Leading on Nicolas Nowinski

History Does Not Predict the Future

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 03:13:07 +0000

History is far less useful than many assume. It creates the illusion of predictability only once outcomes are already known.

Citizen Developers Have Always Existed

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 18:06:30 +0000

When IT leaders push back on “citizen development” they are just displaying their closed mindedness and incompetence. Every successful organization is - right now, today - full of citizen developers, people using whatever technology tools they have available (and often finding ways to get around IT limitations to get additional tools) to get their job done.

If you don’t enable your workforce to create solutions for themselves they will still find a way to create them. No organization has the budget to solve every use case with centralized IT. Workers don’t have a choice, they have a job to get done and they’ll get it done - with or without IT’s support or blessing.

Normality Is Not For The Future

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 15:30:45 +0000

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”

― Vincent van Gogh Too many people spend their time seeking normality and the false security it provides. In reality, normality is a front - it makes you think you are safe, while providing no safety net at all. For when you need a safety net, normality will leave you there unprepared and inexperienced to change direction, take the other fork in the road, challenge the status quo, or make change happen.

Gender, Pay, and Promotion in the US Federal Workforce

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 18:40:45 +0000

Interesting original research by Maria Droganova on the historical differences in pay in the US Federal Government (civilian) workforce and how it is impacted by the gender of leadership.

I found the significant impact of supervisor gender to be most interesting. From a manager/leader side it is a strong indicator that unconscious bias is real, and we must actively manage against it in how we manage. From the worker side, it might indicate that you should target having a same-gender manager to maximize rewards. I find that in offices where all supervisors are men, male wages are on average 10.6% higher than female wages. In contrast, in offices where all supervisors are women, the wage gap in favor of men disappears and becomes 3.2% in favor of women due to a 7.1% increase in female wages and a 6.7% decline in male wages. Also, the gender of an executive (a higher level supervisor) has a lesser impact on wages than the gender of regular supervisors. However, the gender of an executive has a greater impact on wages of supervisors than on wages of non-supervisors, which is consistent with the theory of mentorship. On a personal note, I’ve not found this to be my experience. Having had significant time under both male and female direct managers. My experience is just anecdotal and anecdotal doesn’t mean much, always look to the research.

Hire Nice People To Build Effective Teams

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 11:12:53 +0000

I saw this tweet from the Tom Peters (@tom_peters), the management guru, the other day and it really struck a cord with me.

https://twitter.com/tom_peters/status/914155487595245569

I can’t say I always felt that way, there was a time I would have put “nice person” lower down on my criteria for hiring someone. My younger self would have said nice is nice but smarts are way smarter. I still believe smarts are important (as is drive, motivation, passion) but I have come to firmly believe nice matters a lot.