Peter Kang

From my experience talking to employees at work, everyone appreciates directness, or at least the idea of it. People generally like it when they’re given direct and relevant feedback, even if it causes a bit of discomfort. They’d rather know than not know. People also think that they themselves are direct in their communications. Very few people ever admit to being passive aggressive, and certainly nobody comes to work thinking they’re going to be passive […]

Back in June 2013, I took the Clifton StrengthsFinder test. The test is 177 questions with a 20-second timer for each question. Based on your results, the 34 strengths in the StrengthsFinder system is ranked for you. By paying $9.95, I was able to get my Top 5 Strengths along with detailed descriptions of each. In 2013, these were my top five (with my paraphrased description of each): Arranger: bring people, tools, and other resources […]

Over the years, I’ve obsessed about our team’s weaknesses. With this mindset, it was easy to pick out shortcomings when thinking about anyone. Not enough attention to detail. Not a team player. Lacking in strategic thinking. Slow to anticipate. Dismal under pressure. Zero confidence when talking with clients. Can’t problem-solve. This emphasis on identifying weaknesses motivated me to push the team to get better and, in some cases, led to personnel moves that either got […]

I came across this blog post by Ramit Sethi about how he blocks out every Wednesday for “strategy time” where he thinks about the big picture and stays away from replying to emails. This reminded me of our War Room sessions that take place twice a week. About 8 months ago, Sei-Wook and I started blocking out half a day for our Biz Dev War Room. Biz Dev is a bit of a misnomer because […]

Last week marked the one year anniversary of my writing experiment. In December 2013, I challenged myself to try writing at least three hundreds words every single day for the next year. Some of those efforts have made it to this blog. Looking back on the year, I’ve jotted down some thoughts on the experience, what I’ve learned, and what I plan to do going forward. I’m really proud and happy that I kept up […]

About a month ago, I instituted a couple of small rules to my daily routine: A limit of two drinks per day. No eating after 9PM. There have been a few days when I didn’t abide by these rules. One day, I had an extra glass of beer. Another day, I ate a small snack around 10PM. But for the most part, I’ve been strict with myself, and I couldn’t be happier about the results.

We recently received a couple of negative reviews for Barrel on Glassdoor, a website where people can find reviews posted by employees and former employees as well as salary ranges. Except for a couple of very positive reviews from interns in the past, we hadn’t seen any other posts until the two recent ones. They’re very similar to each other, so I thought it’d be a good time to publicly assess each one and share […]

I’ve been looking at a lot of resumes recently, and I find myself annoyed every time I come across a “Professional Skills” section that depicts filled up bars with a percentage that indicates the level of the candidate’s proficiency in certain areas. I see this especially on the resumes of young designers and front-end web developers. Some experienced folks also use this, perhaps believing that it makes their resumes more interesting and visually appealing. Here’s […]

We’re starting to build out a more robust recruiting process at Barrel. For the first eight years, Sei-Wook and I have been primarily responsible for reviewing applicants and interviewing candidates. These days, we’re entrusting more experienced members of our team to recruit and hire junior-level employees. I think it’s crucial that they select people who are not only skillful but have the right attitude and exhibit the behaviors that align with our core values. These […]

I’ve been thinking about our on-boarding experience at Barrel. We have about 5-6 new hires who’ll be joining the team over the next 4-6 weeks. Training and outlining of expectations are at the top of the list, and we’ve been working hard internally to strengthen those. This weekend, I jotted down some other ways that we may be able to enhance our on-boarding experience. I thought I’d share them here:

I’m exhausted, but I’m having a good time. Every week, there are all kinds of stresses and challenges, but I’m mostly able to navigate and handle things, which is extremely satisfying. And best of all, I get to work closely with a team that I respect and trust deeply. Looking back on my writing (I’ve continued to write 300+ words a day since late December 2013) and the books I’ve been reading, I see that […]

“If only we hired a person to do this, things would be so much easier.” I think this is a thought that’s crossed my mind many times over the years. And naively, I went ahead and usually hired someone. Even recently, I heard myself talk this way when thinking about our business development efforts. Sei-Wook and I have been hoping to find someone to offload some of the sales activities that we do, including qualifying […]

I got an email from MetaLab today that announced its latest software. It’s called Peak and it helps managers track what people on their team are working on in an automated way. It plugs in to popular apps used by people in the creative digital industry such as Basecamp, Harvest, Google Drive, and GitHub to show an aggregated feed of everyone’s activities. Peak looks beautiful as a web app and I’m sure it’s got the […]

I’ve been trying something different at work. I’ve started to spend more and more time prepping for my meetings and being conscious about the experience I create for people who attend them. Back in September, I got some really good advice from our leadership coach Peter Oropeza on running meetings. Peter, who’s been helping me and Sei-Wook for the past several months as a consultant, sat in on a meeting at Barrel and took notes […]

Watching ESPN last Sunday night, I was struck by a comment that analyst (and former Super Bowl QB) Trent Dilfer made about championship teams and what makes them different. He talked about how players on a championship team were different in mindset. They always ask themselves: “What can I do to help my team? How can I be better?” These players do not wait on others to make the first move. There are no dependencies […]

I’ve been getting leadership coaching at Barrel the past few months. Sei-Wook and I have been working with Peter Oropeza of Oro Consulting to identify our strengths and improvement areas and to develop action plans to help us grow as leaders. Last week, I met with Peter to review my ASSESS personality test, my ASSESS 360 feedback from direct reports and Sei-Wook, and my Hogan Development Survey, which shows how I behave when stressed. Peter also […]