Posts

  • The Take Away: The Last Dance, Part Two

    At the start of the summer, a longtime friend reached out to get my thoughts on The Last Dance, the sports docuseries on the Chicago Bulls last championship run over 1997 and 1998. We ended up exchanging emails over a course of a few weeks as we broke down the the leadership, management, and organizational lessons - yes, our takeaways - from the ten-hour program. If you haven’t yet, check out part one of that discussion here. Part two of that discussion follows this introduction. Stay tuned for the wrap on this conversation next week.

  • The Take Away: The Last Dance, Part One

    At the start of the summer, a longtime friend reached out to get my thoughts on The Last Dance, the sports docuseries on the Chicago Bulls last championship run over 1997 and 1998. We ended up exchanging emails over a course of a few weeks as we broke down the the leadership, management, and organizational lessons - yes, our takeaways - from the ten-hour program. Part one of that discussion follows this introduction. Stay tuned for more of the conversation next week.

  • Sing, But Keep Going

    The past few weeks have brought a tremendous spotlight to an issue this country has been wrestling with since its inception. It’s been saddening to think of what it’s taken to hit this point and disappointing still to see some of the pushback to the message, but in so many ways, the change that’s transpired has been inspiring. Black lives matter. The structures that have been oppressing and killing people of color need to be reconsidered from the ground up. And the work that’s been done is only the beginning.

  • What Top Chef Teachs Us About Teams

    Two weeks ago, Top Chef aired their Restaurant Wars episode. With sports on hiatus, there aren’t many other forms of entertainment that can display team dynamics and leadership in a tight, narrative package. The annual Restaurant Wars episode in particular is a Petri dish for watching how teams form and storm all the while waiting to see if they can ever truly perform. After this episode airs every year, I’m inspired by what teams can do as well as the lessons that get enforced by the teams that can’t. Now more than ever, these examples remind us of the teams we can be and how we can avoid mistakes that trip up other teams.

  • Push

    In college, I took a pool class. That’s billiards, to be clear. Every Wednesday morning one spring semester, I spent an hour shooting pool in the campus activity center. I was late for the class twice. If you’re late for the class three times, the highest grade you could get was a B. This says more about my timeliness than it does about the class.


Dan Ubilla is obsessed with the craft of engineering management

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