Category: Everything else

The last word

As I was walking lost in thought to another building recently, I failed to notice someone walking a few yards behind me. As he overtook me, he told me off for not holding the door open for him.

As I snapped out of my thoughts and processed what he said, I realized I thought his comment sounded harsh. I had phrases like “how entitled” flying around my subconscious.

So, I continued to follow him with the intention of saying something about it.

Until I didn’t.

I’ve been paying more attention to my habitual attempt to have the last word of late. It comes from my reflex to fight fire with fire.

As I pay more attention to this, I’m learning to let go and separate stimulus from response from time to time. It doesn’t always happen. But, it is at least beginning to happen more frequently than it used to.

It turns out that I do just fine without having the last word – in case you were wondering. :-)

If anything, it actually results in less time spent dwelling on such situations. And, it is resulting in an improvement in my ability to look at feedback as input (more on that another day).

It was just another reminder of “when you want to fight fire with fire, remember that the fire department uses water.”

Here’s to more of them.

Growing responsibilities and scope

The default approach to growing responsibilities in organizations is often focused on two dimensions – i) breadth – i.e. broaden scope and ii) layers – i.e. add layers and build a team.

What is fascinating is that consistent personal and professional growth in the long run tends to skew in another dimension – our ability to go narrow and deep. Doing so means asking difficult questions, pushing boundaries, and demanding excellence (even when it is unpopular) over a sustained period of time.

When we demonstrate the ability to dig deep into narrow areas over a sustained period, we provide great leverage to the organization. As a result, we are trusted to broaden our aperture and hire others to provide more leverage.

The other benefit of this approach is that expansion of this sort tends to be organic and, by definition, healthy for the organization we are in. But, as it is built on trust, it doesn’t show instant results.

Instead, like most good things in life, this trust builds and compounds over time. Slowly at first. Then quickly.

Satya Nadella and bad days

I was recently reminded of a line about bad days from an interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

He was talking about what changed when he became CEO and he said (paraphrased) – “One of the things I realized is that I can never have a bad day.” He went on to explain that the ripple effects of his bad day were too large for it to ever be an option.

It is a simple and powerful idea – one that is applicable well beyond work and the teams that we run.

We don’t control what happens to us. But, we do have options on how we respond…

Mistakes, chatter, and showing up

The more time we spend trying to build new things or get work that matters done, the more mistakes we are inevitable going to make.

I’ve come to realize that the key is to not let the chatter (both external and internal) about the mistakes and the stuff that is broken to get in the way of showing up every day with enthusiasm.

Every day, we get the opportunity to solve puzzles that involve continually prioritizing between fixing what’s broken, plugging short term gaps, and investing in the long term. We get to do this in our products, in our communities, in our families, and within ourselves.

We (and what we build) are always going to be work in progress. Once we accept that, it follows that the best thing we can do is to make the most of that opportunity and continue to earn it every day.

In the long run, it turns out that becoming is far more important than being.

Strategy and trade-offs

Good strategy involves making explicit choices that are backed by a clear articulation of the trade-offs that accompany those choices.

Articulating strategy well isn’t about listing everything required to be done to win. That part comes easy.

The challenge with crafting good strategy lies in picking the path to winning with the limited resources (and they are always limited) at hand. More often than not, that path involves investing heavily in your own strengths while doing just enough so the weaknesses don’t get in your way.

There are obvious trade-offs with that (or any) approach. But, again, if there aren’t clear trade-offs, it isn’t strategy.

Change and resistance

We cannot effect the change that we seek to make without fighting the inertia that accompanies attempts to break unhelpful habits and destroy existing patterns.

The inertia is universal – it applies just as well to changing how often we exercise to reinventing how our teams do work.

So, if you are trying to effect change and are sensing resistance, that’s just a sign that you are on the right track.

Bend vs. squat

A good friend went to a physiotherapist recently to get started on treating his back. The physiotherapist demonstrated a collection of small things he’d need to change to give his back relief. The principle underlying these changes was either to lean forward or to squat instead of choosing to bend.

His experience immediately resonated as I’d shared this in a post recently about the right way to lift weight (or a kid depending on what you do more often :-)).

When faced with picking something up from the ground, our backs readily offer to help shortcut the effort it takes to squat. But, every time we do so, we strain those muscles and, in the process, lose the leverage that comes from the stronger muscles in our legs.

The more we avoid taking this shortcut, the stronger and healthier our backs and legs will be.

There’s a life lesson in there somewhere too.