embarrassing our employees in public again

[denise]

You know, in nine years when we're all celebrating DW's tenth anniversary, we are going to all look back and say that hiring fu when we did was the smartest thing we could have done. Seriously: she's smart, talented, creative, and motivated, which are all highly important qualities, but the one quality she has that makes her such a brilliant hire is that she is positively gleeful about what she does (and whom she's doing it for), and that kind of enthusiasm is not only great to see, it's infectuous. I never fail to walk away from a conversation from her without feeling like this is the best project ever. The degree to which this improves my productivity cannot be measured.

So, I wanted to take a second and announce to Dreamwidth (or at least the subset of Dreamwidth that is reading my journal) that she is awesome and we made a damn good choice when we hired her. Because everyone should know that fu rocks. That is all.

Comments

[denise]

Thank you. :) I think that the experience of my few really spectacular fuckups with putting ppl in charge of things/'hiring' ppl to do things back on LJ (and there were a few really epic ones) taught me an awful lot about fitting round pegs to round holes and square pegs to square holes, and fortunately i have been able to generalize a lot of the lessons, traits, etc. I think you are right, and making smart hires/being smart about who to put in what positions is one of my core talents. (It's part listening to people carefully, because they tell you -- in pretty much every way beyond coming ouot and saying it -- where they belong and what they should be doing. It's one of those very-rarely-appreciated managerial talents. (I keep meaning to write an entry about why geeks deride and devalue management so badly, and why this is wrong, and why they do it anyway because they have not experienced good management and seen what it should be. I need more hours in the day.)

But, yes. The ability to gauge interest/talent/proclivities and steer people to the 'right' roles for them is something that I'm so glad I started cultivating so long ago, and if I had to name my one core strength as a manager that'd be on the very very shortlist.

[jenett]

It's one of those very-rarely-appreciated managerial talents. (I keep meaning to write an entry about why geeks deride and devalue management so badly, and why this is wrong, and why they do it anyway because they have not experienced good management and seen what it should be. I need more hours in the day.)

Which is why I wanted to go yay you, as well as yay fu - because you're right, it's deeply underappreciated, and it's so often do so incredibly badly in geek settings so often, in particular. (Also schools, I think, and for many of the same reasons.)

[pauamma]

I'd like to see the braindump on that when you write it. :-)

[aquaeri]

I keep meaning to write an entry about why geeks deride and devalue management so badly, and why this is wrong

No pressure, but I look forward to reading this once you've written it.