Category: Everything else

I came across a Winston Churchill quote – “People who don’t change their minds don’t change anything.”

It resonated.

“In fact, it’s Douggie’s growing conviction that the greatest flaw of the species is its overwhelming tendency to mistake agreement for truth. Single biggest influence on what a body will or won’t believe is what nearby bodies broadcast over the public band. Get three people in the room and they’ll decide that the law of gravity is evil and should be rescinded because one of their uncles got shit-faced and fell off the roof.” | Richard Powers in “The Overstory”

That line about our overwhelming tendency as humans to mistake agreement for truth hit me hard.

It is the best description I’ve heard of our fallibility.

Gallup has been asking Americans for more than four decades, “Are you satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. right now?”

The average percent of Americans answering “no” since 1969 is 63%.

What’s interesting is that Gallup asks a follow-up question: “Are you satisfied with the way things are going in your own life right now?”

There, the average “no” response is just 15.8%.

People tend to be optimistic about themselves but pessimistic about others. Social media probably supercharges that. Benedict Evans says, “The more the Internet exposes people to new points of view, the angrier people get that different views exist.”

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Such a great factoid. It puts a lot of what we see on social media in perspective.

(H/T: Morgan Housel’s blog and his seemingly never ending reservoir of great stories)

A metronome provides a steady pulse for musicians to play on time.

It is unerringly consistent and predictable. Boring even.

It is what our self-care systems should aspire to be. Whether it is rest, exercise, good food, or something else, the best systems should just work every day. No fuss. No drama.

Just like the metronome.

Ben Horowitz has shared some phenomenal posts on leadership over the years. A teammate reminded me of a post that I consider one of the best of the lot today- “What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology.”

As he outlines the unique challenges of leading a company – tough job, nobody to blame, too much broken, lonely – he shares a powerful note on one of two mistakes he sees CEOs make.

“1. They take things too personally

2. They do not take things personally enough

In the first scenario, the CEO takes every issue incredibly seriously and personally and urgently moves to fix it. Given the volume of the issues, this motion usually results in one of two scenarios. If the CEO is outwardly focused, she ends up terrorizing the team to the point where nobody wants to work at the company any more. If the CEO is inwardly focused, she ends up feeling so sick from all of the problems that she can barely make it to work in the morning.

In the second scenario, in order to dampen the pain of the rolling disaster that is the company, the CEO takes a Pollyannaish attitude: it’s not so bad. In this view, none of the problems are actually that bad and they needn’t be dealt with urgently. By rationalizing away the issues, the CEO feels better about herself. The problem is that she doesn’t actually fix any of the problems and the employees eventually become quite frustrated that the Chief Executive keeps ignoring the most basic problems and conflicts. Ultimately, the company turns to crap.

Ideally, the CEO will be urgent yet not insane. She will move aggressively and decisively without feeling emotionally culpable. If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself.”

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This is powerful because this isn’t just applicable to leading a company. It works just as well in our own lives too. Learning to care enough about the problems to give it our best without emotionally attaching ourselves to the outcome turns out to be the wisest way forward.

Whether you think it is a mountain or a mole hill – you’re right.

It is what you make of it.

There’s a great anecdote from the sets of “Don’t Look Up.” Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and a few others of the star studded cast regularly referred to Meryl Streep as the GOAT.

In one of the photoshoots a few days in, Jennifer referred to the Goat.

And Meryl said – “That’s right, just tell the old goat where to go.”

“Meryl, you know GOAT means greatest of all time, right?”

“Oh! No!”

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On the one hand, this was clearly awkward. One of those moments that illustrates how important it is to ensure newbies understand the jargon we use in our day-to-day.

But on the other hand, I was touched by Meryl Streep’s lack of ego. That she just assumed the rest of the cast referred to her as an “old goat” says a lot about her.

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Don’t Look Up is a hilarious satire – it tells the story of two low-level astronomers who go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth. Poignant, funny, and powerful all at once.

“You are strong because you are imperfect. You are wise because you have doubts.” – Clementine Churchill

I thought this was beautifully articulated. A wonderful reminder that our scars, follies, and insecurities make us the human beings we are.

I was jotting down my end of workday reflection recently. I had a niggling feeling that I’d gotten less than I hoped.

But, when I looked up at the “done” list, I found that the opposite was true.

I had started the day hoping to get 2 priority tasks done. But, halfway through the day, encouraged by my progress, I added 3 more items to the list. I only got through 1 of them.

There’s a lesson here about happiness being a function of reality AND expectations. This is definitely true when planning our priority list for a day. The more ambitious our list, the unhappier we will be.

The other lesson is about how quickly we adjust to wanting more. It takes discipline and self-awareness to stop ourselves when we hit enough.

In our priority lists and otherwise.

A common trend among leaders I’ve learned a lot from is their willingness to dig into the details. Different folks chose to engage in different kinds of details. But, they almost always cared deeply about some detail.

This means lots of curiosity, feedback, and micromanagement.

Micromanagement is simply the flip side of this desire to engage with the details. And, while some do a good job minimizing it, it never goes away. It’s part of the package.

Two lessons I’ve learnt about this –

(1) Be aware of the details your manager/leader care about. Expect to be micromanaged – but, as part of the process, expect to learn a lot.

(2) The degree of micromanagement is inversely proposal to their trust in your competence. Over time, the degree of micromanagement should go down. Else, it is time to reflect about how well you’re converting the feedback into learning.