Being a Mentor

• You have to be careful to communicate as well as not to hurt. it has to result in improvement / fill the gap / not create more gaps
• Cautiousness / Respect / Tolerant
• Speak up without worrying. Don't overthink
• Don't struggle to give tough feedback / Be Authentic and Sensitive

Keep Mentoring!!!

Good Read - What we learned in studying the most effective founders

A very good inspiring read - What we learned in studying the most effective founders

Crux is "manage the work, and make time to stay ahead of their industry"

• Treat people like volunteers - Pick things based on priority / issues / challenges, Not to be managed but enable them to pick
• Protect the team from distractions - Focus on key things
• Minimize unnecessary micromanagement - Focus on deliverable not on timely reports
• Invite disagreement - Get to hear all concerns, relook and sort out differences than letting it boil

Things to Practice from the list

• Described the impact of the work to the team
• Intellectual challenge / passion / financial wallet
• Communicate carefully, and check if employees understand correctly
• Post-mortem discussion or a note of gratitude to collaborators
• Autonomy and trusting the team to pull you in as necessary
• Collaboration required is high
• Set the destination, but have them lay out the path
• We need to achieve these 5 things this week/month/quarter. Figure out what sequence makes sense
• Have honest, no-ego conversations
• Interview Confidence ≠ competence

Keep Thinking!!!!

Manager / Mentor / Guide

The daily tasks of a mentor/manager/architect are - how you unblock your Team, the Quality of ideas, and the ability to foresee risks before it actually happens.

Knowledge management as a mentor has a lot of learning curve both ongoing, past lessons

• Read / Learn to collect ideas
• Learn to unblock when your Team is Struck
• Learn to understand trends/markets/offerings
• Code and share working solutions :)
• Do not just forward links but read, code, try and share

There is no work-life balance. After 20 years still ideas, and inspirations come after work, driving, and sleeping :)

Like in FightClub "You are never really asleep, You are never really awake, feels like insomnia"

Keep Thinking!!!

Guide / Mentor / Manager - Discussions, Deliverables, Alignment, Vision

Taking inspiration from link

Adding my perspectives/answers for the questions

1. First question is always: “What do you think?”

• Get all perspectives

2. Frequently called upon to be coach, sounding board, or devil’s advocate.

• Data-Driven Decisions

3. Has shipped code with different development processes.

• Waterfall
• Weekly Sprint
• 3 Week Sprint
• 3 Month Cycle
• Customer-focused releases

4. Has examples of things that have failed but they’ll try again.

• Data Issues
• Lack of coordination between Teams

5. Has strong opinions but is willing to change their mind.

• Data Driven
• Referenced Answers not opinions
• Tried opinions vs Read Opinions

6. Unblocks all issues (not just engineering ones).

• Need to be a Review / Idea provider
• Ask first principles deep questions

7. Regularly identifies and destroys time wasters.

• Pick priority items from a list of priorities

8. Says things like “This will take three weeks, but if we make this change we can test in two days.”

• In consulting its all hacking work, So yes time vs delivery is a key

9. Lets the customer own the problem but take ownership of the solution.

• Think of a long term cascade effect not a short term fix

10. Takes all of the blame and none of the credit.

• Failure teaches more, It's ok to fail

11. Available during a crisis.

• Consistent connect to explore / discuss options

12. Can dive deep into a few things per quarter.

• Build on your core interests and deliver quality ideas/patents

13. Can try solutions to problems they’ve never encountered before.

• Many times had to stretch its ok to try new avenues

From Link 

Liked this key definition

• Process: What occurs when?
• People: Who’s involved and how are they motivated?
• Technology: What will we use to get there?

Career = Sum of Multiple Perspectives

• Career as Dev - Managing XBOX supply Chain DB. 1TB database 15 years back. Building Warranty Engine, Touchpoint integration
• Support - Application Support Analyst for Nestle handling 100+ Enterprise Apps
• Testing/performance - Load Testing for Holiday Season, API Testing, DB Blocking / Perf Tuning
• Data Science - Recommendations, Feature Lake, Vision, Retail, Multiple MVP
• Domains - Retail, Ecom, SupplyChain

Build your portfolio across multiple perspectives. Taking knowledge vs Field knowledge vs Willing to deep dive and solve all are different skills :)

I didn't build a career with Tools knowledge :)

Be Curious, Unlearn, Relearn and Be open to keep yourself learning new things. Be better everyday :)

Keep Exploring!!!