All Reviews
This course is thoughtful and practical. Edmond and Jean do a great job of explaining why lack of alignment is a root cause of not being productive as an engineer. They also provide a framework for how to build alignment, as well as concrete tools to do so. I have already been able to apply this iteratively to my work relationships and it is making a positive difference. It's helped me approach my work relationships more strategically and be more explicit about building alliances and discover what matters to people.
Engineer at Stripe
The workshop had a lot of valuable insights about effective communication and some tools specifically for getting to the root of what motivates people. Techniques like asking powerful questions have helped me in interpersonal relationships. I can imagine how it could add value to my team at work—I want all of them to take it!
Engineer at Airbnb
This is not your typical training program! Others seem to be a long list of tactics divorced from real life. This workshop series shared useful tactics contextualized in self-awareness, with concrete actions our current and emerging engineering leaders could incorporate into their day-to-day work.
Head of Engineering Operations at Medium
As a tech lead, I have struggled with deciding what to spend my time on. I have often felt that every minute not spent writing or reviewing code is an inappropriate use of time. I have tried to make sure that my plans are as perfect as possible before sharing them to reduce the amount of feedback. This often backfired.
The leadership program has helped me to reach clarity on my role. I realized that I can bring more value to my team by focusing my energy on what I’m good at; for example, setting and communicating strategy. It also helped me to realize the value of understanding and acknowledging what is important to other people before creating a plan.
Tech Lead at Dropbox
I've spent a lot of time in various trainings and coaching sessions (including the first year of an Harvard Business School MBA!) Jean and Edmond did a great job of pulling out specific, high impact communication techniques and creating a safe environment to practice them in. I'd highly recommend going to their workshop with a friend, coworker, or cofounder.
Co-Founder and CEO of Dark Inc.
I work with a team that is extremely diverse in their level of experience and communication styles and struggled to find a leadership style that serves them all well. The Co Leadership workshop taught us better ways to communicate one-on-one and to align on values. By far the largest impact the workshop had was that it empowered a new group of people at Medium to change and improve things within the organization.
Tech Lead at Medium
The workshop really showed me how simple questions and prompts can help you clear the air and dig deeper into how a person is feeling or what they are thinking. I believe it will help me grow my relationship with my coworkers and really gain a lot of insight into the health of our team.
Staff Infrastructure Engineer at Lever
I've done a lot of reading around leadership and related skills building, but I still learned some completely new tools here. Specifically, my skills at asking open-ended questions experienced a *major*, immediate leveling-up. We talk about 'aligning values' a lot but I honestly had meager-to-no ideas on what that can look like in practice. Now, I get to the heart of why a team member prefers one solution or approach over another much more quickly, whether it's in the context of a technical, product, or organizational discussion. Conversations both flow better and feel better — you're learning more about each other and building relationships for the long run, not just simply solving the exact problem right in front of you.
Engineering Manager at Stripe
Like playing a piano, the concepts taught in the class are simple, such as "use the word 'what' and 'notice something'". However, mastery of the concepts take practice and a good coach. Edmond and Jean are fantastic at helping us take our conversations to the next level.
Senior Engineering Manager at Capital One
The workshop had a strong positive effect on Medium’s informal engineering leaders to date, leading to more open and honest discussion about our current challenges. In the company all-hands meeting after the last session, there was a noticeable uptick in how lively and healthy the questions to executives were. The group is well prepared to address and help fix the company’s hardest cultural barriers after the workshop!
Staff Engineer at Medium
My initial skepticism was regarding how much impact the workshop would make on our day-to-day work. But the workshop had an unexpected result — our group continued to facilitate difficult conversations and we felt empowered to take appropriate actions within the company. After the workshop, we set up a Slack channel with the group to discuss matters in a safe space. We even took it a step further and encouraged each other to ask some serious questions at our all-hands. Thanks for facilitating and educating our group!
Senior Software Engineer at Medium
I’m not yet an eng lead but have already started working towards that goal. This workshop helped me build a stronger relationship with other emerging leaders at Medium. I also realized that the group was feeling the same tensions as me thus being valid. Since then I’ve started to raise more tensions, not just the one I have but also those collectively felt. I’ve also learned the importance of building a good strong alliance with your team helps everyone in the long run.
Software Engineer at Medium
I went into the Foundations workshop open to the experience, and excited to add to skills learned from previous training as a personal coach years ago, and wasn't disappointed. I found the setting to be particularly helpful - surrounded by colleagues with whom I interact daily, rather than strangers trying to invent a context. I loved the exercises on identifying our superpowers, and igniting them, and have already designed alliances with multiple colleagues.
Head of IT at Medium
I’ve known for a while that people tend to see me as more even keeled and steady. But hearing everyone’s stories of how that affected them made me view this strength in a different light. Seeing how motivated and confident people were after hearing positive feedback about their strengths made me want to focus on giving more positive feedback.
This summer I’ll be managing a Code2040 intern and I feel more confident in my ability to listen, mentor, and build a successful relationship using the tools I learned in Jean and Edmond’s workshop.
Engineer at Medium
I was concerned that the workshop would not be a good use of my time. However, I was wrong. I learned skills at the workshop that I will use throughout life, at both work and at home. The biggest impact of the learnings for me was that I learned to communicate better with those closest to me and build a deeper bond with them by understanding what's important to them.
Growth Lead at Mystery Science, CTO of Growth Champ
I was concerned that the workshop would be too nebulous to be immediately useful. That was not the case. The communication tools I learned and practiced during the workshop were immediately useful in my personal life, and have already helped me have more meaningful conversations at work.
Senior Software Engineer at Lever
I thought bringing a partner would be a huge hurdle, but it turned out to be a huge benefit. We started out the day with simple exercises, but as we went into the afternoon, it was helpful to practice with someone with whom we had shared context.
Director of Growth at Mystery Science
This workshop reinforced and clarified great techniques for having challenging conversations.
Software Engineer at Airbnb
My biggest concern was that I'll come out of the workshop with yet another theory of communication. The workshop ended up being very experiential with a lot of exercises that showed me how to use the tools in the real world. In its essence, the workshop wasn't even so much about work, it was about paying attention to people in our lives — our colleagues, our friends, our family. I learned how to use conversations to bring people closer, to understand where they are coming from, and to share your story.
Staff Software Engineer at Reddit
My biggest concern going into this workshop was that the material would end up being not practically applicable. The workshop did a great job of making sure that we were able to practice and get a feel for how to use different skills, and also gave enough time for discussion of how to apply them in real-life situations.
One of the biggest struggles I have in my workplace relationships is dealing with others who don't immediately see eye to eye with me. This workshop definitely showed me how to deal with those situations and gave me a good set of tools to use to build alignment.
Lead Software Engineer at Coupa
The biggest concern was that it could be too much out of my comfort zone because of a language barrier and being an introvert who hadn't been to similar workshops.
The impact from the leadership experience has been very positive because it taught me the importance of alignment with our peers and communication skills that encourage people to open up. I've been learning what is important to everyone from our team and I can feel that the team is more energetic than before... People around me and myself all feel happier because we open up to each other more.
Founder of GoodNotes
My biggest concern was that it would be a seminar where I'd be given a lot of pointers that work “in theory” without any practical demonstrations how these pointers could actually work.
I think the experience gave me insight based on the discussions of communication techniques and then the follow on demonstrations of these techniques. It gave me understanding of some things I can do and how it may change the relationship I have with people at work for the better.
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at AMD
I liked how the workshop helped me understand how to be more direct and transparent about communication. Sometimes once you hear the advice you think 'wow of course, that was obvious.' These things always feel much more difficult in the moment though and it really helps to have a framework for thinking about effective communication.
The workshop gave me some new perspective and I've already used aspects of what we talked about to improve some of my relationships with coworkers. I'd recommend that to anyone.
Engineering Manager at Apollo GraphQL
Edmond and Jean came across as well-planned, cohesive co-presenters. They both have the ability to break complex conversations to simple, first-principles based approach. It was an insightful day which provided the right amount of actionable tools for the attendees to build upon. I highly recommend them!
Director of Engineering at Elastic Cloud
Prior to taking the course, I struggled with "Implicit versus Explicit expectations" within my organization. At the time, I didn't know how to define it; I just knew our small but growing team wasn't firing on all cylinders and was struggling to meet my expectations at times. Defining "implicit versus explicit expectations" has been the single biggest "aha" moment I've had in quite some time.
As engineers, we hide behind backlogs, kanban boards, daily stand-ups, sprint planning, status reports, etc. and delude ourselves into thinking we are communicating and leading our teams and organizations. These tools all serve a valuable purpose, but effective communication does not begin (or end) here.
Building and maintaining alignment within our teams, departments and organizations is a vital part of effective and healthy communication. Taking the time to build these alliances, to truly understand motivations of stakeholders and to explicitly state shared goals and understandings is how we can all start to communicate and lead more effectively and makes all the other tools we as an industry rely upon that much more useful.
Product Development Director at CAPS
Edmond and Jean provide short and to-the-point videos of the tools and methods that are very easy to understand. In the course you have the ability to practice these in experiential sessions with other like-minded participants. The tools have a profound impact on how I communicate and align with people, that really helps in any relationship.
Being an engineer and more focused on technical aspects, I have always seen relationships as something that happens coincidentally. In the course, I learned an easy-to-understand but highly powerful framework that helps me have very meaningful and impactful conversations. I now know how to intentionally create shared alignment with people and make sure we move towards the same goal.
The tools we learned are really simple and powerful. A lot of people think of themselves as not being the super talented communicator. What I really like is that you don't have to be naturally gifted or super talented — you just can use these simple tools and practice, and that's all it takes to improve a lot of the issues we've had.
Software Engineer at mimacom
People or leaders or role models who communicate really well, who build alignment with their teams — now I understand that there is something I can do to become one of those people. There is something I can actually do to design my relationships. I'm more in control. That is clear to me now. It's terrific. I love it.
VP of SaaS Operations at Aurea Software
The biggest advantage this workshop has over others is the emphasis on "co-leadership". By bringing a partner with you, we're able to apply the tools & frameworks we learn while they're still fresh, on actual problems where we can go deep because we feel comfortable going into the details of the situation.
I've been to other workshops where people are uncomfortable sharing full details of the situation, and we end up creating a hypothetical solution for a hypothetical problem, and neither of us really know how to apply it to real life. Edmond & Jean's workshop allows us to tackle real problems with the coworkers or partners we bring, which in turn lets us further continue towards our solution after the workshop.
Engineering Manager at Axoni
The workshop gave me great tools to be more aware of my own work-needs and work-goals. This will also be helpful for me to understand the work-needs and work-goals of the people that I mentor or lead.
Senior Software Engineer at Dropbox
The workshop taught me useful framework and language that I will continually use for healthy and happy relationships with my colleagues. With those tools, it feels less awkward to approach people and talk about expectations and assumptions. It fosters communication that otherwise may not have happened and helps the team to work even effectively.
Engineering Manager at Quip
The leadership experience opened my eyes to not only think about the current work but many other important things about people and our team.
It makes me feel more confident and comfortable in communicating and building good relationships with peers.
Software Engineer at Quip
I have tried for years to be a change agent alone on my own. Those days are over. I'm trying to find alignment with other people — finding people who are motivated to change something with me and finding small teams to work on change. I definitely spent too much energy alone. It has been a big relief for me to learn that I can strategically form alliances around the changes I want to see.
Software Development Lead at John Deere
I really enjoyed participating in this program. The interactive case driven nature taught me broadly applicable strategies for cross and within-team interactions. At the same time I also learnt concrete scripts that I could use to collaborate with co-workers to better align on shared goals.
Security Data Scientist at Dropbox
Edmond co-led a workshop for the Engineering Managers at Quip during a very formative period for our team. We learned useful skills for quickly getting to someone's true motivations and individual values and were immediately able to apply them to our day-to-day responsibilities as coaches. In a few hours, we built relationships and learned more about each other than I would have thought possible during the normal course of work. I can't recommend this experience enough!
Head of Engineering at Quip
[The] workshop was phenomenal. Just phenomenal. Not one minute was wasted, and all the takeaways are being used in our company today. We spent time diving into coaching tactics and walked away with techniques that we could use in our daily routines...By the end of the workshop, we were closer as a team, more confident as a group, better listeners, and ready to have more meaningful conversations with our reports or with anyone who has a relationship with us.
Engineering Manager at Quip
I'm most excited about having a common framework for dealing with awkward or tough situations. It's almost like an interface or an API for relationships. It's the greatest thing. I'm not a hugely extroverted person, so having this kind of tool is invaluable. It's just super super good.
My biggest concern was finding the material too difficult or vague for everyday use. Happily all the modules are built for singular use as well as combined with other modules for maximum impact. The structured practice and well constructed videos made the material easy to digest and changed the way I think about relationships across the board.
IT Operations Manager at rateGenius
After the course, I feel that just like software, communication and keeping working relationships healthy are also skills you want to develop. You have problems, you have designs, and you have to maintain it. Otherwise, it will create all kinds of problems. Before, I used to think if you can talk, you can communicate, but that's not true. Just because you can write doesn't mean you can write code. There's a gap there that has to be filled — this is something that needs work, and you have to learn how to do it and practice. I think that's my biggest understanding after the whole course.
Senior Principal Engineer at Cadence Design Systems
In just a few weeks, Edmond and Jean transformed fifteen Quip engineers into empowered leaders. After going through the program, the engineers spearheaded initiatives to improve team processes around new hire onboarding, product review, and code deployment. I also notice that my reports who went through the program are more comfortable broaching difficult topics with their teammates to build alignment. Even months later, I see the engineers self-organize at lunch to support one another as they propose solutions to the challenges facing our team. Edmond and Jean helped our engineers build a close community, discover a shared vocabulary for approaching interpersonal challenges, and practice wielding their influence to improve our team’s culture.
Engineering Manager at Quip
Going through the Co Leadership training with my coworkers was a powerful experience. We make up so many stories constantly about each other and operate based on those assumptions and stories without questioning them. The program helped to direct the dialog toward clearing any assumptions and misunderstandings rather than getting people's guards up to defend their actions. By the end of the program, we not only developed deeper understanding and relationships with each other, but also gained vocabulary and skill sets to identify and resolve some of the hardest challenges in our working relationships.
Tech Lead at Quip
For each of my reports in the Co Leadership program this year, we designed strong alliances that enabled us to more deeply understand one another from a professional and personal perspective. The program helped each of them to take a step back and examine their career ambitions and how they might work toward them more intentionally — and, as their manager, I felt more empowered to help them to evaluate their progress toward those goals. At the end of the program, the team undertook initiatives that turned ideas into concrete action with a thoughtful group-architected proposal. We've been able to realize significant improvements to our engineering and product organization as a result.
Engineering Manager at Quip
Our engineering team invited Jean and Edmond to run a half-day leadership experience at our offsite, and we had a very positive experience. They helped us learn some of the basics of leadership and made everyone more aware of communicating clearly and also discovering the needs and priorities of other team members. We're a highly distributed team and sometimes echo chambers form in some of the regions. We learned how to create alliances across the ocean and listen better to each other, especially when collaborating from far away. The fact that Jean and Edmond are engineers themselves, helped tremendously to keep the conversation real - no fluff, no theoretical gimmicks that sound interesting, but aren't necessarily applicable. We learned pure tooling that can be used by any engineer straight away.
Founder and Chief Architect, ShiftLeft Inc.
The Engineering Leadership program provided our team with frameworks and a shared language with which to have more effective conversations and working relationships. As an example, I now use the “Designing an Alliance” conversational framework whenever I start working on a project with someone. The framework guides us to learn invaluable things about each other's expectations, goals, and preferences that would have otherwise never been made explicit.
Product Engineer at Quip
I've been to many professional development trainings but none of them provided as many actionable frameworks as Edmond and Jean shared. Armed with these tools, I feel more confident in my ability to get unstuck when I'm at an impasse with a key stakeholder.
Product Manager at Zillow Group
I came in to this training with high hopes. I was hoping the training material would be practical and not all-too specific in the context of the company I work for. I wanted the training to apply to life in and out of work; as most principles of leadership apply to many angles in life. The Co Leadership team hit a freakin' home run in this regard. Also, the pace of their delivery was very easy to follow and digest. The visuals were so good and painted the lessons easily in to my brain. I walk away from this training with some honest-to-goodness nuggets of practical wisdom that I've already put in to use. If ever I got the opportunity to attend this course again, I would totally jump on the chance!!!
Tech Lead at Dropbox
This course is definitely a must-have for engineers transitioning into a leadership role. I was always focusing on my technical skills for making my impact and didn't think too much about my social and relationship skills. This course made it perfectly clear that those skills can easily be learned. Edmond and Jean packed so much valuable information together and the frameworks they provided made it easier for me to plan, prioritize, and communicate clearly in my day to day responsibilities.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
I used to think that a tech lead role was less structured than a more technical role like engineering. This workshop taught me that making the implicit explicit reveals the tech lead role as highly technical and structured.
The course has given me the ability to practically form-fit my role as a tech lead based on my strengths and passions for the good of my team’s needs. I now see a clear path to being effective at my role and helping my team to be effective at theirs.
Senior Data Engineer at Shipt
The course's content is delivered in such way that helps a lot of us engineers to systematize and actually apply tools to skills that seamed unreachable — in particular, soft skills belonging to other kind of people. And now we can own it.
Software Engineer at Zoom
In going through Building Alignment, I was able to confirm a long-held suspicion that a significant part of decision making is emotionally-driven. Facts and data are important, but they must be tied effectively to your stakeholders’ deeply-held concerns in order to gain alignment. Edmond and Jean’s workshop highlights this consideration and more importantly provides a systematic approach to unpacking these types of scenarios. This has added another dimension to the way that I approach my work, especially for larger projects and initiatives where access to stakeholders is limited.
Engineering Manager at Pager Duty
Having little in the way of mentors, I had no clue what I was even supposed to be doing as a leader. Seeing Jean and Edmond apply techniques live and workshopping some of the situations facing my team back home, I was able to see the leadership in what I was already doing. Learning the techniques boosted my confidence even further, because now I have a clear roadmap how to apply my strengths and passions to shape my role into what works best for myself and my team.
Senior Software Engineer at Collective Data
Having worked through Edmond and Jean's workshop on the foundations of technical leadership, I now feel empowered to work through the challenges of technical leadership in a more intentional and deliberate way. There are patterns in the things you can do to be a more effective tech lead, and there are ways to understand, discuss, and execute on them systematically; I am much more confident in my ability to do this going forward.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Before the course, I struggled with a lot of self-doubt based on my perception of what a Tech Lead is supposed to be. The course showed me that I'm in charge of defining what my role as a Tech Lead looks like. This allows me to focus on my passions and skills that bring the team the most value.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Edmond and Jean put together an amazing workshop. Their presentation format of Explain, Demo, and Practice worked wonders and really proved how powerful their exercises were. In just 15 minutes of one exercise, my co-worker and I cracked through the problem of a non-productive recurring meeting we were having. And just two weeks later we implemented the changes and found resounding success! I highly recommend Edmond and Jean's work especially for leaders from different departments who work together on a daily basis.
Engineering Manager at Pager Duty
I've repeatedly gone back to the alignment tools we covered in the Building Alignment workshop. The tools covered in the workshop have given me a mental model for navigating the varied interests I've encountered initiating a larger, cross-company billing/payments project. I'm also using what I learned to coach team leads and PMs on techniques for overcoming sprint-to-sprint obstacles that often get in the way of us doing our best work.
Senior Engineering Manager at Patreon
A big part of my role requires working with stakeholders of other teams and areas of the business. In the past, I’ve found myself assuming alignment was in place with certain colleagues when in hindsight, it is clear it was not. It is clearer to me that so much of building alignment is about taking the implicit and making it explicit. The leadership experience has empowered me to get into the mindset of what is truly important to those stakeholders first — what are their dreams? their pain points? — so that we can achieve alignment and move forward.
IT Manager at Shopify
Prior to this course, I didn't have a good handle on what technical leadership looked like for me personally. I knew what other people thought of as technical leadership but I didn't see myself entirely in terms of those limited archetypes. This course gave me the tools to define what tech leadership for me and authentically pursue it. The biggest shift in mindset for me has been from thinking "tech leadership looks like X, Y, or Z; pick one" to "tech leadership looks like A-Z; pick all you want." Now, I can participate in team planning responsibilities and feel like it's part of technical leadership instead of detracting from it.
Senior Software Engineer at Dropbox
The workshop helped shine a light on the often murky depths of expectations of being a tech lead. Jean and Edmond provided the space and tools to explore the what, why and how of technical leadership. I greatly appreciate their gentle yet insightful approach and how they blended the material with practical exercises. I can’t wait to see how my team will be inspired and challenged to conquer higher peaks even as we put these lessons into practice.
Engineer at Dropbox
This is the training that I wish I'd received years ago when I first started working on my leadership skills. Before the course, I wanted to improve my leadership skills but wasn't quite sure how or where to start. The 2-day course provided a great mix of frameworks, principles, and practices that actually feel useful — and an environment that gave me the opportunity to absorb the information and see it in practice. Since taking the course, I've been genuinely excited to start applying what I've learned. I've found myself seeking opportunities to have more explicit ownership conversations for projects I own and more actively applying the effective leadership mindsets to my team's direction and efforts.
Site Reliability Engineer at Dropbox
Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership crystallised how important it is to understand the strengths and passions of people on my team, and it gave me a framework for making these discussions highly effective. Before, I was shy about delegating. Now, I see that it's really a two-way conversation about finding the best person to do the work and giving that person the requisite trust and autonomy. I highly recommend this course for anyone looking to move into a leadership role. Hell, I wish I would have taken this course before I mentored my first summer intern!
Software Engineer at Dropbox
This course was the best 16-hour investment of my professional career. The most valuable takeaway for me was the frameworks Jean and Edmond presented to actively think about my role as a technical leader. As an engineer I would rather focus on writing code, and found it really easy to procrastinate on communication and planning. The frameworks they taught and the chance to practice them in class served as excellent prompts. The second takeaway was identifying the various roles a tech lead can take and being conscious about which role one is operating in. Actively thinking about this allows you to guide conversations so that everyone walks away with a positive outcome.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Thanks Edmond and Jean for creating such a simultaneously impactful yet accessible workshop! They break difficult conversations into easily understandable steps, which I found really useful. I had the opportunity to try out many simple experiments in workplace communication, learning to better understand other people and build alignment. I was impressed with how accessible the material and the exercises were — I would recommend this to even the most skeptical of managers or tech leads on my teams and I wouldn't be worried about turning them off.
Former Research Engineer at Google
As a Tech Lead, I always found that the successes of my projects were directly correlated with how well I was able to communicate, delegate, and prioritize. However, it was never very clear to me whether and how I did these things well or poorly. Co Leadership made these unknowns tangible for me. What's clearer to me now are the specific tools and talking points I can use to be a clear, effective communicator and leader.
Senior Mobile Engineer at Dropbox
One of the biggest insights I took away from the workshop is that there is no right or specific way to be a tech lead. In order to really be effective, you need to find a balance between your passions, strengths, and the needs of your team.
What helped me the most was the communication tools that we practiced. They made me think about things more productively and helped me come up with concrete action items. This leadership workshop gave me great insights on how to leverage my strengths and better influence my team.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Prior to attending ‘Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership,’ I had always looked at leadership in particular and soft skills in general as an art or just plain natural-born talent. After attending this course, however, I am convinced that there can be an element of structure for soft skills as a whole and that there are efficient tools to be an effective technical leader. I highly recommend this course for all aspiring and current technical leaders and look forward to attending other forthcoming courses by Co Leadership.
Senior Principal Data Engineer at Novartis
I enjoyed the workshop thoroughly! One of the things I usually struggle with is being explicit. The tools Edmond and Jean taught me in this course made it much easier to make assumptions and expectations explicit and are helping me to be more successful as a tech leader.
Senior Software Engineer at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
I have never been completely clear as to what Tech Leadership meant. I am happy to say that this course helped clarify it to a great extent and helped me identify a personal path for progress.
The most important personal change since the course is that I am more deliberate about things now. Whether it's team meetings, retrospectives, or simple 1-on-1s, I find myself being more explicit about common goals and trying to understand everyone to establish a common ground. All in all, this course has greatly accelerated my progress towards being a better Tech Leader.
Software Engineer at Coinbase
With the Foundations of Tech Leadership course, it was great to meet and practice with like-minded peers on some topics that have been difficult to discuss. I learned how to have better conversations with my teammates, to better understand what they want to accomplish, and how I can help them. I learned new tools and lots of specific ideas around how to collaborate with teammates and then got to practice with them immediately, to actually cement them in my mind.
Site Reliability Engineer at Yelp
Prior to this course it was easy for me to feel parallyzed when facing ambiguity. A cross-functional need would come up, and since I didn't have a clear relationship to the team on the other side I would waste time wondering what I'm supposed to do, rather than what I might do. The course showed me that there is always another step to take, or a question I can ask to drive solutions and have a better result. Also seeing how much my experience resonated with the other folks in the course was enlightening - these are hard problems for most people, but now I feel better equipped.
Senior Software Engineer @ Coinbase
I attended this course back in October. It was very good. Coincidentally, the week after, I needed to lead a cross-functional team through a complex challenge. I applied some of what I'd learned, and made the whole process of aligning much smoother than I'd expected.
Vice President, Customer Experience Engineering
The workshop helped me structure key aspects of navigating the landscape of tech leadership. I realized the value of explicitly defining the often implicitly defined tech leadership role. I loved the structured approach to building designed alliance and impactful collaboration. The training material was insightful and the hands-on sections were practical and engaging. I would recommend the Co Leadership course to any new or experience tech leads!
Tech Lead at Uber
Our cohort continues to meet and use the skills introduced, where they discuss gaps in the organization and how they can impact them. I’ve also seen members of our cohort design alliances with others in the organization when they join a new team or project. These trainings not only taught our leadership vital skills, but also continues to drive them to action in a way that continues to positively impact our organization.
Head of Engineering Operations at Medium
The biggest thing I took away from Building Alignment was just how human we all are, and how understanding and unearthing the motivators and stories of everyone involved in a relationship can help remove obstacles to alignment. Stopping to think about what drives the other person (or people) is not something I used to make a habit of, assuming we were all trying to achieve the same thing, so why bother? Now it feels more important to go one level deeper and see why and how they're approaching things, before engaging with faulty assumptions.
Head of Product Engineering, Automattic
After taking the alignment course I’m seeing things more clearly now. I learned some simple techniques that I use almost everyday that have helped me tremendously. This training helped me have more presence and emotional intelligence when dealing with difficult situations where alignment is critical for my team to be successful. I have also been able to use what I’ve learned to coach others on my team to use some of the same techniques. The course has had a profound and lasting impact on how recognize and approach misalignment, both professionally and in my personal life.
VP Software Engineering at Extra Space Storage
I left feeling empowered, more than I have in a long time. Building Alignment was super helpful, going beyond basic management or leadership 101 and more deeply into collaborating with my team and cross-functionally.
I'm glad I made the time for it — I'd been so ground down, so discouraged. It's amazing how much new tools can shift a mindset. I really learned a lot, enjoyed it, found it worthwhile, and strongly recommend it to anyone in an engineering, product or design leadership role.
Head of Developer Experience, Automattic
Whilst the models are helpful in and of themselves, the real value was in the facilitated discussion and examples from Jean and Edmond, who are both excellent facilitators.
Head of Developer Experience, Automattic
Edmond and Elenna's workshop was instrumental in helping me define my limiting beliefs and provided me with tools to overcome them. They provided exercises to help me reconstruct my beliefs in order to help me achieve my goals. The work they are doing is both groundbreaking and effective. I would definitely recommend this workshop to anyone wanting to take their career to the next level.
System Engineer at Tope Technology
My biggest takeaway was the idea that we get to shape our programming consciously. This workshop reminded me that it is up to me to work intentionally to shift my mindset, and gave me practical tools to work on this every day. Just a few weeks after the experience, I can already see some of what I explored during the workshop starting to shift.
The main value, for me, was in experiencing the exercises and working through them with others, in community. The facilitators provided the space for us to explore a piece of our own programming, learn more about how it affects their lives, and think consciously and strategically about how we can introduce changes to shift our thinking in a direction that will serve us better.
Former Senior Engineering Manager at Patreon
Before the workshop I struggled with self-confidence and believing in my abilities. I knew I had limiting beliefs, but I didn’t know what, if anything, I could do about it. Hearing others comment on my eloquence, presence, intelligence, and so on brought home the massive gap between how I see myself and how others see me and gave me much more confidence in my own ability than before.
This is not your typical workshop. It offers a framework for understanding the real, physical impact these beliefs had on me. It forces you to show up honestly and confront what’s not working, offering tools every step of the way and providing a safe space to try out new ways of thinking and behaving. It has empowered me to recognize that I have a say in how my career unfolds. I am my own boss in life, and how I talk to myself directly impacts how I behave and how I interact in the world.
Senior Community Manager at Udacity
As I was recently reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming, she talks a lot about asking herself, 'Am I good enough?'. This was a question that I have been trying to answer for a long time for myself as well. Even though I knew that I struggled with imposter syndrome, until the leadership experience, I did not realize that there were many people who suffered from it. I was not alone.
The experience taught me that quiet time with myself, reflecting on my thoughts, clearing my head is actually helpful for my day-to-day work. It taught me ways to use tools that I had always heard of but shrugged off. They helped me calm my nerves and feel confident. As I have spent the last couple of months since the experience trying to battle my inner imposter, I’ve realized that I have a more positive answer to 'Am I good enough?' Yes, I am.
Software Engineer at Zillow Group
This workshop helped me realize that I was standing in my own way of feeling successful, and the impact that my behavior had on others in my life. Edmond and Elenna led me on a journey of inward reflection, and through that, I realized that I needed to write my own definition of success so that I could continue moving forward confidently in my career. They helped me find my strong inner voice, taught me how to listen for it and how to allow it to guide me on my own unique path. This experience renewed my self-confidence and helped me to recognize my capabilities as a leader. Thank you for this awesome experience. It's one I won't forget!
QA Manager at Mailchimp
Attending Edmond and Elenna’s workshop was an eye-opening experience. Through a thoughtful framework of exercises and discussion, I gained a new perspective on why I made certain decisions in the past and what I wanted from the future. I realized that I’d talked myself out of opportunities because of unconscious biases disguised as rational analysis. Having a clearer idea of my motivations and biases, I've felt more proactive ever since.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
I unknowingly had been allowing a lot of self-doubt and limiting thoughts associated with Imposter Syndrome, a feeling that's not uncommon in my industry, to affect me. After attending this workshop, I realized that a lot of my limiting beliefs were either self-made or beliefs that I'd internalized and carried with me for way too long.
Edmond and Elenna did a phenomenal job of guiding all of the workshop participants through identifying those limitations and providing insightful tooling to help mitigate those thoughts. At the conclusion of the workshop, not only did I embrace the fact that Imposter Syndrome is very much real, but I felt comforted in the various ways it shows up to different people. It opened my eyes to how people process things like self-doubt differently. I'd strongly recommend this program for anyone who may have switched careers recently and is looking for ways to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
QA Analyst at Mailchimp
I've attended a lot of workshops over the years, and this was unlike any I have ever attended. It felt personally tailored to me — even though there was an entire group going through the sessions together. Edmond and Elenna's direction and the intimacy of the sessions helped everyone feel comfortable, which allowed us to really dig in and get the most value out of the day.
The exercises and discussion helped me understand beliefs that have held me back and limited my growth. I was given practical ideas and tools to identify, deal with, and move past those beliefs. That’s not only helped me in my everyday life but has helped those around me, as it makes me a more effective leader and manager.
I would recommend this experience to anyone currently in a leadership position or to anyone that would like to be more of a leader, as everyone will find value.
Senior IT Manager at CarMax
This is the training that I wish I'd received years ago when I first started working on my leadership skills.
Engineer at Dropbox
This course was the best 16-hour investment of my professional career. The most valuable takeaway for me was the frameworks Jean and Edmond presented to actively think about my role as a technical leader.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
I've done a lot of reading around leadership and related skills building, but I still experienced a major, immediate leveling-up. We talk about "aligning values" a lot but I honestly had meager-to-no ideas on what that can look like in practice. Now, I get to the heart of why a team member prefers one solution or approach over another much more quickly.
Engineering Manager at Stripe
In just a few weeks, Edmond and Jean transformed fifteen Quip engineers into empowered leaders. After going through the program, the engineers spearheaded initiatives to improve team processes around new hire onboarding, product review, and code deployment. Edmond and Jean helped our engineers build a close community, discover a shared vocabulary for approaching interpersonal challenges, and practice wielding their influence to improve our team’s culture.
Engineering Manager at Quip
I left the session feeling empowered, more than I have in a long time. It's amazing how much new tools can shift a mindset.
Head of Developer Experience, Automattic
I have tried for years to be a change agent alone on my own. Those days are over.... It has been a big relief for me to learn that I can strategically form alliances around the changes I want to see.
Software Development Lead at John Deere
One of the biggest struggles I have in my workplace relationships is dealing with others who don't immediately see eye to eye with me. This course definitely showed me how to deal with those situations and gave me a good set of tools to use to build alignment.
Lead Software Engineer at Coupa
Edmond and Jean break difficult conversations into easily understandable steps, which I found really useful. I had the opportunity to try out many simple experiments in workplace communication, learning to better understand other people and build alignment. I was impressed with how accessible the material and the exercises were — I would recommend this to even the most skeptical of managers or tech leads on my teams and I wouldn't be worried about turning them off.
Former Research Engineer at Google
Building and maintaining alignment within our teams, departments and organizations is a vital part of effective and healthy communication. Taking the time to build these alliances, to truly understand motivations of stakeholders and to explicitly state shared goals and understandings is how we can all start to communicate and lead more effectively and makes all the other tools we as an industry rely upon that much more useful.
Product Development Director at CAPS