🍓 Coding and Weaving, Complex Strategy, Objectives vs Goals, Team Communication, AI Code Reviews, Productivity Paradox: TMW #442

Hello again, it's Monday!

I've had a lot of people reach out recently who wanted to understand the format and benefits of our Mentoring Circles for senior technology leaders - that's an easy question to answer, as you can see in the video below. What's harder to put into words is how it feels to be in a Circle. Here's my best effort:

Being part of a Circle feels like you have somewhere safe and confidential to talk regularly about both the endorphin rush of fulfilment and achievement and the weight of responsibility, pressure and scrutiny of leading technology teams in a business setting.

Being part of a Circle feels like you're not alone in facing the challenges you come up against, and that you have a trusted group of friends and peers to validate your worries and help you get on top of them.

Being part of a Circle feels like there's a clearer path to succeeding and enjoying your role as a technology leader, and that you're not an impostor.

We're now recruiting for Circles starting in September and October. If you want to chat with us about Circles, leave us some details here - we're looking forward to chatting with you.

On August 7th, we'll be sitting down with Michelle McDaid to chat about the importance of trust and psychological safety in engineering cultures - if you want to get some important insights into the implications and impact on a culture where employees fear speaking up, raising concerns, or admitting mistakes, you'll want to join Michelle and Emma that lunchtime. 

CTO Craft Bytes: It Starts with Trust - Fireside Chat with Michelle McDaid | CTO Craft

About the EVENT In this online Fireside Chat, Michelle McDaid and Emma Hopkinson-Spark go further into the subject of Michelle’s article on the CTO Craft blog around trust and psychological safety. Highlighting the critical importance of psychological safety in the workplace, particularly within the fast-paced technology industry, Michelle and Emma will look into the implications and impact on a culture where employees fear speaking up, raising concerns, or admitting mistakes. What the significant negative consequences, including stifled innovation, unaddressed risks leading to failures, and a lack of learning and improvement can mean for a business and their own experiences of both the positive and negative impacts where trust is at the heart of the workplace issues. What you’ll learn: A deeper understanding of psychological safety in a professional context, beyond the basic definition. The link between psychological safety and high-performing teams. Practical and actionable strategies for leaders and individuals to build and foster psychological safety within their teams and organisations. How to differentiate between healthy debate/disagreement and a lack of psychological safety that leads to silence. Methods for encouraging open communication and feedback, even when it involves critical perspectives or bad news. The importance of trust as a foundation for psychological safety and how to build and maintain trust within teams. The long-term benefits of investing in psychological safety for organisational success and employee well-being. key info Date: Thursday 7th AugustTime: 12:30pm – 1.30pmLocation: Online REGISTER NOW Speakers Michelle McDaid Founder, The Leading Place Emma Hopkinson-Spark NED & Coach @, CTO Craft REGISTER NOW Only open to CTOs and senior technology leaders. If you’re not sure if that’s you – please drop us a line. No recruiters. CTO Craft reserves the right to cancel tickets for ineligible ticket holders. MORE FROM CTO CRAFT:

CTO Craft

That's it, on with the links! See you next Monday

Andy @ CTO Craft

Nominations Now Open: CTO Craft 100 - Global | CTO Craft

We’re excited to announce that nominations are now open for the Global CTO 100 - a brand new initiative from CTO Craft that celebrates the technology and engineering leaders defining the future of our industry.

CTO CraftMatt Hunt

SPONSORED

Gen AI Training Built For Engineering Teams - Discounted for TMW Subscribers

Skiller Whale is offering live, expert-led Generative AI training designed for engineering teams, with an exclusive discount for CTO Craft community members and TMW subscribers. The programme focuses on empowering engineers to better predict, evaluate and exploit the potential of AI in their work. Delivered in micro-workshops for small groups, it fits around busy schedules and provides hands-on support, and it's tailored to each individual's skill profile. 

Learn More about Your TMW Discount

CTO Craft Con - coming soon!

CTO Craft Con: Berlin 2025

CTO Craft Con will bring together over 200 Chief Technology Officers and other senior technology leaders from the most exciting start-ups, scale-ups, unicorns, and big tech companies to elevate their engineering culture in Berlin

CTO Craft Con: Berlin 2025

CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition

CTO Craft Con will bring together Chief Technology Officers and other senior technology leaders from the most exciting start-ups, scale-ups, unicorns, and big tech companies to elevate their engineering culture in London.

CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition

Here are all the upcoming CTO Craft Con events, along with your exclusive access code for discounted subscriber tickets - see you soon

• CTO Craft Con: Berlin (23 – 24 Sep) Access code: Community-Berlin-25
• CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition (18 – 19 Nov in London) Access code: Community-Finance-25
• CTO Craft Con: London 2026 (10 – 11 March 2026) Access code: Community-Spring-26

Reads of the Week

we have computation because of weaving

craft, innovation, and the lost feminine origins of code

learning-loving & meaning-makingMaalvika

Explain Less, Align More: Explaining tech to non-technical stakeholders

Introduction

MediumAnna J McDougall

CTO Craft Mixers

If you're in one of these cities, we'd love to see you - Mixers are informal networking events, so come along, have a beverage and meet some of the community:

• 🇺🇸 Boston: 31st July from 6pm
  Location: TBC
• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Manchester: 17th September from 6pm
  Location: The Old Monkey, 90 Portland Street, Manchester, England, M1 4GX
• Coming soon: Mixers in London, NYC, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris, Berlin and more

Want to meet other TMW subscribers and CTO Craft Community members in your city? See all upcoming Mixers in cities around the world here.

Leadership, Strategy & Business

People > Principles > Process > Product

The order in which you should prioritize

Fish Food for ThoughtMike Fisher

Guiding the unknown: A compass on how to navigate complex strategic initiatives

Don’t get lost when you embark on a complex strategic journey. Use this framework to structure your thinking and action through ambiguity.

ThoughtworksSilvia Baroni

Is there a difference between an Objective or goal? - Allan Kelly

Objective or gaol? I used to use the two words interchangeably, now I see an important difference.

Allan Kelly - Agile, OKRs and Product Managementallan kelly

Win the war, not every battle

The most successful leaders aren’t the ones who always push things through at any cost, but the ones who know when and why to to accept defeat and give way.

Management-Issues.comAmy Speake

Culture, People & Teams

Communication Currents: How to Read and Enhance Your Team’s Information Flow

Learn to read your team’s communication flow patterns and create conditions for healthy information currents. Practical techniques for leaders to improve team dynamics beyond the Kantor Four Player Model.

Andy CleffAndy Cleff

When Times Get Tough, Make Learning Your Strategic Advantage

Cutting learning and development investment costs more than you think. Discover why smart leaders invest, especially in times of uncertainty.

People Managing PeopleBeth Messich

Why Senior Leaders Should Stop Having So Many One-on-Ones

In most large organizations, a typical CEO’s or senior executive’s calendar is clogged with 1:1 meetings. These are usually seen as necessary for alignment, decision-making, or relationship management. But at the top of an enterprise, the very structure of these meetings is working against the organization’s best interests. While there’s lots of information available about how to optimize or improve your 1:1 meetings, no amount of improvement will help meetings that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. The alternative is to re-engineer the way executive time is used. Instead of relying on 1:1s for operational discussions, CEOs and senior executives should convene small, cross-functional “capability meetings”: 1:2 or 1:3 conversations that reflect how value is actually created.

Harvard Business ReviewRon Carucci

Perception Vs. Perspective when Hiring

I’ve been spending a lot of time diving into our own hiring process lately, and something struck me during candidate interviews. Two candidates would approach the same technical discussion - whether about software architecture, delivery methodologies, or engineering practices - demonstrating similar

LinkedInRussell Ward

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Bridging the Product and Engineering Divide

Learn how top companies align product and engineering through agile methods, shared metrics, and culture shifts to boost innovation and deliver better software.

DZoneRaksha Vashishta

Tokens: The New Oil

What happens when demand exceeds supply? A 3X: Explore/Expand/Extract Perspective

Software Design: Tidy First?Kent Beck

RDEL #102: How Does AI Disrupt Accountability in Code Reviews?

Researchers show that intrinsic drivers like pride and integrity shift in peer review—but disappear when feedback comes from an AI.

Research-Driven Engineering LeadershipLizzie Matusov

Measuring Engineering

Focus on the system, not the individuals?

JoTJeff

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

The Productivity Paradox: How Our Obsession with Efficiency is Making Us Less Productive

Despite our obsession with productivity tools, optimization techniques, and AI solutions, workers are more burned out than ever, working longer hours, and ironically becoming less productive as they spend more time trying to be efficient than actually working efficiently. The research shows that strategic rest, genuine breaks, and being less focused on constant productivity optimization may be the key to actually achieving sustainable high performance.

Allison McMillan/Tavlin Consulting

Self-Authorship: The Art of Trusting Your Own Authority

Self-authorship is the belief that you can rely on your own internal values to make decisions. It’s a powerful personal development skill, but it’s hard to master.

Ness LabsAnne-Laure Le Cunff

Burnout Doesn’t Always Sound Like “I’m Burnt Out”

We tend to think burnout announces itself in loud, obvious ways: breakdowns, breakdowns, dramatic exits, or finally saying, “I can’t do…

Mediumkindswitching

Trajectory > Goals: Why Vision Without Inner Systems Will Always Fail

You don’t aim at a mountain peak; you inhabit the path that carves it.

MediumAlivezen

That’s it!

If you’d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and we’ll be in touch!

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Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone who’d like to receive TMW:

https://techmanagerweekly.com

Have an amazing week!

Andy