About

This is a semi-structured blog about my theory of management and my experience practicing it. I use it as a half-polished public “Zettelkasten”Another great German word, a Zettelkasten is an interconnected knowledge system. I’ll probably aim for slightly more finished content than you might see in a true Zettelkasten to make it easier to consume.

to clarify my thoughts and to create snippets for the people I coach.

By “semi-structured,” I mean that I am organizing it intentionally along two major axes, forming a 2x2 grid. The first dimension is various topics ranging across the field of management, e.g. hiring, feedback, coaching, etc. Across the second dimension are 4 stylistic “treatments” of each topic: koans; theoretical approach; personal stories; and practice ideas.

The purpose of this grid is twofold. First is a psychological trick for me, it splits up content into smaller pieces with just enough structure that makes them easier to write. Second, it creates a nice system for identifying gaps in content and tracking progress towards a “complete” set of content.

I’ll be talking in first person but I intend to stay semi-anonymous for now.Since I’ll be sharing it with people in real life I’ll never be completely anonymous; however, I’ll take any simple step to make it more difficult to identify me from purely online resources.

Where I tell real stories, I’ll refer to people by their role (e.g. “peer manager”) or by pseudonyms (e.g. “Prerna the Product Manager”).

The name comes from the short story Friction, by Will McIntosh.