: A Principle for High-Performance Organizations

Sharing, communicating, and persisting knowledge, information, and decisions is a challenge that most companies have. This challenge may become even bigger in remote-first companies.

The Inverse Conway Manoeuvre in Existing Systems – It does not work!

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

The Inverse Conway Manoeuvre in Existing Systems – It does not work!

In 1968, Melvin E. Conway postulated a law about a connection between organizational design and system structure, which got pretty famous. The paper has the title “How Do Committees Invent?” and the law goes as follows:

Deep Work and Collaboration in Platform- and Enabling-Teams

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Deep Work and Collaboration in Platform- and Enabling-Teams

This is the fourth and last articles of my series about deep work. The first article was about the value of deep work for peak performance. The second article was about seven tips for more deep work for individuals. The third articles was about deep work for teams.

Deep Work is a Team Effort

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Deep Work is a Team Effort

This is the third article in my series about deep work. The first article was about the value of deep work for peak performance. In my last article, I gave seven tips on how to get more deep work time as an individual.

7 Tips for more Deep Work for Individuals

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

7 Tips for more Deep Work for Individuals

In my last article, I highlighted the importance of deep work to achieve high productivity and quality of work. Today, I will follow up with seven tips for more deep work as an individual.

The Value of Deep Work for Peak Performance

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

The Value of Deep Work for Peak Performance

As somebody who juggled various roles and responsibilities as a software engineer, architect and tech lead, I certainly understand the importance of deep work and how difficult it can be to get it when working with other people.

Happy without hierarchies: Who cares for employee happiness if there are no hierarchies?

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Happy without hierarchies: Who cares for employee happiness if there are no hierarchies?

Working with different clients has the benefit of discovering many contexts and with that, different perspectives, observations, and questions.