GeekMBA360

I met a very unusual shuttle driver last Thursday. It was time for me to bring in my car for a regular maintenance service. Like many auto repair shops, this particular auto shop provided a shuttle ride to where I worked while they worked on my car. The shuttle driver was a lady in her [...]

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In the past few weeks, I keep hearing the same complaint from hard-working and stressed-out product managers: product management is being marginalized in their companies. Case #1: The company is run by sales people. It’s extremely deal driven. The company is doing well. Closing deals. Sales people are becoming more powerful as a result of [...]

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I met Caleb my first day in college. Caleb was a sophomore while I was a freshmen. We ended up taking at least one class together every semester until Caleb graduated. I was a computer science major, and Caleb studied economics. But, computer was Caleb’s hobby since he was a little kid. So, he took [...]

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My phone rang. Looking at the number on the phone display, I knew it was from Jeff, director of the group I was going to transfer to. We last spoke exactly 48 hours ago. In the end of our meeting, I officially accepted his offer to join his team and reported directly to him. Somehow [...]

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Have you wondered how performance reviews are conducted behind-the-scene? When I was an individual contributor, I bought into what management told me — setting SMART goals in the beginning of the year. Work hard throughout the year. Write thorough and insightful self-reviews and peer reviews. Get 360-degree feedback from colleagues. And I’ll get a review [...]

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I used to get really frustrated by office politics. I would bring the negative emotions home and feel bad for a long time. Once I complained to a aunt, and she told me a story. She attended a Catholic kindergarten when she was a kid. She wasn’t very popular among her peers. She would feel [...]

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I’m usually a reserved and calm person. But, I cried really hard once at work a little bit over a decade ago. I still remember it vividly. At that time, I just started working as Associates Product Manager at a medium-sized enterprise software company. My job was to manage the Application Programming Interface (API) product. [...]

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In February we published Microsoft Laid-off employees layoff satisfaction survey result. On May 5, Microsoft had its second round of layoffs, let 3,000+ employees go. A number of former Microsoft employees had filled out our survey after the May 5th layoff. Below is a summary of the survey result of Microsoft layoff round II. Which [...]

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I enjoyed reading New York Times best-seller The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. But, I feel that Thomas Friedman painted an overly rosy and simplistic picture of globalization. Let me tell you a true story. I have a friend who works for one of the largest IT outsourcing companies [...]

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In the past few years, I have consulted many friends about their career problems. Here are some common complaints and aspirations: Life sucks. I hate office politics. I’m just not good at it, and I’m sick and tired of it. I feel I’m stuck at my current job. I cannot wait to get out of [...]

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