Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Tech Leads

Anyone who has spent any time as a developer knows that there are countless frameworks and tools available to tackle any technical problem we might face. But when the problems we face aren't in our code but are in our head, what tools do we have then?

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is based on the idea that our thoughts determine our emotions so we can change how we feel by changing how we think. While CBT is generally used to treat mental disorders like depression, it can also be effective in dealing with more common challenges
like procrastination, perfectionism, impostor syndrome, and handling criticism.

Through simple programming analogies and interactive exercises, you'll learn:

1. What cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is
2. The common mental traps we fall into and how they can be avoided
3. How to turn a piece of paper into a powerful debugger for our thoughts

This talk is about putting the oxygen mask on ourselves first. As a team lead, personal problems you are struggling with might not just affect you, they can have an impact on your whole team. In order to do our best for those who are counting on us, we need to be able to care for ourselves and CBT gives us tools we can start using right away.

About Jamie Strachan

Jamie currently manages a team of developers at Info-Tech Research Group after spending 15 years as a web developer himself. He's (mostly) traded in coding for coaching and strives to help the developers around him be as effective as possible by being a facilitator, an advocate, and an advisor.
He also shares his experience with depression to help combat the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

About this meetup

Leading & managing teams of software engineers can be challenging. This meetup is for technical leaders of all experience levels to connect, share stories and learn from each other. Topics include all of the typical Team Lead duties such as recruiting talent, team building, coaching, delegating, scaling technical groups, managing projects, etc.

Meetups are catered, start with a presentation from a domain expert and continue with lots of interesting conversations with your peers.