Christian Bonilla
How Smart Teams Fail

One of the weirder experiences most of us can relate to is being in a meeting where nearly all of the participants disagree with the decision being made, but the power dynamics keep anyone in the room from objecting. It’s never a great feeling, and it seems to happen for a few different reasons

How Smart Teams Fail
success
Christian Bonilla
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Embrace ...

I'm not one to extol the virtues of failure. I get annoyed whenever people talk about “celebrating failure.” That said, there are some benefits to getting your ass handed to you every once in a blue moon.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Embrace Criticism
Christian Bonilla
The Golden Rule of Software Companies

Great products and bad products both reflect the management teams who are responsible for them.

The Golden Rule of Software Companies
Christian Bonilla
Pivoting Ain't Easy

Investing time, money and energy into a strategy, only to have the market not respond is like taking a punch. You might not get knocked out, but the effect of multiple blows can take a toll on your confidence and enthusiasm. 

Pivoting Ain't Easy
Christian Bonilla
Bon Voyage! Here Are Two Business Ideas that ...

I nearly scrapped this column, because they’re not bad ideas per se. Both are still in fashion today, especially in the startup-o-sphere, and like many popular ideas there's more than a grain of truth to them. But these two ideas have run themselves ragged, and I see them doing more harm than good when I encounter them. 

Bon Voyage! Here Are Two Business Ideas that Need to Die

The Non-Technical Manager's Challenge

The Non-Technical Manager's Challenge

People with “non-technical” backgrounds (i.e. those who aren’t engineers, data scientists, or similar) often have difficulty directing more technical subject matter experts. Even without directly managing them, people can find themselves managing projects or making decisions that impact what more technical resources have to do. Failure to communicate and establish trust can easily lead to conflict given the gap in shared context between the business and technical side. Some conflicts are inevitable, even desirable; conflicts born from mutual distrust aren’t.

 

Lessons from Four Brilliant Product Features

Lessons from Four Brilliant Product Features

The ability to interpret what the market is telling you, spot new opportunities and then capitalize on them is what makes any business successful. Software people can and do learn much by studying the design of everyday things (to borrow the title of another wonderful book). The reverse is also true. 

 

"Tell Me One Thing I Should Remember about You." A Conversation with Carey Smith - CEO, Big Ass Fans

"Tell Me One Thing I Should Remember about You." A Conversation with Carey Smith - CEO, Big Ass Fans

As the company's name suggests, Carey has a sense of humor, but he's also dead serious about making the best products in the world and continuing to push boundaries at the nearly $300 million-a-year business he built from scratch.

Carey's head of corporate communications invited me to interview him after reading one of my articles, and I jumped at the chance to pick his brain on hiring good people, what it takes to earn his trust, and preparing people for leadership. What followed was an unfiltered look into how this CEO (or "Chief Big Ass" as he goes by) sees the world. 

Building Trust: How Communication Skills Set You Apart

Building Trust: How Communication Skills Set You Apart

Just like you can’t expect even great products to sell themselves, you can’t rely on your work to speak for itself. Good work usually doesn’t speak for itself- you have to speak for your work. Communicating your ideas in a way that resonates with your audience (which implies you’ve thought about what will resonate with them in the first place) shows them that you understand what they care about. To put it another way, it shows that you “get it.” Managers are more willing to take a chance on someone whom they think “gets it.”

Impress Your New Employer by Solving Problems They Didn’t Know They Had

Impress Your New Employer by Solving Problems They Didn’t Know They Had

Whatever problems you uncover, the most important thing is to ask yourself how your role relates to these issues. How can you do your work in a way that helps alleviate some of the issues you’ve discovered? Are you in a position to directly affect any of these things simply by virtue of being a new person? Simply by being aware of these issues, you’re bound to find new ways you can improve the business directly or indirectly.

Brainstorming: Why New Ideas Need Optimism Before Criticism

Brainstorming: Why New Ideas Need Optimism Before Criticism

As much as businesses need experienced hands to spot potential problems, they need boldness too. It’s hard to innovate without taking risks. And for many leaders, that’s what makes their jobs fun in the first place. The opportunity to do something new is what gets many of them out of bed in the morning, and it is a bummer to always be met with pessimism from the troops.

Customer vs. Client: Help Your Company Figure Out Which Types of Customers It Needs

Customer vs. Client: Help Your Company Figure Out Which Types of Customers It Needs

At its core, the customers vs. clients debate boils down to what kind of company management wants to build. Being a “client business” implies providing a higher level of service and custom work than being a “customer business” does. That makes the economics of the businesses obviously different, but the decision also has major implications for the skill sets the business must recruit, the margins it can expect, and the partnerships it may need in order to succeed. It’s hard to find a meaningful aspect of the business that isn’t impacted by this decision.

A Quick Note to My Readers

Hey all,

As I write this, it is 9:33 in the morning EST - a full three hours after I would have normally hit the send button on my weekly post. I wanted to say a quick thanks and a heads-up on some changes.

After nine months of publishing every week on Smart Like How, always on Tuesdays, I'm experimenting with some longer posts that can serve as more expansive guides on different topics. It's exciting for me to be able to dive into some of the things I want to write about in the depth they deserve. The only downside is that I'm sure about the new schedule yet. I am absolutely going to still publish regularly - but I'll be doing some experimentation to figure out the right cadence. My hope is to mix in these longer posts with some normal-length or shorter posts on specific ideas.

My sincerest thanks to the tens of thousands of you who have read the blog, downloaded my book and offered your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, etc. If you haven't yet, don't forget to join my email group. I'd love to hear which topics you'd like to see discussed more and any other thoughts you have.

Cheers,

Christian

christian@smartlikehow.com

@smartlikehow

 

I Went to a Top-10 University, Community College, and Took Free Classes - Here’s What I Learned about School

I Went to a Top-10 University, Community College, and Took Free Classes - Here’s What I Learned about School

When you consider how many options are available to you today, it’s never been a better time to take classes as an adult. After I graduated from college, I've taken classes at a community college, taken free courses online, earned professional certifications, and done a lot of studying on my own. Along the way, I've learned a lot about how and why I learn, and it has caused me re-think some of my core beliefs about of education. Here's what I see as the pros and cons of the different ways you can go back to school as an adult.

The Career Development Magic of Reading Books

The Career Development Magic of Reading Books

Being an avid reader benefits you professionally. First, reading stimulates your mind and makes you a better thinker, as incredibly obvious studies such as this one have shown. Less obvious but arguably just as valuable is how books serve as a bridge to connecting with people. Engaging someone about a book that they loved is a great way to build rapport quickly. But how do you find time as a busy professional to read all of the great things that are out there?

Two Easy, Powerful Ways to Get Smarter about Your Market

Two Easy, Powerful Ways to Get Smarter about Your Market

 

I seem to come across a lot of contemporary thinking along the lines of “good ideas are a dime a dozen.” The corollary to that being that “execution” is the only thing that matters. For what it’s worth, I don’t buy that at all. Try telling that to someone facing the reality that the market doesn’t want to buy the product they worked so hard to bring to market.

You should always be on the hunt for the best information you can get. No, ideas aren’t enough. But they DO matter. And contrary to the “dime a dozen” mantra, it is really hard to come up with breakthrough ideas. You need all the help you can get.

Can't Agree on Strategy? Settle It Outside with Fast Market Validation

Can't Agree on Strategy? Settle It Outside with Fast Market Validation

It doesn’t matter how strong a company’s brand is or how smart the executives, product managers, engineers, or consultants are. Whenever an organization relies on untested assumptions about whether a customer will value a product enough to use it or buy it, they crank up the risk of a project failing. 

How to Respond Effectively to Negative Feedback

How to Respond Effectively to Negative Feedback

I remember getting lots of advice on my first day in orientation at my first job after college, but one thing that stuck out to me among everything else was the directive “Run toward feedback!” My new company stressed this point several times throughout the first few days. It sounds reasonable on the surface: successful people are eager for guidance on how to be more effective. But over time, I realized that just “running to feedback” doesn’t tell you what to do after you get it.

How the Hiring Process Makes Teams Better - All by Itself

How the Hiring Process Makes Teams Better - All by Itself

I realized something else about the process of interviewing over the years that is no doubt obvious to some but I’ll bet is news to others: the interview process itself can make companies stronger even without hiring a single person. When a group has to decide whether to admit a new candidate for membership or not, it forces the group to ask important questions of itself: What makes us who we are today, and are we happy with that? What qualities must a new person have to not slow us down and possibly make us even better? What do we want to look like as a group in the future?

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