Year: 2020

Understanding the news and working with data

There’s a learning curve involved with understanding how the news works.

We might begin – as kids at least – with the assumption that the news is the objective list of everything of note that is happening around us/the world. But, we learn over time that a big part of understanding the news is looking beyond what is presented to us and asking 3 questions –

1. How was the information sourced/collected?
2. What have they omitted/chosen to omit?
3. What is the bias in their reporting?

Interestingly, the learning curve around working with data when we make product and business decisions is no different. The early promise of big data was that large amounts of data would solve any problem.

That promise didn’t pan out.

So, asking the above questions when we look at data/analysis and marrying a desire for data with a healthy skepticism for what it is telling us ensures we keep asking the questions that help get us closer to the truth.

As in the case of the news, better to replace “data driven” with “data informed.”

Roy Disney and Bob Iger- Ego and Respect

Bob Iger, in his so far excellent book “The Ride of a Lifetime,” shares a story about he went about diffusing an ongoing public outcry from Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney, just after he was appointed CEO.

Roy Disney had been public in his unhappiness with former CEO Michael Eisner and eventually resigned from Disney’s Board in protest. And, he wasn’t happy with Bob Iger’s selection as the latter was COO during the last 5 years of Eisner’s rein.

After a conversation with Roy, Bob Iger shared that he realized there were a lot of pent up emotions behind Roy’s behavior. He felt he had been slighted and disrespected by Eisner and the rest of the board. And, most importantly, he was hurting at parting with the legendary company founded by his uncle.

So, Bob Iger went about making a few small changes – he gave Roy Disney the title of Chairman Emeritus and made arrangements for a small consulting fee and an office at Disney headquarters. Roy, for his part, agreed to call off the lawsuit.

The lesson Bob Iger shares is the recognition that most people just want a bit of respect. And, in difficult situations, it is so important to not let our ego get in the way of that happening.

It resonated.

Intermittent Fasting – week 2

I started intermittent fasting in earnest this new year. Tim Spector’s excellent book – The Diet Myth – reminded me of the reasons most cultures/religions recommend fasting.

After testing it over the holiday/reflection season, I’ve decided to experiment with
the 16/8 diet. This means eating between ~12pm-8pm and fasting for the remaining 16 hours. I haven’t been strict about the 16 hours – I have probably averaged between 15 and 16 hours.

So, why IF and why now?

I know a few friends and family members who swear by it. Nearly everyone I know has done it for weight loss. That wasn’t an interesting reason to me.

Instead, the health rationale for fasting, in general, and intermittent fasting made sense to me intuitively. The evidence for the health benefits have been stacking up over the years as well.

While I can’t attest to the health benefits just as yet, my experience over the past week and a half has been very positive. I knew not to expect any serious hunger pangs as I’d been testing it for most of December. However, the biggest positive has been getting an uninterrupted-by-breakfast stretch of deep work at the start of the day.

Looking forward to seeing how this plays out over the course of the year. For now, this change seems to be a keeper.

PS: I’ve mentioned The Diet Myth a bunch over the past months. It was recommended by James in response to a post on the challenges with diet research. Thanks for the recommendation, James – clearly high impact. :-)

Experience

Experience only counts when we consciously understand and internalize the lessons learnt from all the failures and successes along the way.

As “to learn and not to do is not to learn,” a simple test for whether we actually gained experience on a project is to ask ourselves – did that experience change how I operate or make decisions?

The difference between yes and no is the difference between stasis and growth.

And, the conviction in the yes is a good indicator of the steepness of the growth curve.

3 hard learned people lessons

I was mulling 3 hard people lessons that were the equivalent of hard earned (hence “hard learned) at various points this week.

1. Emotional intelligence is ignoring what people say and watching what people do.

2. When you have the privilege and luck of spending time with like-valued and like-minded people, you run into the danger of forgetting that there are a lot of very different kinds of people on the planet – some who choose meanness over kindness by default. And, a small minority who choose hate over every other emotion.

3. Every time we indulge in envying someone’s perceived success or wealth, it is worth reminding ourselves – things are not always what they seem.

Trombone oil

“Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest manufacturer of trombone oil in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year.”

Dan Burke’s famous note to Bob Iger does two things at once – beautifully.

First, it articulates a simple but powerful point that is relevant to anyone looking to build a company or a product- market size/potential matters.

Second, a note that said “Focus on projects with big market potential” or “Make sure the TAM/Total Addressable Market on your investments are large” would have been both boring and un-memorable.

Even if what we’re saying is incredibly valuable, how we say it can make or break its impact.

Going Upstream

Dan Heath, one of my favorite authors at the intersection of psychology and business, shared a parable from his upcoming book.

“You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to shore.

Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her as well.

Then another struggling child drifts into sight. . . and another. . . and another.

The two of you can barely keep up.

Suddenly, you see your friend wading out of the water, seeming to leave you alone.

‘Where are you going?’ you demand.

Your friend answers, ‘I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.’”

It made me wonder – how often am I stuck in a cycle of response vs. being that friend who chooses to swim upstream?

Powerful.

It resonated.

Focus

I’ve started past years by sharing a collection of themes I’m working on for the year. While the goal was to have no more than three themes, I often cheated and shared lists with sub-bullets. :-)

This year’s list is different – it has just one theme and that theme is focus.

As I spent time during reflection season mulling my biggest lessons of 2019, I kept coming back to focus. I had failed miserably at “fewer things done better” for long periods of time during the year and had, in patches, experienced what focus meant. And, I was also fortunate to have seen a few examples of focus done well.

All of this has inspired me to make a significant change in how I think and operate this year. I intend to do that by becoming a student of focus.

Focus means having absolutely clarity on the two things that matter at any given point. It also means being comfortable with the fact that we trade-off progress on everything else. Thanks to the simplicity focus inspires, it brings with it clarity in thought, communication, and action.

I’ve been on the journey of learning to simplify and focus better in every aspect of my work and life over the years. But, reflecting on what I’ve learnt over the last few weeks have brought to light just how much more I could be doing.

So, that’s what this year is going to be about.

Focus.

Here’s to that.

Bikram and bullying

We saw the documentary on Bikram – the founder of “Bikram Yoga” – recently. The documentary brings to light the scandals, rape, and bullying that surrounds the man. And, after the documentary, we had an interesting discussion on the choices some of the protagonists in the documentary had.

The questions we posed – Were they responsible for some of what happened to them because of the choices they made? Could they have made different choices?

When I have these discussions, they tend to draw a clear line between folks who have experienced bullying for sustained periods of time and folks who haven’t. Folks who haven’t tend to (understandably) believe that the bullied have a high amount of agency.

While we certainly have agency in situations with bullies, the smart bully playbook is not one that is easy to fight. Smart bullies – i.e. bullies with above average intelligence and accompanying egomania – do 3 things all at once –

1. They take advantage of a situation where they have real (often) or perceived power over you.
2. Their actions and erratic behavior ensures your self worth is both destroyed and attached to their opinion of you. In that process, their power over you grows.
2. Along the way, they prey on on a combination of naivete and gullibility – a combination that made you eligible for bullying in the first place – by articulately rationalizing why what you are going through is perfectly normal… and why you even are lucky to be chosen.

All of this makes it particularly hard to get out of a relationship with a bully fast enough. It is possible to go years without fully appreciating how much your life has changed in the time. And, it typically takes an intervention, a tremendous support group, and a lot of character to get out of such relationships.

In the absence of having experienced this, it is easy to believe that there are easy paths out.

But, there aren’t.

Not when you are in it at least.