Month: October 2018

Managers and people who solve problems

We spent time with Dan Pink, the author of a collection of great books, a couple months ago and the conversation veered to managing managers.

He remarked that he believed that as managers (and everyone is and has a manager in some aspect of their life), we segment folks we work with into two types of people –  people who solve problems and people who create problems.

He gave the example of his search for an architect. His eventual choice was someone who he believed would solve problems than they created.

And, thus, his advice was to be the kind of person who solves problems for our own managers.

I’ve reflected on that discussion a few times in the past months on the areas where I solve problems and create problems for folks around me. It has also helped me appreciate the fantastic job some folks I know do in this regard.

Simple advice. Good advice.

Sources of learning – an evolving 10 year view

I’ve been having a few conversations of late that have aimed to tackle difficult questions like – “How can I learn better?” and “How can I be sure I’m learning?” These are challenging questions and ones I’ve wrestled with a bunch. So, I thought I’d share my evolving perspective after 10 years of writing about this.

My mental model here is that our “learn rate” is proportional to time + energy spent on 3 sources – Books/synthesized information, People (and insightful conversations we have), and our own experiences. When we take the time to reflect on the time + energy spent on these sources and synthesize what we’ve taken away, we begin to develop or improve existing mental models, and over time, make changes to how we approach life. That translation of theory to action is learning.

Reflecting on the mix between these sources in my journey in the past decade, I think the biggest change has been the proportion of learning coming from my own experiences. When I started writing a decade ago, most of my learning came from books and more experienced folks – I didn’t have too many experiences to reflect on. That has changed and the mix looks a lot more balanced of late.

So, my perspective on the “how can I learn better?” question comes down to – what kind of habits/infrastructure do we have in place to make sure we’re reading, regularly having interesting conversations that we learn from, and reflecting on both of these along with the experiences we’re having every day?

And, if I had to break that down to sub-questions, they would be –

i) Are we regularly reading good books/subscribed to insightful blogs or podcasts?
ii) Are we spending time with folks we learn from and having conversations about what we’re thinking about vs. the weather?
iii) Are we finding time to reflect on the above + our own experiences and synthesize?

Self-awareness is not what we think

Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist and executive coach, assembled a team to understand self-awareness and shared her findings earlier this year. My top 5 takeaways –

1. We often refer to self-awareness as one “catch all” word. However, there are two distinct kinds of self-awareness – internal and external. Internal self-awareness represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions, and impact on others. External self-awareness means understanding how others view us.

2. Internal self-awareness is related to higher job and relationship satisfaction and happiness. External self awareness is related to a better ability to show empathy and take others’ perspectives. And, here’s the kicker – there is virtually no relationship between the two.

3. Many of life’s great truths fit into a 2×2. :-) And, this is no exception – the interplay between the two is illuminating.

4. Experience and power hinder self-awareness. In the study, most people assumed they were self aware – only 10%-15% were so.

5. To become more aware, stop asking “why” you feel a certain way and replace that with “what.” “Why do I feel irritated?” involves a lot of rationalizing. “What situations trigger irritation and what can I do about them?” focuses us on patterns that increases awareness and push us to productive action.

I am one of those who used to put all self-awareness in one bucket. In retrospect, this approach to segmenting self-awareness is spot on. Eye opening. Thank you, Dr. Eurich and thanks, Pankaj, for recommending the article.

3 lists of 3

3 lists of 3 that I find helpful as I start a week –

(1) What are the top 3 priorities for the week – across work and home?

(2) What are the top 3 priorities for the week – at work?

(3) What are the top 3 priorities for the day today?

I typically set (1) on Sunday, (2) on Friday before I finish up, and (3) at end of the previous day or at the start of the day. Maintaining consistency doing this has been a boon simply because it helps to know what I’m optimizing for as the week progress.

The principle – progress toward a goal is productivity. Everything else is activity. A simple productivity check at random points during the week, then, is – “are we aware of what goal we’re optimizing toward?”

On success – Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am thinking about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s note on success today. That isn’t just because his is a wonderful, thoughtful, definition (it is) – it is because it reminds us to make sure we must define our success for ourselves.

Counter productive behavior and perspective

Most infants hate changing clothes. So, they generally cry, kick, and scream when it happens. That is, of course, completely counter productive. It only lengthens the process and makes it worse.

I found myself amused when I observed this counter productive behavior the other day until I realized that we aren’t all that different as adults. We often do our equivalent of crying, kicking, and screaming when we deal with inevitable change, have an unexpected difficult conversation, or worry about something we don’t control.

That’s why taking the time to develop the sort of perspective that leads to equanimity can be very powerful. The sooner we can eliminate the counter productive behavior, the more productive we can be.

And, a great way to develop that sort of perspective is to spend more time with folks who have that perspective.

Unlimited vacation perks and game theory

There have been a few news articles going after perks like “unlimited vacation.” The trouble with these articles is that they typically go after these perks quoting folks who run workplaces without these policies and thus tell you that these perks are dangerous. There’s an inherent skin-in-the-game problem there.

A better approach might be to examine such perks from the lens of game theory. The challenge with unlimited vacations is that one’s natural behavior is to want to take a little less vacation than their neighbor – i.e., not enough to be the slacker on the team. This means the natural equilibrium point is to reduce the number of vacation days to zero.

This problem can be easily solved by shifting the equilibrium. For example, companies like Hubspot and LinkedIn (where I work) either mandate 2 weeks of vacation or shut down entirely for 2 weeks in the year. Another way to do this would be to have negative incentives below a certain threshold – e.g. maybe you get some benefit deducted if you don’t take 3 weeks off.

Company culture goes a long way in creating equilibrium points as well. Smart employers understand that breaks result in more productivity. And, cultures can create norms that make it unacceptable to not take these breaks.

Perks aren’t culture – their use is dictated by culture. They are rarely good or bad by themselves. Ping Pong tables, for example, can actually be pretty great if you use them every once in a while to blow off some steam with a teammate.

So, if perks aren’t being used as intended, it is better to evaluate the equilibrium created by the culture and incentives in place. And, game theory is our friend.

(Inspired by the game theory chapter on “Algorithms to Live By” – a very good book :-))

Productive communication

We often think of productivity in terms of work we get done. But, our ability to communicate has a big impact on our own productivity as well as that of others around us.

And, as a friend pointed out the other day, we can get a lot more done if we can manage to communicate consistently in a way that manages to challenge people’s thinking without making them feel defensive.

PS: I’m not sure yet as to what the key to challenging without creating defensiveness is – since I’m not good at it myself. Would love your ideas. I’ll aim to share a synthesis after giving this more thought.