"There is more uncertainty than certainty. About how to use AI well, what it's really doing to productivity, how roles are shifting, what the impact will be, how things will evolve. Everyone is working it out as they go.", Annie Vella from Finding comfort in the uncertainty.

I have often found myself wanting to 'fix' the discomfort of uncertainty, both for me and for others, by putting pressure on myself to know the answers. It can also feel like a way of maintaining my authority by being someone who 'knows'. This is something I experienced as a leader and now as a coach. Does this resonate for you?

That pressure to appear certain is real, but I think it costs us something. Not just personally, but in what it signals to the people around you about what's safe to say out loud and what room is there for others to contribute.

What would it look like to set that down? What opens up — for you and for your team — when you say, genuinely, I don't know? And what makes that so hard to do?

☕ Coffee with CTOs

This online session is a chance to bring along an uncertainty, challenge or question (and a coffee or tea), make connections with a small group of your peers and get some support and new perspectives.

→ Register here — places are limited.

🔗 Interesting links

Some of the other things that I have read recently include:

• Leading through challenging times: Invaluable advice from Sally Lait on leading teams when the environment is challenging
• Production is where the rigor goes: Charity Majors is clearly not unbiased in this space, but this is an interesting take on where the rigour goes when you are using LLMs to write code
• Interviewing developers: the FutureLearn way: Matthew Valentine-House shares how we interviewed engineers at FutureLearn. In retrospect, I regret the precise format. It was too much stress and too long for some candidates and we made it much shorter after this. But I stand by the general principle of making it as much like the work as is possible.

Take care,

J.

→ monkeysthumb.co.uk