Work & Career
Reputation, and how it is actually built
It accumulates from unremarkable behaviour repeated, and the largest single component is whether people can predict you.
Priya Venkatesan
20 articles by Venkatesan
Work & Career
Remote and hybrid work, honestly
The arguments on both sides overstate, and the parts that are genuinely well established are narrower and more useful than either.
Confidence
Confidence and competence are different things
They come apart in both directions, and the social rewards attach to the wrong one.
Work & Career
Delegating without abandoning
The two failure modes are keeping everything and handing it over without context, and both are more common than doing it properly.
Communication
Apologising properly
Most apologies fail on identifiable components, and the research on what makes one effective is unusually practical.
Confidence
Knowing what you are actually good at
Self-assessment is unreliable in known directions, and the corrections are external rather than introspective.
Work & Career
Working with a difficult manager
The relationship with a direct manager predicts job satisfaction more than almost anything else, and it is largely outside your control.
Communication
Explaining something complicated to someone who is not an expert
The main obstacle is that you no longer remember what it was like not to know, and there is a name for that.
Confidence
Speaking up in rooms where you feel junior
The contribution you decided not to make is invisible to everyone, including the people who would have valued it.
Work & Career
The first ninety days in a new role
The instinct is to demonstrate value quickly. The evidence suggests spending the early period differently produces better outcomes.
Communication
Presenting to people who do not want to be there
Most presentations fail because they are structured as information transfer to an audience that is deciding whether to keep listening.
Confidence
Asking for help without feeling diminished by it
People consistently underestimate how willing others are to help, and overestimate how much asking costs them.
Work & Career
Managing sideways: influence without authority
Most of the work that requires cooperation involves people who do not report to you, and the tools are different.
Communication
Saying no without damaging the relationship
Most people agree to things they do not want to do because refusing feels like a larger act than it is.
Communication
Meetings that are worth having
Most meeting advice is about running them better. The larger gain is in having fewer of them, deliberately.
Work & Career
Negotiating without being unpleasant
Most people negotiate badly because they treat it as a contest, prepare only their position, and never ask what the other side actually needs.
Communication
Writing that gets read
Most workplace writing fails at the first two sentences, and the fix is structural rather than stylistic.
Confidence
Performing under scrutiny
Choking under pressure has identifiable mechanisms, and the interventions that help are specific rather than general encouragement.
Communication
Difficult conversations: the structure that helps
The hard part is almost never the words. It is having the conversation at all, and starting it in a way the other person can hear.
Communication
Listening properly, which is harder than it sounds
Most people listening are composing their reply, and the difference is detectable by everyone except the person doing it.