External Resources
First 90 Days
(A+) Incredible overview of how organizations work, philosophical and practical. I will re-read this every time I switch companies or get a meaningful promotion.
Manager Tools Coaching Model
Manager Tools Responsiblity Ladder
The Art of Communicating
(B) Lightweight read about being mindful during communication.
I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook. AMA
Thanks for the feedback
Crossing the Chasm
Empowered
(B) A book by former head of product management; some good ideas for many topics but light on concrete ideas for any of them. Key idea: aim for empowered product teams, not superficially similar feature teams.
Minto Pyramid Principle
(A+) A phenomenal book on how to write more clearly. This should be required reading for any person who writes documents at work.
Manager’s Path
(A) A series of good overviews of the different stages of being a Silicon Valley manager.
Peopleware
Elegant Puzzle
(B) a compendium of blog posts from a fantastic engineering manager/director. a lot of distinct, useful philosophies
Remedy for Bad Apples
Essential Drucker
Writing Tools
Art of Gathering
Team Topologies
(A) A few great chapters (3 types of teams: xfn product, platform, and enabling + 3 types of interaction: collaborate, X-as-a-service, and enabling). Rest of book is good too.
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
(A) A fascinating read; first half filled with the some of the nuts and bolts of Amazon’s product development process (single threaded separable teams, 6-pagers, working backwards from press release, etc) and second half 4 different stories from Amazon showing them in action.
Manager Tools: Rolling out DISC
Dare to Lead
Drive: The Surpising Truth about what Motivates us
Manager Tools: MT Goals
Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
Masterclass: Daniel Pink on Sales and Persuasion
(A)
HBX Management Essentials
Thinking in Systems
HBR on Google Engineering Management
Critical Communication Skills in Negotiation
High Output Management
(A) Good high level insights on management.