Mike Mason
on
Conflict is an unavoidable consequence of large collaborative effort toward a common set of goals. We can do a lot to organize teams in a way to avoid too much conflict and we can create a culture that doesn’t break down when conflict arrises but it will occur nonetheless. Conflict occurs when two or more people are in disagreement or experience a clash of interests. It’s normal, and should [...]
Mike Mason
on
Throughout your career you will undoubtedly find yourself in many situations where you will be joining a new team or gaining new team members. A make or break factor in your ability to collaborate effectively with said team and with those new team members is the level of trust you have between one another. Trust is crucially important for product managers, since the members of your team you need to [...]
Mike Mason
on
When I was growing up, the rule of thumb was – there are two things you don’t talk about in social gatherings. 1. Religion2. Politics Why have we stigmatized politics? Perhaps we don’t want to ruin the positive vibes, or hear uncle Larry’s rant about Trudeau. The reality I think is we don’t know where someone will take the conversation and that conceptually, we won’t [...]
Mike Mason
on
Alternative title: We’ve been setting goals all wrong. I recently purchased a few extra credits on Audible and was looking for books to listen to as I ride my bike when I found: A Guide to a Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. My initial thoughts were that the book might have a 50/50 chance of being a self-help book that I would drop after chapter 2. Those thoughts might have been justified [...]
Mike Mason
on
Note. this post comes from a place of introspection that I sometimes find difficult to find the proper wording for. It’s abstract in nature but still paints a picture that is worth not only discovering, but remembering too. This is why I’ve put it in writing. A lot of my recent posts have been about the automatic; decision making that is sometimes out of our control. Instinctual quirks that create [...]
Mike Mason
on
Alternative title: Being happy is mostly dependent on your frame of reference and an invisible force called anchoring. You walk into a 7-Eleven on a scorching day on the hunt for a tasty beverage that will cool you down and quench your unbearable thirst. You see the slushy machine with the Big Gulp sign, and you think to yourself, I haven’t had one of those in a WHILE, I’m going for it. You don’t [...]
Mike Mason
on
Alternate title: Does the (wo)man make the decision, or does the decision make the (wo)man? Decisions. We make decisions every day; every action is the result of a decision, whether we make it consciously or not. My decisions make me who I am, so it’s mind altering to ponder this topic in detail when you discover that many of the decisions you make aren’t made by “you.” We [...]