It is natural to feel stuck/sense a lack of clarity at the end of a day when things didn’t go our way.
On such days, it is tempting to attempt to push through and make some progress.
But, the right response is to generally stop what we’re doing and get some sleep.
The combination of rest, renewed optimism, and fresh perspective have a way of making the puzzles that troubled us the previous day feel much more tractable and approachable.
We recently bought some frozen pizza from Costco. As we didn’t grow up in the US, we had no idea that frozen pizza was a 5 billion dollar industry (!).
And, we subsequently got curious as to how frozen pizza is made.
After watching the above video, we realized that it could be surprising/amazing/shocking/totally expected (/insert other emotion) depending on your point of view.
If you’re one of those who believes industrial kitchens operated by robots is the future of food, you’ll likely love what you see.
For the uninitiated (like us), it is fascinating insight into how frozen food is made.
PS: Very grateful for explainer videos like this one – we’re going to be exploring these kinds of videos a lot more in the coming months.
One of the fascinating things about the COVID-19 crisis is that it has been a global leadership test.
It involved humans – with all our idiosyncracies – needing to come to terms with an invisible enemy that we learnt was capable of rapid spreading and devastation.
Faced with this, in the so called “developed” world, we saw three kinds of leaders emerge.
The first kind chose to quickly come to terms with reality. In doing so, they listened to their leading scientists and medical professionals and immediately enforced mandatory shut downs. They then set up their local leadership to enforce contact tracing and face masks while setting expectations that the economy would only reopen when cases went down.
They chose to tell their people the hard truth upfront and take actions that were painful in the short term. And, when the reopening after the first wave happened, it went relatively smooth.
As a lot of the early commentary around nations like South Korea touted their experience with SARS to be the major factor, I thought I’d pick Germany and Italy in category 1. Italy was hit first, had a brutal first few weeks, and had to learn quickly. But, learn they did.
Germany were a touch more prepared. But, let’s take nothing away from the masterclass in fact based leadership that Angela Merkel delivered.
The second category decided the scientific approach was too conservative. They believed governments needed to weigh the trade-offs of public health and the economy and decided to experiment with unconventional approaches. The UK initially thought they’d try to get to herd immunity while Sweden refused to enforce a lock down.
The test results have now confirmed that these experiments were expensive/dismal – depending on your point of view. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 5-10x more deaths than its neighbors with just as much economic damage.
I expect these leaders to see the wisdom in the German approach and just adopt the Merkel playbook in the coming weeks.
The third category is a special category defined by the United States. The approach here was – ignore the facts, focus all decision making on short term wins that will maximize chances of winning the election in November, present a wildly positive/self congratulatory outlook, and pretend the problem will go away.
This approach started off looking rather promising thanks to the decentralized structure of the government and the fact that the early crises were in States with governors who tried to replicate the Merkel playbook. But, it was always only going to be a matter of time before the full impact of a leader who has thus far refused to take responsibility (this timeline ends in May) was realized.
So, just as deaths from the first wave looked like they’d be headed down, we began to see a resurgence coming from states that had decided to work with the “pretend it will go away” playbook.
The consequence is a chart of new cases that looks like this.
And, while a combination of heroic efforts from the healthcare system combined with demographics (older populations = higher death rate) have kept the US death rate relatively low, we’re still talking about 4.2 deaths out of every 100 people infected.
Sadly, though, I expect the positive news to end there. As deaths are a lagging indicator and as we’re far from flattened curves in states like Florida, I expect the death rate to go up in the coming weeks along with a devastating increase in the total number of deaths. As is the case with these predictions, I really hope I’m wrong.
To bring all this home, here’s a simple stat about new cases that stuck with me. It took 99 days for the first million cases in the US, 43 for the second million, and 28 for the third million.
I have many reflections from spending time with this data. But, as this post has already run long, I thought I’d share my top three.
First, if it isn’t evident yet, for those of us living in the US – we are living in the most dangerous place in the developed world and among the more dangerous places on the planet. I hope you’re mentally preparing yourself for a rough 12-18 month ride. I have begun doing so.
Second, science/facts/truths don’t care if we believe in them. They are what they are. Relatively to the climate crisis, this pandemic is actually a much more tractable problem. To see us stumble the way we have is scary. I am hopeful we will learn a few lessons when all of this over – at least in the type of leadership we elect.
Third, leadership matters. And, needless to say, elections have consequences.
Adam Wayne shared a link to a conversation we had in early 2017(!) that he just shared on his blog recently.
As it has been a while, I read through Adam’s cliff notes. And, as is the case with a conversation from 3 years ago, I agree with 80% of what I shared then and have changed my mind of the remaining 20%. For instance, I spend minimal time thinking about the concept of engagement these days as opposed to focus.
But, the biggest change would be the answer to any question that asks me to list folks who’ve influenced me the most. Somewhere down the line, I realized I used to jump to share influences outside of my family and friends.
In reality, the list of influences reads something like this as things stand – my mom, my wife, Seth Godin, Stephen Covey, Clay Christensen, my kids, colleagues, my maternal grandparents, parents-in-law, and friends. (I’m deliberately skipping names in case of colleagues and friends)
As I reflect on that list, I realize the list is just a reinforcement of the idea that we are the average of the folks we spend most of our time with. While some of these aren’t in our control, many – partners, colleagues, friends, folks whose books we read – are.
As a result, the choices we make about these partners – in life and at work – become among the most consequential decisions of them all.
In most medium/large organizations, trust is the biggest determinant of a team’s speed (assuming presence of competence/skill).
The trust between the executives involved determines how quickly organizational misalignments / incentive problems are resolved.
And, the trust between and within the working teams determines how quickly all the many small/daily issues that can choke execution speed are resolved.
While systems that help speed up decision making (e.g. clean escalations) can help, trust is still the biggest determinant by a distance because it has both multiplicative and compounding effects.
So, projects where there’s trust between executives and the working teams move an order of magnitude faster than projects where only one of these is present.
And, the longer the collaboration, the faster the teams execute.
I’ve been a regular visitor on Logitech’s webcam pages since early April. Every webcam has some version of the message below – “Out of stock due to high demand.”
I understand the high demand due to COVID-19. However, this is a pretty amazing failure to meet demand considering these products have been out of stock since end March.
Supply chain issues aside, my guess is that I’m far from the only customer who is frequently visiting the Logitech website for webcams. And, if this hypothesis is right, there are two tweaks that could significantly improve the experience.
1. An option to share my email in exchange for being notified when webcams cae back in stock would be the gold standard.
2. In the absence of that, an estimated ETA would have been great too.
Sometimes, small tweaks can result in significant improvements to the customer experience.
I’ve written a lot about productivity over the years. And, I’ve shared an equation that I think of when I think of Productivity – Focus x Intensity x Hard work.
Focus is the continuous, iterative, process of keeping the main thing the main thing. Intensity is being 100% engaged while doing it. And, hard work requires no further introduction.
When accompanied by some luck and accompanying privilege, this combination makes productivity and success inevitable.
I was thinking of all of this when I saw “The Last Dance” – a wonderfully well made mini series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
His relentless focus, unwavering intensity, and incredible work ethic made his success an inevitability. There were so many times in the series when there were just a few seconds left for one final shot and you heard opposing players say – “We knew who was going to get that ball” – and, yet, he turned out to be unstoppable.
Jordan’s familial support system (i.e. his luck/privilege) was incredible too. It had to be – to support a career like that. It takes a village.
The series delves beautifully into his intense commitment to win, to push – and sometimes to do so too hard – his teammates to join him on that commitment, and onto his desire to just let his game do the talking.
It also dwells into the many tiny margins that went into the six championships the Bulls won. The many margins that were either decided by a jump shot by Jordan or by his incredible teammates – many of whom admitted to having been pushed to overachieve by Jordan’s desire to win.
Jordan also does a great job speaking to the price of winning, to the price of leadership, and to the price of celebrity. It isn’t always pretty.
But, few things ever are.
At the heart of it, it is a story of a remarkable athlete who, during his years with the Chicago Bulls, combined focus, intensity, and hard work to win, entertain, and inspire.
It makes for a compelling story.
I was reminded of an incident from a while back when someone I knew said something about their intentions about a situation that I didn’t believe.
That initial reaction of disbelief led me to ask myself questions – was I being too cynical? Why was my first instinct to not believe these intentions?
A few days later, said someone acted in a way that made it clear that those instincts were right.
As I stopped to think about it, I realized that this behavior was not new. They were consistent to their behavior in the past. And, while I had temporarily been taken in by their words, their actions spoke a lot louder.
That’s the wonderful thing about actions. They render talk about intentions obsolete.
By taking actions, we reveal our intentions.
So, if we find ourselves repeatedly justifying our good intent, it may just serve us better to stop… and take action that reflects that intent instead.
1. Don’t buy food you’re trying avoid – it is easiest to avoid food that isn’t available.
2. Ensure the food we want to eat most frequently are easily accessible.
COVID-19 has resulted in a spike in sales of unhealthy food. While it is natural to crave junk food when we feel under stress, COVID-19 isn’t going away anytime soon.
And, while we’ll have to live with the pandemic for another year or so, we’ll need to live with our bodies (if all goes well) a lot longer.
Computer Scientist Donald Knuth shares this note about email on his website –
“Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don’t have time for such study.”
While he wrote this about email, it could apply just as nicely to social media, the news, or the phone.
And, as part of my upcoming week off, I’m excited to test being at the bottom of things for the next 4 days.
This means a switched off phone, minimal time on my laptop (likely just to write here), slow to no responses to emails and notes on social media, and plenty of downtime.
It’s been a while since I’ve committed to extended time at the bottom of things. And, I’m excited for the change of pace.
A Learning a Day 