Category: Everything else

Tim Duncan and Hurricane Hugo

Tim Duncan, then a kid in the Virgin Islands, dreamed of becoming a swimmer on the 1992 US Olympic swim team and emulate his sister. His mother instilled an incredible work ethic in him and he became a nationally ranked swimmer by age 13 in 1989.

But, hurricane Hugo swept through the Virgin Islands in 1989 and destroyed the only Olympic size pool in his home island of St Croix. Now, the only remaining place to practice swimming was the Carribean sea and this dented Tim’s enthusiasm as he was afraid of sharks. Following that, his mother died from breast cancer taking away his desire to swim.

While the Virgin Islands might have lost many a talented swimmer then, Tim began focusing on basketball thanks to encouragement from his brother-in-law. While there are few are blessed with Tim’s prodigious athletic ability, he only started playing basketball in his 9th grade – considered late by every standard. However, thanks to that work ethic and a constructive response to a tough situation, he went on to win 5 NBA championships and is often named the greatest power forward of all times.

It is safe to say that went well.

If it wasn’t for hurricane Hugo, we might perhaps have never seen Tim Duncan, the legendary basketball player. However, given his work ethic, we’d likely have seen or heard about Tim Duncan, the great swimmer.

There is no human being on the planet who doesn’t face challenges. Very few, however, respond like Tim and simply rise above them.

Thanks Tim – for showing the way, and for reminding us that it isn’t what happens to us that matters. It all comes down to how we respond.

This will come of use again

Often, the biggest reason for shoddy work is the belief that what we’re learning or doing will never come of use. We don’t like it, we perceive it useless and we try to do the minimum and move on.

I’ve found, however, that the world conspires (with unerring consistency) to make sure you have to do it again. I have so many comical instances where I put in the minimum required effort to get something done with the belief that I’ll never have to do so again and then found myself having to re-do it properly a few days/months down the line.

The enlightened approach to this is to just do things well. That is easier said than done, of course. Applying yourself to everything you do requires a consistency of effort and a commitment to focus and discipline that is unusual.

But, the benefit of doing things well is that, if and when you need to do them again (and you will) at a later time, you will remember the Steve Jobs line and say ‘Ah, the dots do connect.’

Because they do.

Building teams that innovate – learning from history

I am reading “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks” Created the Digital Revolution.” I realized I didn’t know much about the early history of the digital age and have, so far, found it fascinating. I’m still only 25% into the book and am beginning to see a trend in how innovative teams that shaped the digital age were built.

1. Multi-disciplinary teams. Great technology breakthroughs were not made by a group of computer scientists working together. Instead, they involved groups of theoretical physicists, chemists and programmers who came together. This was the case in the creation of the early computers at University of Penn and in the case of the semiconductor at Bell Labs.

Bell Labs was a great example of a place that was simply bustling with innovative ideas. Its DNA was built on the fact that it kept exposing scientists to others with different expertise. Steve Jobs was so inspired by Bell Labs that he designed the Pixar headquarters (and, perhaps, Apple, too?) to mimic Bell Labs. At the Pixar headquarters, you are forced to bump into others from different parts of the organization at the large Atrium. It is, as Jobs described it, a place that “promoted promoted encounters and unplanned collaborations.”

2. An intersection of science and the arts. Ada Lovelace, John von Neumann, Steve Jobs were examples of people who brought together two seemingly unconnected disciplines. This is, in some ways, related to point 1 but still worth a separate call out. All 3 were credited with visionary thinking that shaped the digital age and, perhaps, it was only made possible by their position at that intersection.

3. Teams that combined individual genius and great team spirit. We like building tales of the individual inventor. But, great inventions were largely built by teams. What is distinctive about nearly every one of these teams is that they combined individual genius (often one or two within the group) and great team spirit from working really well together. Not all these times lasted long because of recurring issues around ego, but when they did, they worked fantastic.

This point is a great guide to anyone looking to build a great team. You want to encourage individual genius in your team and, at the same time, do your best to foster team spirit. It always feels safer to just bring people whose egos don’t clash. But, then, you lose edge. And, edge is often what make teams great.

The email tool

Email has been around for 30+ years now. And, despite its ubiquity, it still polarizes. Email has also been declared dead many a time in these 21 years but still manages to stick on. If you read Cal Newport’s excellent blog, you will likely see regular posts telling you – it’s okay to be bad at email. There are tons of productivity blogs who’ve written about inbox zero, the 2 minute rule, etc., etc. So, which is the truth?

Here’s how I think of email –

1. Email is a near-ubiquitous communication tool. It is important to think of it as a communication tool and not a getting-things-done tool or productivity tool. Email just helps get messages across.

2. This leads us to the question – where is email most useful? Email is most useful in any work that requires connection because, well, it helps connect people. “Duh” – you might say. Forgive me for stating the obvious.

3. So, for researchers who need to spend more time reading and digesting complex scientific paper, Cal is absolutely right. Email isn’t a necessity.

4. However, if you work in the “connection” economy, I believe it is essential you learn how to use the tool. If you lead a team of really busy people or a team of people at different locations (increasingly the norm), for instance, being bad at email is really not an option. A CEO who doesn’t do email well can repeatedly stall an entire organization.

5. Did we communicate well before email? Sure, we did. We survived just fine without computers too. While we could argue about whether our quality of lives have improved, the fact is – things have changed. As things stand now, email is the norm for a tool of communication. Figure out a way to deal with it.

6. Notice, my message isn’t to respond to every email. Just figure out a way to deal with it – set expectations on how you respond and help folks who work with you understand what to expect. This may become easier as you become more busy/sought after/important as people understand you have a lot on your plate. But, I’d argue that it probably never gets much easier.

7. You can definitely choose to view email as a necessary evil. But, given many of us spent at least 30 minutes to an hour on our inbox in our working lives, I’d imagine that view isn’t doing us much good. Every once in a while, I get a completely serendipitous email from someone I haven’t heard from in a long time and I feel really thankful for the awesomeness that is email. If you aren’t getting such emails, be that someone and send someone you are thinking about a nice personal note..

8. Also, email can be incredibly helpful in making connections with people you have never met. I’ve been fortunate to meet some really cool people after some persistent emailing. So, if you haven’t gotten around to using the email tool for that, well, it is about time..

Email is a tool we’re going to have live with. I’d recommend the following – Take some time really think about how you plan to work with it, learn to use it to your advantage (it is definitely a skill) and love it. Love is a verb, after all.

Invented divisions

The recent events in Paris have brought to light many tensions to the surface. Religion is a touchy and emotional subject. As a result, it makes for a difficult topic to write about. Everyone has an opinion that seems perfectly right and legitimate from their point of view.

The thought that repeatedly crosses my mind when I see these issues is that these divisions weren’t meant to be divisions at all. They have often been perpetuated by humans like you and me for purposes like power and wealth. And, we definitely have the choice to rise above them.

As the world becomes more global, we’re increasingly going to have relationships with customers, co-workers, and other stakeholders who have different beliefs and ways of thinking. What we need is more understanding, more patience and more openness to differences.

Different isn’t necessarily good or bad. It is just different. We can choose to have a discussion. And, we can choose to ignore these divisions. If they are invented anyway, we might as well invent something that increases our happiness.

Lines give us confidence, not dots

One of the ideas that has helped me understand the nature of confidence is that it is lines that give us confidence, not dots.  So, a single incredible game does not make anyone a great player. Greatness and confidence come from enduring consistency over a long period of time.

One powerful implication of this idea is that we should abandon the ‘one big win’ mentality. Many build careers around the assumption that a stint at a prestigious firm or business school will mean they’ve “made it.” Similarly, many try to build companies and become crest fallen when a prestigious venture capital firm turns down.

While all of these undoubtedly help, they are, at the end of the day, just dots. You don’t become a great presenter by giving one big speech. Instead, you notch a thousand speeches that build your confidence. So, in our search for confidence in what we do, it is critical we approach it as a long process where our focus is on notching small wins. It follows that making a big difference in our lifetime isn’t about making one big choice or one big turning point – it is often a result of many many small wins over the course of a lifetime.

This, then, leads to my key takeaway from the “lines, not dots” principle – true confidence comes from a great process. Great inventors and thinkers across time had a phenomenal learning process. Think Richard Feynman, Benjamin Franklin among many others.

And, similarly, true self confidence comes from a great life process. Great habits, a great process and a purpose driven approach to life, for example, are the dots that, when joined together, provide the foundation for self confidence. Mastery in one aspect isn’t enough. It is all about lines, not dots.

Introduce people by sharing what they mean to you

We often introduce friends and co-workers to others. There are many ways to do this – you can emphasize what is most amazing about them, you can share their official ‘bio’, you can explain how you met, etc.

An idea that I’m implementing more over the past couple of years is to introduce them by sharing what they mean to you. These days, if I have to introduce someone to an audience, I have begun doing an “official” version that I gloss over and an “unofficial” version where I share my ‘personal experience’ of the person and what they’ve meant to me.

The bio approach approaches every person as a collection of achievements. The meaning approach does tend to skip an achievement or two but hugely personalizes the process and, I think, leads to more impact.

After all, people don’t remember what you say or do as well as they remember how you made them feel.

 

Hat tip: Lifehacker for bringing this idea together in my head

Wish and want

We often spend parts of our days and lives wishing for things. “I wish.. this happened/that happened/I got this/I got that.”

As the quote goes from “Into the Woods” – ‘are you certain what you wish is what you want?’ Because what we wish isn’t necessarily what we want. And, what we want isn’t necessarily what we need.

Maybe the other approach is not to spend any time wishing. Just keep making decisions on the process, keep plugging away, and ignore wishes altogether. We all wish for good days (largely). But, who knows if a good day now will really be a good day in retrospect?

The enlightened approach is to not bother with wishes and wants and other proxies for results. I can see why it is the enlightened approach – it keeps us focused on the present, mindful about what is happening, and helps us get a tremendous amount done. We can’t all flip the switch to pursue the enlightened approach of course. But, perhaps, we could aim for a little more of it.

And, maybe, just maybe, when we catch ourselves wishing, we could ask ourselves  – “Are you certain what you wish is what you want?”

Connected home questions and its implications for tech

Samsung announced yesterday that, in 5 years, every device will connect to the internet. The “internet of things” is clearly going to be here soon. And, companies like Samsung and Google are better on the connected home and the connected life. The announcement raises a couple of interesting questions around the home of the future.

First, will every device also be connected to each other? Would our TV be connected to our refrigerator, for instance? Is there a need for that?

Next, will we head towards a smart device and dumb cloud model? Or will we just look at these devices as pieces of glass and expect the all-knowing cloud to stream or procure what we want?

Both these questions lead us to multiple possibilities that will have huge impact on the technology ecosystem. For example,
– In the everything is connected to everything model, companies like Dropbox and Google will vie to be the connector between the various displays. Google stands to prosper if this is the future (it certainly feels more likely) because Google does “cloud” better than its only other serious competitor at this point – Apple.

– Apple, in my opinion, stands to gain more from a model where everything need not be connected to everything. Instead, what we would care about would be having a really smart refrigerator that can do things I cannot currently imagine, a really smart TV, etc. They don’t all need to talk to each other. They just have to be easy, intuitive and well designed. Apple hasn’t done cloud and connectivity well yet. Its culture and DNA is built on outstanding hardware. It remains to be seen if they can develop good-enough software to be able to compete effectively.

– Companies that are poised to make a killing if they execute well are Amazon and Facebook. Amazon will have many many ways to sell you stuff. If your smart fridge detects that eggs are running low, Amazon Fresh will probably be 1-click away from delivering eggs at home. If Uber chooses to go this way, it could stake a claim to be the delivery service of the future..

– Facebook stands to gain most from this innovation because this future is a perfect scenario for the native ad. Similar to Amazon, these smart devices can provide more data for further ad tailoring. Running short of food in your refrigerator? No problem, here’s a McDonalds delivery ad for you. (sorry for the large number of food related points in this post, I am clearly hungry)

Either way, it is going to be very interesting. While Samsung has indicated this process will take 5 years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in 3.

Talent spotters

Sometimes, I feel our most important role on the planet is spotting talent before it becomes obvious to the rest of the world.

Yes, there are professions built on talent spotting – venture capital, player agents and scouts in sports, hiring teams in companies. But, I think of it on a personal level. How good are we at spotting potential? Or, to phrase it differently, if we were to meet someone who had the potential to be the next Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, would we know?

And, that leads to another intriguing question, do we even have what it takes to spot seeds of greatness in ourselves? Do we have a clear idea of what we are good at and what we aren’t? Logic would dictate that we might just be better at identifying special traits in others if we can do so in ourselves. Then again, maybe not.

If we care about making a dent on this planet, it is worth remembering that it need not only be due to what we directly do. If we can be of value to someone who goes on to build the Google of the next technology shift, that’s definitely another way to do it. But, that’s easier said than done. There always seems to be enough and more to deal with just to get our lives in order. Where do we find the time to look for others who’re making a difference and find the time to help them?

Maybe that’s where we start – by being available, by making the time and by being of help.