Category: Everything else

There are just a few ways to get things right.

The best practice sales systems were built by understanding top performing sales people.
The best practice training regimes for athletes were built by studying top performing athletes like Jerry Rice.

So, when you get into a new system where you want to be successful, first, identify folks who’re doing well. Next, figure out how they approach their art. Finally, get introduced to more folks like them (like attracts like – stars attract stars) and build relationships with them. You are, after all, the average of the five folks you spend most of your time with. So, if you want to be an elite athlete, start hanging out in circles with elite athletes.

And, once you understand what they do well, copy shamelessly. Let there be no ego in adopting best practices. You will, in time, adapt their approach to your own style and even make them better.

That’s how innovation happens.

I’d shared a framework we discussed in a crisis management class 3 weeks ago – a few days after the Volkswagen emissions debacle came out in the press. I thought it was time for part II.

I woke up to the following paragraph as part of my “Economist Espresso.”

“Volkswagen’s boss in America offered a congressional hearing a “sincere apology” for the company’s use of “defeat devices” which helped diesel engines cheat in emissions tests. Stressing that he was not an engineer, Michael Horn blamed “a couple of software engineers” for the modification, of which he said he had no prior knowledge. German prosecutors searched the carmaker’s headquarters.”

While I could have looked for a longer article with more details, this paragraph was very instructive. And, I couldn’t resist throwing in the picture as well.

There are 2 things I would like to call out –

1. The crisis framework I shared offered 4 dimensions for an effective response to a crisis – transparency, expertise, commitment and empathy. It is safe to say that this response failed on all 4.

2. However, that is not what’s most shocking about this response. It is the complete lack of spine that indicates a total failure of leadership. Let us, for a moment, try and forget the fact that he claimed no prior knowledge of something as massive as this. The fact that he felt it was acceptable to blame “a couple of software engineers” just blows my mind.

There are few tenets of leadership that are as fundamental as – “Take responsibility when things go wrong and give credit when things go well.”

A crisis can be a great opportunity to dig deep, go back to your values and show the world what you are made of.

Volkswagen seems to have missed the memo.

When Drew Dudley was a student at college, he changed one girl’s life without even realizing it.

The girl was intimidated to start college and told her parents she couldn’t do it. They ended up convincing her to go to her first day, but said that they would fully support her if it didn’t feel right and she decided to quit. So she went the first day and, sure enough, she felt intimidated as she was standing in line to pick up her room key. Just as she was about to turn to parents to tell them she couldn’t do it, she saw Drew come out of the student union building. He was dressed like an idiot with a stupid hat on and was handing out lollipops to raise awareness for a charity. He came up and stopped near the girl.

He then confronted another nervous freshman guy standing next to this girl, telling him, “You, you need to give this lollipop to the beautiful girl standing next to you.” The freshman guy turned beet red, took the lollipop and awkwardly handed it to the girl next to him. Drew then turned to her parents and said, “Look at that, look at that! First day away from home, and, already, she’s taking candy from a stranger!” Everyone in line burst out laughing, and the girl finally felt a bit at ease and decided to stay .

Four years later, on his last day, the same girl came up to Drew and told him the story. She told him that it was the most important moment of her life, that she was felt intimidated and was ready to quit school before it even started. She told him she couldn’t have been happier that she stayed at school and it was all because of his little joke that made her feel welcome. And, she also told him that she was still dating the boy who gave her the lollipop and that they were getting married in a year!

Drew racked his brain and couldn’t even remember telling the joke and giving out the lollipops.

We’ve all probably had lollipop moments in our lives. In Drew’s words, perhaps we need to redefine leadership as being about lollipop moments – how many of them we create, how many of them we acknowledge, how many of them we pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for.

Changing the world simply means affecting the people we come across in our everyday lives, because that literally is all “our world” is.
—
HT Jim and Drew Dudley’s talk on Everyday leadership

I woke up this morning and found myself going through a highlight reel of some of the dumbest things I said in public in the past few months.

This is an occupational hazard when you put yourself out there and occasionally speak off-the-cuff.

For a moment, I felt a lot of empathy toward public figures who say something stupid and find it picked up and misinterpreted in every possible by media outlets everywhere. They probably don’t need a mental highlight reel as they’re likely constantly reminded of that moment of stupidity.

Of course, the other side of the story is that good stuff they say is also broadcast all over the world. If you put yourself out there enough, mistakes will pop up.

The challenge is not to avoid mistakes but to avoid the illusion of perfection when things are, momentarily, going your way.

The best way to learn from mistakes is to simply say – “I make mistakes.. and that’s okay.”

Change and betterment come with acceptance.

But, the biggest benefit of this approach is that we also learn to be truly empathetic and understanding.

It is only when we forgive ourselves can we truly learn to forgive others. That is the true beauty of making and embracing mistakes – they teach us to be human.

There are 2 essential pieces to the hacker ethos made popular by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

1. It requires people who are willing to experiment and fail. That doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t work for a lot of people.

2. But, more importantly, it requires leaders and managers who are willing to let go and let their people learn and grow

The toughest part about allowing people to moving fast and breaking things is that things actually do break. And, that is one of the biggest tests you face as a manager. It is far easier to do things yourself and not delegate. However, you will also get very little done in the long run as that approach isn’t scale-able.

It is impossible to learn without experimentation. And, it is impossible to experiment without failures. Embracing experimentation, therefore, isn’t a choice. It is a requirement. The world is a better place when we embrace “this might not work.”

After all, nothing ventured => nothing gained.

If you spend many months working with a great team, it is easy to assume that it is the leadership or management of the team that is making the team great. That is, however, a textbook example of recency bias. This is similar to looking at a Barcelona football team or a New York Yankees baseball team and attributing most of the greatness of the team to the manager.

Yes, the manager matters. And, yes, the manager can often be the the difference between a championship medal and a trophy-less season. But, if the team succeeds, it is likely that at least 50-60% of its success is due to great hiring. Even the greatest manager of all time can’t lead a bunch of high school players to a world cup win. But, every once a while, you will hear of ordinary managers leading a great group of players to incredible heights.

It works the same with bad strategy. You can follow great strategy with poor execution and still end up in a decent place. But, start with bad strategy… and it won’t really matter how good your execution is.

It is worth remembering that when we decide to say “yes” to the next commitment that squeezes time that we would normally spent either with ourselves or with our people that mean to us.

Starts often matter more than we think or realize.

Nearly every time I try to do something that will make me better – read, exercise, meditate, among others – I can feel the resistance pop up and find out if there’s a way I can postpone it. There’s so much going on right now. Wouldn’t it be better if I did it later?

I felt that voice this morning as I thought about switching on Headspace to meditate.

I did feel busy. I decided to do it anyway.

And, 15 minutes later, I wondered why I ever had second thoughts. I felt so much better. And, I know that happens every time I meditate.

So much of being happy is doing things that you know are good for you by pushing the resistance away and saying, with conviction – “It’ll feel better, later.”

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to do a lot of public speaking growing up. I am pretty comfortable on stage now. While it is easy to attribute this to natural talent, I was horrible when I started. My school believed in giving kids plenty of opportunities to participate in inter school competitions. And, I had been chosen to try my hand at public speaking. After a poor showing in my first 3 competitions, I was told that they’d begin to give other students an opportunity if I didn’t do well in my next one. I did, and didn’t look back.

This is the process I followed –

1. Write/type what you want to say. As a kid starting out, my mom used to write all my speeches. (Thanks mom!) It took me a while to find my own voice and write my own.

2. Practice. When I got started, I rehearsed every talk at least 20-30 times in front of the mirror. The “practice in front of the mirror” tip ranks among the best pieces of public speaking advice I’ve received as it contributed most toward a better end product.

3. Find your authentic style. I am not funny. So, I’ve learnt that it is pointless to try to be funny. I’ve also learnt that it becomes very annoying when someone is trying hard to speak like someone they’re not. Just be you. In my case, I tend to gravitate towards content that is focused on learning (surprise, surprise) in my own style. My public speaking voice and persona isn’t very different from my conversational voice and persona. I’ve found that alignment to be very helpful.

4. Talk about stuff that matters to you. This ensures that the passion comes through. If I had to go one step further, I would even say – say something that you think might make a difference in the lives of the folks listening. Too often, public speaking becomes a race to make people laugh.

As you can tell, the process is not rocket science. I still follow it to this day for most important talks. However, the benefit of having done it so many times is that I am comfortable with minimal practice. That helps a lot – especially when it comes to delivering presentations at work.

Many people fear public speaking. I think that fear is natural. I do not know anyone who jumped off the cradle ready to speak. In every speech during my first 10 years or so, my legs and hands used to shiver like nobody’s business on stage. You learn very quickly that the fear is just part of the process. You learn to embrace it and trust in your preparation. And, when you do, you’ll have people come up and tell you have “the gift of the gab.” :)

Whenever I think of great public speaking, I am reminded of the Sir Winston Churchill quote (paraphrased) – “There’s three weeks of preparation before a great impromptu speech.”

So true. Success lies in the hours.

I’ve veered off a bit from “normal programming” over the past 4 weeks – there haven’t been weekly MBA learning or product review posts. The reason for that is that I’ve dealing with a few extenuating circumstances. A mix of a massive project’s peak, illness, start of a new project, and a couple of setbacks meant that I kept focused on just making sure I wrote once a day.

However, as I was reflecting on the past ~30 weeks this morning, I realized that there was some disruptive force or another in at least 15 of the 30 weeks.

Thanks to Clayton Christensen’s warning in “How Will You Measure Your Life,” I had learnt that life is just a series of extenuating circumstances. But, I guess it is one thing to understand an idea and quite another to experience it. Looking back the past 30 odd weeks and seeing the regularity of these extenuating events has resulted in a lot of appreciation for the idea.

Perhaps I should just stop making these excuses and get on with it. There is no such thing as a “normal” week.

The obstacles never stop. I just need to learn to expect them and view them as part of my definition of normal.

There are times when circumstances force you to make difficult decisions. I’ve noticed that most of these decisions are personal. There isn’t a clear path forward and it is hard to really weigh all options. While I’m a huge fan of the WRAP framework for most decision, these are times when I feel the need for a gut-based personal decision.

And, in such times, I have found 3 things to be very helpful –

1. Create space from the noise. Shift to a different location and spend some time alone. Or, spend time with people with whom you’re very comfortable in silence. It is only in space can we really listen to ourselves.
2. Get some sleep. This sounds like an extremely counter intuitive thing to do when you have to make a difficult decision. My guess is that the scientific reasons for this approach is that sleep refuels our willpower. And, our willpower helps us make better decisions. There is also some scientific merit to the idea of subconscious information processing. Go to sleep with a complicated problem and sleep can, every once in a while, clear our heads. However, the reason I recommend it is that it has simply worked incredibly well for me. I’ve also a few life experiences that have taught me never to trust my judgment (or others’ for that matter) when sleep deprived.
3. Share your decision with a few people who understand you. This is just to watch out for any red flags. The folks who really understand will warn you if the decision makes no sense. And, that check point is very helpful.