Month: October 2015

The Stress Paradox (Part 1/2) – The 200 words project

Researchers asked people in 121 countries – “Did you experience a great deal of stress yesterday?” Using the data, they computed a stress index. Then, a group of psychologists used the data to look for correlations with indices of wellbeing like life expectancy, GDP or happiness. The results turned out to be the opposite of what they were expecting – the higher the nation’s stress index, the better the nation’s wellbeing metrics.

More recently, a group of psychologists asked a broad sample of people to reflect on whether or not they felt like their lives had meaning. They then gave people a whole bunch of other surveys to find out predictors of having a meaningful life, or feeling like your life is meaningful. And, it turns out one of the best predictors is stress – any way you measure it.

The researchers found that stress accompanies factors like adversity and worry – both of which predicted meaning. As a result, one of their main conclusions was that people who have a meaningful life worry more and experience much more stress than people with a less meaningful life.

So, how do we switch our negative perceptions of stress? Coming up next week..

We view stress as a signal that either we are inadequate to the challenges of our lives or that our lives have actually become toxic and we might actually turn our attention to trying to avoid the things that give rise to stress. This changes everything – that stress could be a signal that you are engaged in the goals, in the roles, the relationships, you’re pursuing the goals and that you’re facing the challenges that will also give rise to meaning in your life. –  Kelly McGonigal (paraphrased)

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Source and thanks to: Kelly McGonigal @ 99U

Move fast and break things

There are 2 essential pieces to the hacker ethos made popular by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

1. It requires people who are willing to experiment and fail. That doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t work for a lot of people.

2. But, more importantly, it requires leaders and managers who are willing to let go and let their people learn and grow

The toughest part about allowing people to moving fast and breaking things is that things actually do break. And, that is one of the biggest tests you face as a manager. It is far easier to do things yourself and not delegate. However, you will also get very little done in the long run as that approach isn’t scale-able.

It is impossible to learn without experimentation. And, it is impossible to experiment without failures. Embracing experimentation, therefore, isn’t a choice. It is a requirement. The world is a better place when we embrace “this might not work.”

After all, nothing ventured => nothing gained.

Hiring, strategy and commitments

If you spend many months working with a great team, it is easy to assume that it is the leadership or management of the team that is making the team great. That is, however, a textbook example of recency bias. This is similar to looking at a Barcelona football team or a New York Yankees baseball team and attributing most of the greatness of the team to the manager.

Yes, the manager matters. And, yes, the manager can often be the the difference between a championship medal and a trophy-less season. But, if the team succeeds, it is likely that at least 50-60% of its success is due to great hiring. Even the greatest manager of all time can’t lead a bunch of high school players to a world cup win. But, every once a while, you will hear of ordinary managers leading a great group of players to incredible heights.

It works the same with bad strategy. You can follow great strategy with poor execution and still end up in a decent place. But, start with bad strategy… and it won’t really matter how good your execution is.

It is worth remembering that when we decide to say “yes” to the next commitment that squeezes time that we would normally spent either with ourselves or with our people that mean to us.

Starts often matter more than we think or realize.

It will feel better, later

Nearly every time I try to do something that will make me better – read, exercise, meditate, among others – I can feel the resistance pop up and find out if there’s a way I can postpone it. There’s so much going on right now. Wouldn’t it be better if I did it later?

I felt that voice this morning as I thought about switching on Headspace to meditate.

I did feel busy. I decided to do it anyway.

And, 15 minutes later, I wondered why I ever had second thoughts. I felt so much better. And, I know that happens every time I meditate.

So much of being happy is doing things that you know are good for you by pushing the resistance away and saying, with conviction – “It’ll feel better, later.”

Reflecting on my summer internship – MBA Learnings

I was very curious about the graduate student internship experience. After a few years of work experience as a full timer, I figured it might be a bit strange to go back with the intern badge. I also wondered what elements of my approach to work would be different after a year in business school.

First up, wearing the intern badge wasn’t strange at all. It helped that we had ~25 other MBA interns as part of our intern class at LinkedIn. In fact, it regularly felt like a place of privilege – we were treated incredibly well and I regularly felt very fortunate to be given the opportunity to do what I was doing.

My approach to work did feel different. 3 things that stood out –

1. Adapted my productivity system from school for work purposes. I’ve written about a simple system that I used through my first year  – in a nutshell, it involves color coding my calendar based on the 4 priorities at school (career, academics, extra-curricular, social) and doing a weekly review to check how I was doing. I ported the system to my internship. The new priorities were – core project, other projects, people, intern events. And, I found it to be just as useful in facilitating an intentional and reflective approach to work.

I don’t think I experienced the full power of the system because my “core projects” were fairly well scoped out. I think the system’s benefits really show up when there’s a multitude of priorities pulling you in different directions. Looking forward to continue to refine this system for work purposes when I’m back at work after school.

2. Proactively met people. One of the beautiful parts of graduate school is setting up time for a quick coffee/walk when you want to get to know someone. As I generally avoid the big bar/party settings, I did plenty of these “coffee” catch ups through my first year. This was a very helpful habit going into the internship as I got to both know and learn from people I didn’t directly work with. It is something I should continue to do when I get back to work next year.

3.  Working off a more solid foundation. Many a time, I felt grateful for my core courses and the fact that I could call on my professors if I needed help (and I did). The best way to describe the benefits of a good graduate business education is that it gives you a set of basic tools that helps you be more effective. I liken education to wearing a different pair of glasses. It fundamentally changes the way you see the world without you realizing it.

I did also walk away with a sense of urgency in terms of things I needed to learn.

That brings me to next steps. I took away 3 next steps from my internship experience –

1. Take the time to understand what you will need to be successful at your chosen craft in 3-5 years. This is part of an ongoing and iterative process in my case. I’ve decided to go back to LinkedIn and plan on working my way towards building and managing web/mobile products in the next 3-5 years. And, I am currently focused on understanding what skills I need to develop in the coming year to give myself a good start.

2. Take courses that will be relevant. While I’m grateful for the core courses, I’m also really excited about taking courses that are relevant. For instance, I’m taking 2 courses from our cutting edge ‘Big Data & Analytics’ curriculum and intend to continue exploring courses that will be relevant to my journey.

3. Enjoy student life. My time away from school made me appreciate the joys of student life. As this is likely my last ever year of student life, I intend to make the most of it. Among other things, that means taking more time to have many more wonderful conversations with friends and plenty of afternoon naps.

Looking forward.

The boring guide to public speaking

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to do a lot of public speaking growing up. I am pretty comfortable on stage now. While it is easy to attribute this to natural talent, I was horrible when I started. My school believed in giving kids plenty of opportunities to participate in inter school competitions. And, I had been chosen to try my hand at public speaking. After a poor showing in my first 3 competitions, I was told that they’d begin to give other students an opportunity if I didn’t do well in my next one. I did, and didn’t look back.

This is the process I followed –

1. Write/type what you want to say. As a kid starting out, my mom used to write all my speeches. (Thanks mom!) It took me a while to find my own voice and write my own.

2. Practice. When I got started, I rehearsed every talk at least 20-30 times in front of the mirror. The “practice in front of the mirror” tip ranks among the best pieces of public speaking advice I’ve received as it contributed most toward a better end product.

3. Find your authentic style. I am not funny. So, I’ve learnt that it is pointless to try to be funny. I’ve also learnt that it becomes very annoying when someone is trying hard to speak like someone they’re not. Just be you. In my case, I tend to gravitate towards content that is focused on learning (surprise, surprise) in my own style. My public speaking voice and persona isn’t very different from my conversational voice and persona. I’ve found that alignment to be very helpful.

4. Talk about stuff that matters to you. This ensures that the passion comes through. If I had to go one step further, I would even say – say something that you think might make a difference in the lives of the folks listening. Too often, public speaking becomes a race to make people laugh.

As you can tell, the process is not rocket science. I still follow it to this day for most important talks. However, the benefit of having done it so many times is that I am comfortable with minimal practice. That helps a lot – especially when it comes to delivering presentations at work.

Many people fear public speaking. I think that fear is natural. I do not know anyone who jumped off the cradle ready to speak. In every speech during my first 10 years or so, my legs and hands used to shiver like nobody’s business on stage. You learn very quickly that the fear is just part of the process. You learn to embrace it and trust in your preparation. And, when you do, you’ll have people come up and tell you have “the gift of the gab.” :)

Whenever I think of great public speaking, I am reminded of the Sir Winston Churchill quote (paraphrased) – “There’s three weeks of preparation before a great impromptu speech.”

So true. Success lies in the hours.

Extenuating circumstances

I’ve veered off a bit from “normal programming” over the past 4 weeks – there haven’t been weekly MBA learning or product review posts. The reason for that is that I’ve dealing with a few extenuating circumstances. A mix of a massive project’s peak, illness, start of a new project, and a couple of setbacks meant that I kept focused on just making sure I wrote once a day.

However, as I was reflecting on the past ~30 weeks this morning, I realized that there was some disruptive force or another in at least 15 of the 30 weeks.

Thanks to Clayton Christensen’s warning in “How Will You Measure Your Life,” I had learnt that life is just a series of extenuating circumstances. But, I guess it is one thing to understand an idea and quite another to experience it. Looking back the past 30 odd weeks and seeing the regularity of these extenuating events has resulted in a lot of appreciation for the idea.

Perhaps I should just stop making these excuses and get on with it. There is no such thing as a “normal” week.

The obstacles never stop. I just need to learn to expect them and view them as part of my definition of normal.

Invite the awful – The 200 words project

When Louis C.K. first attempted comedy, he was, like most new comedians, terrible. But, thanks to an early burst of effort, he created an hour of reasonable material that helped him become a professional.

But, it was here that he stalled – for fifteen years… until he heard an interview with legendary comedian George Carlin. Carlin said his method was to record one comedy special each year. The day after he was done recording, he’d throw out his old material and start over.

C.K. was incredulous. It had taken him 15 years to build his current hour worth of material. But, he soon realized something – Carlin’s sets got better each year. Writing material from scratch was a brutally effective form of deliberate practice. It is that process that makes you a better comedian and C. K. had been avoiding it.

Feeling desperate, he adopted Carlin’s strategy, threw out his material and started afresh – a process which he latter dubbed – “invite the awful.”

The results were astounding. Within four years of applying “invite the awful,” Comedy Central named him one of the 100 funniest stand-ups of all time.

This is a lesson I need to remind myself of on a regular basis. Getting started on the path to craftsmanship is hard. But it’s equally important (and hard) that you keep inviting the awful by pushing yourself to new places and new levels of ability. If it’s easy to do, you’re not getting better. – Cal Newport

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Source and thanks to: Cal Newport’s blog

Taking difficult personal decisions

There are times when circumstances force you to make difficult decisions. I’ve noticed that most of these decisions are personal. There isn’t a clear path forward and it is hard to really weigh all options. While I’m a huge fan of the WRAP framework for most decision, these are times when I feel the need for a gut-based personal decision.

And, in such times, I have found 3 things to be very helpful –

  1. Create space from the noise. Shift to a different location and spend some time alone. Or, spend time with people with whom you’re very comfortable in silence. It is only in space can we really listen to ourselves.
  2. Get some sleep. This sounds like an extremely counter intuitive thing to do when you have to make a difficult decision. My guess is that the scientific reasons for this approach is that sleep refuels our willpower. And, our willpower helps us make better decisions. There is also some scientific merit to the idea of subconscious information processing. Go to sleep with a complicated problem and sleep can, every once in a while, clear our heads. However, the reason I recommend it is that it has simply worked incredibly well for me. I’ve also a few life experiences that have taught me never to trust my judgment (or others’ for that matter) when sleep deprived.
  3. Share your decision with a few people who understand you. This is just to watch out for any red flags. The folks who really understand will warn you if the decision makes no sense. And, that check point is very helpful.

Rating people

Peeple, an app that allows you to rate other people (“Yelp for Humans”), received a lot of press attention yesterday. As the app hasn’t launched yet, it is unclear if the app will take off. If the attention it has received is anything to go by, it is sure to see some initial demand.

It shouldn’t be surprising to see an app of this nature. After all, nearly every organization or system we interact with is rated on the Tripadvisors and Yelps of the world. The risk is that this could end up being an app that facilitates a lot of abuse. So, I’m curious to see how the founders build this product.

That said, the more pertinent point is that apps like this will only further increase the “chatter.” Thanks to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, we’re all, every once a while, both media outlets and news-worthy personalities. Things we do can receive a lot of attention. So much so that we can spend more time surveying the attention we (and others) get than actually building something worthwhile.

The chatter is unquestionably distracting and counter productive. It is impossible to focus on creation if all we do is listen for feedback. So, repeatedly asking ourselves the questions – “what are you working to build?” and “what is the next step to make progress?” – has become more important than ever before.