Thoughts on work, hiring, and leadership.

A resume can show what someone has done. It is harder to show how they think.

A resume has to make it through an ATS and then make sense to a person who may only look at it for a few seconds. I understand why companies need a way to narrow down applicants.

But that process can favor the person whose experience is easiest to explain. Broad experience is useful when problems do not stay inside one department, but it is difficult to fit that into two pages without leaving out something important or including too much.

An interview is supposed to uncover how someone thinks, solves problems, and what they may be capable of taking on next. Unfortunately, the resume usually decides who gets one.

Someone who does not speak much may be learning more than everyone else in the room.

I do not assume the person talking the most knows the most. Some people are listening, asking themselves what is missing, or trying to understand the room before adding another opinion.

That can look like a lack of confidence. Sometimes it is judgment. I trust people who know when to speak, when to ask a question, and when they still need more information.

Capable people are most valuable when they are allowed to disagree.

I like to surround myself with people who are better than I am at certain things. I have hired people for exactly that reason.

There is not much value in bringing knowledgeable people into the room if you only listen when their answer matches yours. I want people who catch things I miss and will tell me when they think I am wrong.

The business should not depend on one person to keep moving.

A leader can be useful and still become a constraint. When every answer, approval, and problem routes through one person, the company may look controlled while becoming more fragile.

The goal is not to make the leader less important. It is to build clear ownership, capable managers, and practical systems so the work can keep moving and improve without waiting for one person.

Growth usually breaks at the handoffs.

Departments can be working hard and still create avoidable problems when ownership, information, and decisions do not move cleanly between them.

Clear owners, shared numbers, specific definitions of complete, and known escalation points make the critical handoffs easier to manage as a company grows.

What good operations looks like when nobody notices it.

Some of my best days as an operator were the days when nobody needed me. A quiet day can say more about an operation than a dramatic one.

Good operations is often the invisible work that lets people make decisions, keeps departments connected, and prevents the same problems from needing to be rescued over and over.

The Elephant and the Room

We tend to focus on the elephant. What it is, who's responsible, and why nobody wants to talk about it. Even when nobody says anything, people still form opinions. I've done that myself.

But what about the room?