Will Blew

Build A Team That Ships

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020willblewcommunication, general, leadership

I’ve been “officially” leading teams for around 4 years now. That said, I’ve really been leading teams my entire life to some capacity. As a teenager, we (my cousin and I) led a group of skateboarders but rather than the normal path you’d expect we ended up with merch, websites, movies, and a real-world skate shop opened. Seriously, there was a ribbon-cutting. In my time on Active Duty in the U.S. Army, amazing examples of leadership were all around me. Fast forward to today and I lead engineering teams as an Engineering Manager at Linode.

Slack isn’t ruining your job or life.

May 6, 2019May 20, 2019willblewcommunication, replyLeave a Reply

If you spend too much time on shit that you don’t need to you can’t spend time on your team, the work, and bettering yourself. Slack, Facebook, or event email didn’t isn’t ruining [INSERT THING]. A lack of self discipline, time management, and good team/other communication are.

Meetings are not (always) the enemy…

January 6, 2020May 18, 2020willblewcommunication, leadership, meetings, UncategorizedLeave a Reply

Meetings are not always the enemy, being unprepared to lead one is. Meetings are always a topic of dispute, with each successful leader having some opinion or style. The internet has more than enough “protips” from some very successful people. That said these tips are for the most part generic. This post is to give…

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Objectives and Key results, don’t set people up for failure. Part 2.

May 21, 2019May 21, 2019willblewcommunication, general, leadership, okrs, replyLeave a Reply

We’re starting this immediately after my last post Objectives and Key results, don’t set people up for failure. Part 1, so read that for context. After seeing that I had failed I sat at my desk diving deeper into what my team had provided from the basis of my not so good initial overview of…

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Objectives and Key results, don’t set people up for failure. Part 1.

May 20, 2019May 18, 2020willblewcommunication, general, leadership, okrsLeave a Reply

Recently I’ve been working with my teams to set objectives and key results to define personal development objectives and how they’re going to reach them. Prior to bringing them to my teams I did what you’d expect, I read articles, books, and watched talks. I was sold on the possibility of value in OKRs pretty…

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Getting out of your comfort zone. Part 1, the pros and cons.

April 19, 2019April 19, 2019willblewUncategorizedLeave a Reply

So, let me preface this with the fact that I’m not advocating for always being uncomfortable. I’m not saying it’s bad to do what you love and not push to new positions or roles. I’m advocating taking risks within the bounds that you’re currently working in-order to move the people you lead and yourself forward.…

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New Blog.

April 15, 2019April 15, 2019willblewgeneralLeave a Reply

I neglected writing any blog post for over a year. It’s ok, nobody read them (maybe one or two people). That said, I’m going to be writing some things soon so if you’re here you probably got a link to one of those things I’ve already posted. Thanks for reading!