Category: Everything else

Immortalized through music

I am a quirky music lover. I don’t go out of my way to discover new music and, instead, rely on serendipity. But, once I discover a song I like, it goes onto my iTunes list – this is an eclectic yet carefully curated list that has grown with time. I buy my music because it solidifies this deep emotional connection with it. The other quirk is that I have music on through 60-80% of the time I work. Since my high school days, I’ve just gotten used to having music in the background. It suits my kind of ADD for some reason.

Now, the reason for this post is that the music I listen to often has some really powerful memories associated with it. There are songs that remind me of certain times in the last 12 years – some good, some tough, and some fun – and then there are many that remind me of people. In some cases, it was because a close friend loved it and, in other cases, it was because we listened to it on repeat during a memorable moment. These people and moments become immortalized in my memory through music.

Just this weekend, I heard a song that nearly brought tears to my eyes. The funny thing is that I didn’t even know the lyrics – it was just the “feel” of the song.  There’s something about it that makes me want to pause, take stock and reflect. I’ve been listening to this song often these past few days – my wife’s normal question when I go through the ‘listen-to-a-new-song-often-phase’ is – “are we listening to this on repeat today?” (I clearly have a long list of music quirks :-))

As I explained to the friend who shared this song, music is my favorite kind of gift and she’s been immortalized in my memory through this song.

This is an unusual mid-week post but, as I woke up this morning, I reflected on what’s been a busy few days. And, I felt I needed to take some time this evening to stop, reflect, and take it all in. But, as I started writing today’s post, I played the song and realized that the mini-moment of peace would go a long way in making sure I start the day in the right mindset. So, I deleted what I began writing about and thought I’d just share the song with you.

Maybe you might find it helps too. Here’s to a bit of pause, a bit of reflection, and a bit of peace this mid-week.

Building great teams

I’m making slow progress through “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson. The book is a nice walk down technology memory lane starting from when Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace first conceptualized the computer.

The learning from the book that stands out most to me is the sheer importance of great teams in every technological innovation. Media and culture celebrate great individuals but history makes it apparent that it is teams that succeed. Taking the Tolstoy logic of “all happy families look the same,” I noticed 2 common traits of great teams through the book so far –

1. A mesh of individual and collective genius. Every team somehow managed to encourage individual skill while ensuring a collective ownership of the end product. Some of the biggest breakthroughs were indeed made by individuals. But, they wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the rest of the team. That’s a powerful idea for us as team members and team leaders. We need to be able to encourage individual skill while, perhaps, making sure everyone on the team has a collective ambition. The collective ambition is what allows for true collaboration.

2. Complementary skills, similar dreams and a lot of trust. Every great team had a mix of personalities with complementary skills – the founding team of Intel is a great example of this with Robert Noyce being the visionary, Gordon Moore being the innovator and Andy Grove being the manager who got things done. Despite these differences, they were united by similar dreams. When dreams or values differed, these teams disintegrated. But, when they aligned, it gave rise to great trust and chemistry stemming from a deep understanding of each others’ strengths and weaknesses.

For me, it goes back to the idea that teams are not people who work together, teams are people who trust each other. Yes, we all work in teams in our jobs and assignments, but, how many of those are real teams? How many times do we, as team members, make an earnest effort to get to know each other? We don’t need to be leaders to build great teams. We just need to care enough about collective success and want to really get to know our teammates. Understanding follows knowledge and trust follows understanding.

The days of the lone inventor are long gone. Science and business innovation builds on those of previous generations. And, it is my belief that, today, more than ever, the future belongs to those who can build great teams.

Looking for the next mountain

Life has a way of making sure we face a continuous stream of ups and downs. It is akin to mountain climbing. If you are on top of the mountain right now, you’ve probably endured a lot of hardship as you made your way uphill these last weeks. And, if you’re currently enduring hardship, you’ll be at the top in due time.

The wise realize this and ensure they don’t get too high when they reach the peak and feel too low when they’re stuck in the weeds. This perspective keeps them focused on the bigger picture. The important thing is to keep climbing.

The one trait I have observed in people who seek to make a dent in the world is that they don’t wait around for life to hand them the next mountain climbing assignment. Instead, they go look for it themselves. They take up new responsibilities, start projects, attempt to drive change and make things happen. This means they sign themselves up for more intense climbs than most and fail to reach the peaks they want more regularly than most.

But, as you might have gathered, it isn’t in the peaks that life is lived, but in the climbing. And, people who make a dent go out of their way to find new mountains and keep climbing. Yes, they fail. But, yes, they also learn how to be relentless in their pursuit of the next thing.

And, it is thanks to that relentlessness that great things happen.

The truth about admissions and hiring

Thanks to the MBA learnings series, I’ve been hearing from many who’re going through the business school applications process. In these exchanges, I always try to make sure I share 3 points that I find helpful.

1. After a point, it becomes a crap shoot. I’d highly recommend taking a couple of minutes to read Seth Godin’s excellent post on ‘The truth about admissions‘. Here’s my favorite excerpt –

Worth saying again: In admissions, just as in casting or most other forced selection processes, once you get past the selection of people who are good enough, there are few selectors who have a track record of super-sorting successfully. False metrics combined with plenty of posturing leading to lots of drama. 

The winter and spring quarters are internship recruiting seasons here in school and it is easy to spot similar dynamics. I remember asking a friend how he thought HR picked cover letters out of a competitive pool. He imitated a person throwing a dart on the wall. That’s not to say it is completely random but, echoing Seth’s view, I think there’s a fair bit of pseudo science at play once you cross the threshold of competence.

2. It is a tough process and one that never fails to touch our insecurities (“Am I not good enough?”).  That’s just part of the process. We just have to expect it and be aware of it when it happens. In some ways, we’re always going to have such questions pop up when we ship. It gets easier when we’re shipping a product we designed vs. ourselves though. But, it is a worthwhile process and can be educational if we treat it as such.

The one thing that does help here is to be a bit self centered and just focus intensely on your own process. We’re all on different paths fighting different sorts of battles. Focus on what you need to do and make sure you ask for as much help as you need. These sorts of challenges are hardly ever overcome alone.

3. You only need one to work out. A close friend gave me this perspective and it is one that has stuck with me. Whenever we get started on a job search-like process, we always begin by pinning our hopes on a number of options. And, as these begin to disappear, we get disheartened. The only perspective we need to maintain here is that all it takes is for one to work out. Ideally, it’ll be the one we want. My experience has shown that it almost always is the one we need (and, every once in a while, the two intersect).

All the best. And, if I can be of help in any way through your search processes, do send me a note (rohan at rohanrajiv dot com) and I’ll do my best to be of assistance.

The tension between who you are and who you want to be

One of the fascinating tensions I observe with in myself is the tension between who I am and who I want to be. I spent between 2011-2013 largely pushing to understand myself – this meant reading as much as I could on psychology, the brain, happiness, behavior and understanding personality types via books like Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers. On the other side of this effort, I feel l understand who I am and what drives me a lot better than I used to. The benefit of this is in my slightly improved ability to understand which self improvement projects are a waste of time.

I have observed that the tension between who we are and who we want to be is one of the most difficult challenges we face in our lifetime. We aren’t fit vs. we want to be fit, we don’t read vs. we want to be the sort of person who reads a lot, we don’t spend time with our family vs. we want to be “family” people, etc. We’re constantly faced with this tension.

There are 3 lessons that have stuck with me (in case you are wondering why I always do 3, it is not because there are 3. There are many more than 3 – I just do my best to boil it down to the 3 most important lessons.) –

1. Your greatest strengths are also your biggest weaknesses. If you are a great thinker, it is likely you think too much. If you are a great doer, it is likely you do too much. You can’t look at weaknesses in isolation. In cases like this, I find it best to think about it as a balancing act. You won’t ever fully conquer that demon but, with enough self awareness, you can keep it at bay. So, as you get started, pick your self improvement projects carefully.

2. Understand why you want to change. Are you changing for yourself or because you want to be liked/popular? Changing for someone else is futile. At the end of the day, this tension is between you and the person who looks back at you in the mirror. If the two of you don’t feel it is worth it, it is not going to happen. That doesn’t mean you can’t change something about yourself to become more likable. You’ve just got to believe in it yourself.

3. Change projects are best taken up one-at-a-time over long periods. The biggest reason self improvement projects fail is because they’re taken up wholesale after an “aha” moment (usually new year’s day). There is NO way you can create sustainable change in one shot. It is a gradual process and you have to keep that perspective and be patient with yourself.

This isn’t a 3 day battle, it is a lifelong war. That said, it is definitely a war worth fighting consistently and well.

Being human

There are so many things we want to be at a given time. We’d love to be awesome, to be competent, to be skilled, to be impressive, to be right, and so on.

It is, therefore, really easy to forget the one thing that is most important – to be human.

We’re just bags of chemicals with ideas and purposes. We’ve not got this all figured out and we’re definitely learning as we go. Our life, in some ways, is just a giant collection of experiments. And, that means they’ll come with setbacks, problems and failures. We all have some really big strengths that we need to take time to discover. These strengths often moonlight as our biggest weaknesses – we can’t have one without the other. We also have insecurities. An understanding and appreciation of them helps a lot as they give us the drive to make an impact. Confidence gives us the ability to act despite them.

It is okay if we screw up. We’ll say and do the wrong thing every once a while. Sometimes, we’ll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We will be misunderstood. And, not everyone will like us. That’s part of the game.

The good news? We’re alive, kicking, and have an opportunity to put that ding in the universe. Our effort doesn’t guarantee that it will happen. But, it matters that we try. If not us, who? If not now, then? In the really long run (i.e. generations later), almost no one will remember us or know we existed anyway. What really matters is that we live a life that means something to us and brings us happiness. There’s nobody else we really need to please. So, let’s be ourselves, and always remember… to be human.

Bad design makes you look stupid

Flush toilets are not designed for men. I take particular issue with American flush toilets as they have an absurd amount of static water once you flush. As you can imagine, the combination of a high level of static water and water dropping from a height means the resulting physics isn’t pretty. I’ve joked about this issue for many a time now and, from the reaction I get from other males, I realize I’m not alone in this view.

Why, then, are flush toilets designed so bad? Well, I don’t know yet but I intend to find out. I guess my second question is – why don’t we just have urinals at home? I’m guessing men all over will appreciate that.

The deeper point here is that bad design makes users look stupid. So, if the users of your product/service are exhibiting stupid behavior, it is not their fault, it is yours. User error is regularly just a manifestation of poor design. A small tweak in design can fix the most absurd problems. For example, making sure the ATM card pops out before the cash comes out ensures users don’t walk away with the ATM card in the machine.

The flip side of this is – as a user, if you are unable to figure out what to do on an app or a website, it probably isn’t your fault. That hotel shower handle that gives no indication about which direction you need to turn to get the right water temperature? Definitely not your fault. Sadly, many designers’ biggest takeaway from Apple’s success in the past decades has been to make things pretty. The iPhone didn’t become the phenomenon it is because it is pretty (it definitely is pretty), it became the phenomenon it is because it is simple to use.

At the end of the day, great design is all about making things easier for the user. And, as we’re all designers – of experiences, events, and lives – and primary users of our products and services, it is important that we design processes and environments that, first and foremost, just work.

Mental adventures and our search for engagement

Bored teens often cause all sorts of societal problems by getting into bad company. Bored office workers spend most of their time making up forwards and memes. Bored couples have affairs and mid-life crises. And, bored elders become negative, cynical and turn their energy on their family members. I call these ‘mental adventures’ as they speak to our need to infuse some drama into an otherwise boring life.

The first principle of boredom is that – if you are bored, it is really not anyone else’s problem. However, it often becomes someone else’s problem if you don’t do something about it.

We’re all built to handle a bit of boredom. But, not too much of it. We care most about feeling engaged. This is why Amazon purchased Twitch for nearly 1 billion dollars. What is Twitch? A website that records other people playing games. 1 billion dollars for a website that just records other’s playing games? Yes. Twitch is, of course, a small part of a video gaming industry worth nearly 100 billion dollars.

In short, engagement matters. And, we need to gift ourselves that feeling of engagement. There are many ways to do it – we can choose to read more, get involved in more activities that stimulate our mind, and do more for society. However, they’re all much harder than switching on a video game and settling down for hours on our couch. That’s what makes finding engagement hard. To find real engagement, we need to overcome the resistance.

The other massive challenge here is that it is not an easy concept for teens and the elderly to grasp. That’s why a teenage child often turns out to be a parent’s most difficult challenge. If parents pass the engagement test and keep their teen engaged (largely) on stuff that is productive, that’s a massive victory.
It gets much harder with the elderly and that results in a vast disparity between how the elderly behave. On one side, you have the the Warren Buffetts and Jiro Onos of the world who are still taking the world on in their 80s. And, on the other side, we’ve got many older folk who can barely walk straight at 75.

Engagement is critical for a happy and productive life. And, it is entirely up to us to keep our mind engaged.

People who believe in you

Most people who you encounter in life will be indifferent to you. Who you are, where you are going, what you care about, etc., won’t really matter to them.

Then, there will be those who will find creative ways to tell you that you aren’t good enough. And, that, if it wasn’t for them, you would go nowhere.

But, every once in a while, you’ll come across those precious few who actually care. They get you, they think about your well being and really believe in you. Belief is a beautiful thing – you just know it when you see it, you feel it in your veins. They make the effort, try hard to be helpful and show you they care.

Such people rarely come by. So, when they do, keep them close.

And, if possible, as often as possible, be that person yourself.

The opposite of viral

I know a lot of content creators (bloggers, video creators, etc.) would love for a post to go viral. It is one of those fascinations when you start a blog or video channel and wonder what going viral might be like. It doesn’t help that you see all sorts of random content go viral and think – “Hang on a second, so much of my stuff is better/funnier/nicer/more meaningful, etc.”

After nearly 7 years/3365 posts, my learning has been to not hope for viral. In fact, I’d even say – dread viral; because viral brings fleeting fame and you don’t really want fleeting fame. You’ll find many who’ll show up to read that one post or watch that one video and simply go away. The spike in your analytics will soon be gone as well. Nothing tangible would have been built.

Instead, focus on slow organic growth (the keyword here is slow because it is incredibly slow). Delight one reader or viewer at a time. Over time, if you are lucky and good, you’ll find a small group of influential readers who begin spreading the word about your work. Now, instead of one reader, you’ll have two who show up every day. Then 3, then 4, and soon, it catches on. The nice thing about such growth is that you grow with your reputation. You learn how to build your video channel in a sustainable fashion and don’t resort to gimmicks. That builds trust and trust is how important things are built.

Viral, on the other hand, is devoid of trust and, as a result, a sham. You deserve better. Those whom you delight and serve deserve better too. So, if you are creating content, I wish you the opposite of viral. And, I wish you the strength and courage to keep at it for 10 years. Rome was not built in a day. Enron was.