Category: Everything else

Blogging time

We’re about 2 weeks away from celebrating the 11th year anniversary of this blog. As I think about the evolution of this blog and the time I spend blogging/writing, I realize that this blog has evolved to a product of two co-authors – my wife and I.

While she has certainly influenced my thinking and posts over the years, her partnership and support since we’ve had kids is really what makes this possible. Time in the day flies quickly with two young kids. So, it takes extra effort to carve out pockets of time to share my notes for the day. And, that wouldn’t be possible without her unflinching support.

I don’t often express my gratitude to her here. But, as the person who does 90% of the work and gets 10% of the credit, I thought I’d do so today.

Effecting change and being misunderstood

Much of our ability to effect change in the long run lies in our ability to consistently do two sets of things – i) acknowledging and then accepting our missteps and ii) making peace with being temporarily (sometimes permanently) misunderstood.

The first ensures we have the mental and emotional agility to adapt to the dynamics of the situation we’re dealing with.

The second, on the other hand, helps us to not lose heart.

The watch and time

Someone I know recently spoke about the significance of a watch he’d received from his parents. Aside from the fact it was gifted to him by his parents, he spoke about what it had taught him about time.

In addition to reminding him to respect time and be punctual, he spoke of the idea that “this too shall pass.”

It is a simple and powerful reminder of the transient nature of things. We go through ups and downs that all seem permanent in the moment.

But, it is all just a matter of time of perspective.

This too shall pass.

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.