7 min read

🏜 AI, Comp Negotiation, Personal Branding, Leverage, Spheres of Influence, Right-sizing, Guardrails, Insecurity: TMW #339

Hello, hello! It's Monday again

We have an amazing event lined up for all of those working in and around London this week - in partnership with Quantum Black, an AI company under McKinsey, we're hosting a panel at the Post Building near Shaftesbury Avenue on Thursday evening. The team will be discussing bias and diversity in AI and how to sidestep it. There'll also be networking and chit chat, so head along if you'd like to see some familiar faces. If you're working with AI in your business, or intending to, this will be unmissable. Grab your ticket here.

Thanks again to all 180 of you who volunteered to help with the Campus Alpha Test - we've gathered a huge amount of feedback, and no small amount of positivity, which is great to hear. If you signed up to take part but haven't heard from us, check your spam folder for joining instructions, or drop me a reply to this email. Here's a sneaky preview with some of the suggested changes added:

We're still planning to roll Campus out formally over the summer, so keep your eyes peeled for launch information, here and in Slack.

That's it! Until next week

Andy @ CTO Craft

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Henry Draper, Managing Partner at Albany Partners, discusses how to negotiate your compensation as a technology leader.

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Reads of the Week

AI and the automation of work — Benedict Evans
ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years? What does it mean for employment? Disruption? Coal consumption?
Building personal and organizational prestige
Most months I get at least one email from an engineering leader who believes they’d be a candidate for significantly more desirable roles if their personal brand were just better known. Similarly, when funding is readily available during periods of tech industry expansion, many companies believe the…

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Leadership, Strategy & Business

The three kinds of leverage that anchor effective strategies
Leveraging strengths -- not “fixing weaknesses” -- is how to win. Better when differentiated. Best when durable. Here’s how to create leverage.
TBM 229: Winnable and Unwinnable Games (Part 3)
Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 if you are new to this series. A Turn… CEO: I don’t care what you do...just fix it! What support do you need? CTO (thinking): I’m not exactly sure what we need, let me ask the VP. CTO: I’ll have a plan by the next meeting. I appreciate your support.
What can you really influence? Find out by taking a look at your Sphere of Influence — Kate Leto
An exploration of the 3 spheres of influence and a worksheet to help you identify where your worries are in your own spheres.
The player, the coach and the president
In many conversations, people ask me: “Why did you get into a management position?”. I’ve answered countless times. The main factor was to help other people grow and succeed as a team. But it was also driven by poor management experiences, contrasting with what I read about how big tech companies (F…

Culture, People & Teams

Right-sizing your technology team
Managing the scale of your technology teams to accomplish strategic goals can be challenging. How can business leaders get it right?
Manager, mentor or coach? Help! We need some distinctions!
More organizations are asking their managers to coach their people. Others are telling their managers to mentor their people. Some provide training and clarity on what is meant by these terms, but many more don’t. The terms left undefined are also unmeasured.
Paint Drip People
Originally published August 2016 Keith Adams worked on kernels at VM Ware. Then virtual machines. Then search performance at Facebook. Then the HHVM implementation of PHP. Then machine learning. Now [ed: then…] he’s Chief Architect at Slack. In between he worked on hundreds of little projects that l…
Guide to a great process for hiring engineers
🥳 🎉 2000+ subscribers 🎁 FREE Engineering Career Path Guide to show my appreciation for your support!

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Linking Modular Architecture to Development Teams
How to improve software delivery with a modular architecture
On Achieving Goals
Achieving your goals, in its most basic form, can be a very simple process.
Why so much resistance to guardrails? — RGalen Consulting
I saw this post on LinkedIn the other day from Damon Poole where he was responding to a question about daily standup. And it made me think of all the debates I see today around folks in the agile community, how do I say it, following the “rules” of the various frameworks, methods, and tactics.&
10x Developer Success
Building a Platform with a Focus on Developer Success

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

Tech Execs Under Pressure: Half Turn to Alcohol, 45% Rely on Painkillers, Study Finds - TechStory
Tech industry executives face immense pressure, leading to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Substance misuse, and job dissatisfaction
10 Surefire Ways You Can Spot Insecurity In Any Leader (Even Yourself) – Scott Cochrane
Learning to Manage the Map Paradox | The Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog
Leadership Now is a leading source for leadership development and analysis. We believe that anyone can make a difference by leading from where they are.
Gedanken Experiment: Your Purpose
I love making my clients go through thought experiments to help them better assess a certain scenario and also as a way to accelerate decision-making. I’ve shared before about one for making your d…

That’s it!

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Have an amazing week!

Andy