Category: Everything else

Seeking dissent

There’s a great short story about how Alfred Sloane, legendary CEO of General Motors, sought dissent.

In a meeting where his entire executive team were in agreement on an important decision, Sloane interrupted everyone and said – “Gentlemen, it appears we are in complete agreement on the decision here.”

When he saw everyone nodding, he said – “So, I suggest we postpone this discussion to our next meeting so we can develop disagreement and understand what this decision is really about.”

Building teams that don’t become echo chambers takes work. It requires a collection of personalities who are willing to speak their mind and challenge each other. An environment of such candor necessitates people who are willing to put themselves out there and expose their edges. But, most importantly, it requires leadership which encourages dissent by actively seeking it.

The Alfred Sloane story is a masterclass in seeking dissent.

(Hat Tip to the Heath Brothers’ excellent book, “Decisive,” for this story)

Teachers and salesmanship

A great salesperson is always aware of the fact that buyers have one question in mind – “why should I bother?” His expertise in answering this question is what set Steve Jobs apart. Jobs didn’t just answer the question with “what” made Apple’s products special, he explained the “why” behind them and explained why you should care.

The challenges that teachers face aren’t different from those in sales. As teachers, students sitting in front of them ask the same question – “why should I bother?” There are many competing pursuits that a student would rather divert his/her attention towards. And, this is where schools, organizations and teachers slip. When attempting to hire great teachers, they screen for passion and expertise. Yes, passion and expertise are critical. If a car salesman didn’t look like an expert on cars or simply didn’t care, there is no way we’d want to engage. Why should we bother when he clearly doesn’t?

Passion and expertise only make for a good teacher, however. That’s because people with a lot passion and expertise often make the wrong assumption that everyone cares about their subject as much as they do. And, that is exactly what great teachers do differently – they don’t make that assumption simply because they are always aware that the person in front of them doesn’t actually care as much. In fact, they’re making the decision as to whether or not to care as they speak. So, great teachers sell like professionals. They sell the “why,” they sell the dream of a better life, and they sell hope.

We all play the role of teachers at various points in our lives. We teach as parents, as colleagues, as managers, as trainers, and as mentors and coaches. And, to really have an impact on those at the other end, it is critical we remember that transferring knowledge and expertise is just one half of the job. The other half is demonstrating why it matters, selling the importance of commitment, and answering that important question – “why should I bother?”

Lao Tzu and the digestive system

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” | Lao Tzu

The great Lao Tzu was well ahead of his time as he inadvertently described the idea of mental models. An easy way to understand this is to draw a parallel with our digestive system.

First, we ingest. This is the addition part that Lao Tzu alludes to. The focus is just to take in information.

Next, we digest. This is the stage where a teacher helps a great deal. By helping us put frames and structures around information, we are able to aggregate content and make it digestible.

Then, we absorb. The way we absorb new models is to connect them with existing patterns and models. This is why the learning process taxes the brain. It takes a long time for us to map with existing patterns or create new ones. As a result, taking the time to reflect on what we’ve learnt and digested is THE critical step in absorption. And, this is what most action packed seminars, conferences and retreats miss. Without down time, there isn’t understanding.

Finally, we excrete. This is the subtraction part of the process. Once we’ve built on an existing model or created a new one, we’re in a great position to remove unnecessary detail and information. Again, excretion is impossible if we shortcut absorption. So, if you’re going through a busy and intense experience, you should know that return-on-reflection-time is incredibly high. There is no learning without reflection.

The beauty of this process and the development of mental models is that, over time, your ability to process new information goes up dramatically. For example, if you come across a new productivity technique, you can dig into the essentials and decide very quickly as to whether it’ll suit your style or not. Decisions require you to cut and kill what is unnecessary. We do that with mental models. Not all mental models are accurate, of course. So, what makes accurate mental models? A lack of rigidity.

The more rigid the model, the more it is a sure sign of ignorance and stupidity. The smartest people are always testing their assumptions and adapting their mental models. That way, they’re constantly converting learning to understanding to wisdom. And, that’s how they experience the power of compound learning.

Notice how Lao Tzu talks about subtracting “every day.” Wisdom is not a state. It is a daily activity. And, you can’t shortcut daily reflection and thought.

For them or for us

Stakeholder update meetings are necessary in any project. If you’re running an event for a school, the administration would love to understand what you are up to. In companies, it is a mix of senior management, steering committees and clients.

One way to approach these meetings is for teams to take the “for them” approach. The default reasoning here is that these update meetings are for senior management/clients to see what we’re doing, poke holes, demand better results, and perhaps even put more work on our plates.

The “for us” approach deals with the same reality with a different lens. The reason for stakeholder meetings in the “for us” approach is for the team to reflect, take stock and learn. We do this by sharing our progress so far with senior management/clients, discuss roadblocks and look for opportunities to course correct as necessary. We aren’t doing this meeting “for them.” We’re doing it because we care about our work and it is wonderful to have them as we can learn from their experiences. Yes, they can be painful. But, that’s part of the learning process.

The former is normally used. The latter inspires better work.

As always, we choose.

Noise and prayer

I was at a cultural heritage museum showcasing South Indian culture yesterday that had an interesting sign next to a collection of preserved musical instruments. It explained that it was common for temples in Tamil Nadu to have loud (live) background music during prayer to drown out noises of people talking.

I thought this was fascinating. In most other parts of the world, you’d probably experience a few angry stares or murmurs if you made noise at a place where people need to focus. But, here, someone decided that the better approach was to just drown people’s voices out. As a result, it makes for a unique prayer experience – instead of the customary silence, you have loud music throughout.

Nuances like this make the idea of diversity so fascinating. As I wrote in my essay on diversity and inclusion, getting diversity right in organizations is incredibly hard. Diversity goes beyond the idea of diversity on the surface, e.g. gender and race. When cultural norms differ, it can make understanding the opposite person’s point of view rather difficult. And, if understanding doesn’t come about, trust will be non existent.

The best guideline I’ve come across in dealing with difference and diversity is Stephen Covey’s ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ This isn’t easy. But, it is the only way you can get past the noise to understand why people behave the way they do.

A final note – I’m not of the belief that getting past basic cultural barriers will make everyone a great co-worker. But, that said, if we find compatibility on core beliefs and then learn to build on different perspectives, the research has repeatedly shown that the results are likely to be outstanding.

Lee Kuan Yew

There’s one word that comes to mind when I think of the Singapore government – smart. There aren’t many governments that anyone would describe as smart.

The person who made that possible, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, passed away today. He was the architect of the modern day Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew’s regime was what many termed a benevolent dictatorship. He believed that democracy wasn’t conducive to the growth of a third world nation. So, he took it upon himself to develop a vision for Singapore in the 21st century. His vision was of a nation that became a trading hub, that compensated for its lack of natural resources with human capital, and where people could enjoy a standard of living comparable to the west. Unlike other politicians, he actually made sure all of this was achieved.

Some critics will point to the fact that Singapore’s size alone enabled such impact. Others will say his authoritarian policies rein in free will and free speech. There’s no end to these debates and I definitely don’t plan to add my point of view to the mix.

I was a beneficiary of smart policy making as a recipient of a scholarship from the Singapore government that attracted many ambitious students from across south east Asia. I enjoyed many wonderful years in Singapore and I was one of the many millions touched by Lee Kuan Yew’s extraordinary work. He approached nation building as a savvy CEO would approach building a Fortune 500 company. And, he was wildly successful in the process. He would also be the first to admit that his approach to nation building wouldn’t work for the modern day Singapore. He understood the importance of change and adaptation better than most.

In transforming Singapore – a task which many thought would be impossible when he took over – Lee Kuan Yew demonstrated to the world that great feats are possible with a vision, guts and a will to succeed and make things happen. He also reminded us that everything great we see around us was made possible by people just like us.

And, for that, I am grateful. Thank you PM Lee.

Staying with problems

Spend time with a problem long enough and you’ll find a way to solve it. You’ll learn to look at the problem differently, find every resource that can help you solve it or perhaps learn from people who’ve solved similar problems.

The sort of problems that experts aim to solve are not those that are weathered by raw intelligence. Every expert knows of at least a hundred others who are smarter than him/her. Those sorts of problems are weathered by persistence.

Great problem solvers possess majors in persistence with minors in patience and grit.

Living the good life requires us to be great problem solvers too. They questions asked of us are – “what is the good life in your definition? what will make you happy? how will you measure your life?” You don’t need a high IQ to solve these. You need high persistence (PQ?).

It is doable and within reach. We just have to be willing to stay with these questions.

What to be vs. what not to be

It is fairly easy to come up with a list of things you don’t want to be. It feels like you have done the hard work of attempting to define who you would like to be in the process. But, really, you haven’t.

“I don’t want to be a flake” is fundamentally different from “I will always keep my commitments.” The former has enough fudge built in for you to keep 7 out of every 10 promises and still be able to rationalize your behavior. The latter, on the other hand, is a commitment to integrity. It swears by the idea of 100% or none. There are no excuses and no easy way outs – you are forced to make real trade-offs.

As a result, there are only so many things you can be. The chances that you’ll pull off research that wins a Nobel prize while being a party animal who paints the city red 3 days every week are minimal. If you want to be a Nobel prize winner, you will need to make some very real sacrifices. Prioritization is essential.

That is precisely why very few choose to take a stand. It is just much easier not to.

But, of course, there is a real trade-off there too – character isn’t built that way.

26

3 things I’m thinking about as I complete my 26th year –

1. Self confidence and the unwillingness to compromise on what matters. The primary reason for starting this blog was to learn to get over my own insecurities and build self confidence. I’ve learnt a few things about confidence over these past few years and a key part of this learning has been the understanding that confidence doesn’t come from dots, it comes from lines. So, a consistent set of small wins does more good for your confidence than an out-of-the-blue big achievement. It is that realization that’s led to an intense, obsessive, sometimes pedantic, focus on process over the past few years. This focus on process has resulted in better results, more happiness and, over time, more confidence.

I’ve begun to observe that this increase in confidence has had an interesting side effect – an unwillingness to compromise on what matters to me.  I think that’s because confidence brings with it a sense of comfort in your skin. And, a mix of this comfort combined with a sense of purpose that’s been a result of all the thinking on the topic for the past 2 years has led to more clarity on why I do things. This, in turn, has helped with making all those little decisions that make up our days. And, as we live our days, so we live our lives.

It is a fascinating evolution though. And, I’m enjoying the change.

2. History lauds the individual but it is teams that make history. Hat tip to Walter Isaacson and “The Innovators” for this one. I’ve really been struck by how every great innovation in the past 150 years was brought forth by teams. I always considered myself reasonably well acquainted with the history of technology and I associated many technology shifts with lone geek genius. I’ve been blown away by the recurrence of this very simple idea – history is made by great teams. That, in turn means, if you want to really make a positive difference, you want to hone your ability to build great teams. (Note: build doesn’t necessarily mean lead)

I have 3-4 interesting team projects in progress and, in the remaining year or so of being a student, I am really interested in digging deep and understanding how great teams are built. It is nice to be able to experiment with no serious consequences. :-)

3. Learning to “see” and learning to make the most of an inch by going a mile deep. A close friend recently said he thought I was very observant. I found this to be an interesting observation as I have always thought of myself as someone with really bad observation skills. And, in some senses, that is very true. I am lost in my own thoughts and world far too often. But, observation in his eyes was to be able to view a situation and take insight from it. And, I think what he described as observant is what the wonderful Seth Godin describes in his post about “learning to see.” 7 years of looking for interesting ideas to blog about has inadvertently taught me to scratch beneath the surface a lot more. Allow me to digress for a moment here – it never ceases to amaze me as to how often people around you can point out things you never knew. I’ve learnt nearly everything about myself, especially about my strengths, thanks to insightful notes from people around me. I do my best to do the same to others around me. These observations around strengths are very valuable – we focus on weaknesses far too much.

His comment, however, led me to think about the idea observation some more. And, the more I think of it, the more I realize that observation is as powerful an idea as it gets. Great learners don’t need too many experiences to learn powerful lessons. They make the most of experiences by extracting an unimaginable amount of insight. I’d like to be able to do that more. And, perhaps that’ll be a great theme to take forward into this 26th year – to be able to make the most of the experiences I choose to immerse myself into by learning to make the most an inch… by going a mile deep.

Thank you to you for reading these notes, liking, sharing, and sending in your thoughts and comments. It is always lovely hearing from you. You make this blog a blog. And, for that, I am very grateful. Thank you for all you do.

(Past birthday notes: 25, 24, 23)

Bad is far worse than none

This is a simple truth that is particularly hard to internalize. But, the fact remains that –
– bad food is worse than none
– a bad hire is far worse than no hire at all.
– or, for the most easily understood example, a bad relationship is far far worse than none at all.

Yes, you can scale your team really quickly by bringing bodies on board. But, bring in the wrong people and you’ll kill the motivation of all those who made your team successful, destroy the culture you worked so hard to build and spend all your time dealing with the kind of crap that comes with bad hires. Your team would much rather shoulder more effort than deal with the wrong person. So would you.

As humans, we’re wired towards feeling good about choosing quantity over quality. It is hard wired into our brains after centuries spent foraging for food in tough conditions all by ourselves. But, in our age of endless choice, it is vital we learn this lesson.

Great things are easily destroyed by a few bad choices made in a hurry. So, choose wisely, and remember – bad is far worse than none.