Category: Everything else

There is a slide up on the screen describing an idea. There are a couple of obvious typos and a couple of funny font size differences.

What do you see first? The typos or the ideas?

If you are like me, the typos and the funny font sizes will probably irk you. I often feel like stopping the discussion and saying “Give me 2 minutes to fix this slide first.”

The point here is that fixing a typo or changing a font size will not change the world. But, the idea.. that’s a different matter.

Seth puts it nicely in his new book – “Most people have been brainwashed to believe that their job is to copy edit the world, not to design it.”

Damn right.

The difference between an ordinary marathon runner and an elite marathon runner is the focus inward. The ordinary marathon runner runs the race trying hard to forget the pain by focusing on the world outside. He thinks about the food and sleep waiting for him once he finishes the game.

The elite marathon runner, on the other hand, focuses intensely on herself. She measures the number of paces, observes her breathing, mentally notes down times during the race she feels tired, etc..

It sounds counter intuitive, but the best performers spend a lot of time looking inward. It’s this ability to observe oneself that translates into an ability to observe the world, and take a shot at making it better. How we do one thing is how we do everything after all.

Besides, how can we expect to make a difference in the world if we cannot make a difference in ourselves?

Nobody likes non positive feedback. I have seen forums and posts that talk about learning to be “immune to feedback.” I tend to take the opposite approach – don’t be immune to feedback. It generally stings, and that’s okay. Take it personally, and work on getting better. The only thing to remember is that we aren’t the perfect article. We get better every day, and feedback is vital to that learning process.

Now, if you are working in a team of normal human beings, your team mates will definitely have feedback for you. Don’t wait for them to give you feedback. Ask for it proactively. Schedule feedback sessions 1, 3 and 6 months into a new project or job with your boss. Some bosses don’t like such candor and may not give you any useful feedback the first couple of times, but you will get there eventually.

Most of the feedback may not be really useful or actionable or new depending on your own self awareness, but the odds are that you will find a couple of gems each time.

And, whatever you do, make sure feedback sessions aren’t just about weaknesses – remember to spend a LOT of time on strengths. It’s amazing how much we learn about our strengths from people around us. Each one of my feedback sessions has been a treasure trove of learnings about myself..

Apprenticeship has been called many things over time and across civilizations. The ancient Greeks practiced it by studying philosophy under teachers like Aristotle and Socrates. The ancient Indians called it the “Gurukula” system wherein students spent 12 years or more at the home of a teacher. Apprenticeship passed down from family to family in Europe and most parts of the world (it was the source of anglo-saxon names like Cook, Baker, etc.). Recent sci-fi geeks have, of course, re-discovered the system thanks to Star Wars.

The principle here is simple – Apprenticeship is the best education model. The 1:1 student-teacher ratio is probably at the heart of it’s success. But, I wouldn’t discount the effect of true character building that such a model entails, born out of constant close proximity to the teacher or jedi master.

Now, the problem with apprenticeship is simple – it doesn’t scale. It is simply not possible to provide 1:1 education to all of humanity. The industrial education model makes sense, as a result.

But, if excellence is our goal, there’s only one way out – seek out apprenticeship opportunities. Apprenticeship is what has made the greats great. For every Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, there has been a Mike Markula and Bill Gates (Sr).

And, if the thought of seeking out apprenticeship sounds daunting to you, here’s an interesting truth I’ve learned over the years – there are more willing teachers out there than apprentices.

Our ability to execute is a by-product of our learning. Our learning constantly gets better when we test those theories as we execute.

It makes sense that we spend most of the first part of our lives learning because learning is the low hanging fruit (whether all the learning we do at school actually prepares us for the world is a different matter). It helps us avoid the obvious mistakes.

The trouble is that this design often naturally results in extremes. Many go into the academic path and choose to never bother with execution. Many others get into “the real world” and never bother with learning. While the former is stuck in an endless loop of theorizing with some safe experimentation, the other is stuck in an endless loop of execution without feeling the need to learn.

So, imagine what the world would like if we married the two? If the academics who theorized spent some time in the real world or designed their experiments to work in the real world, and if executives kept up with the latest theory and added the knowledge to their experience.

Magic. That’s what it is.

This week’s book learning is a part of series on “Brainstorming and Peer Pressure” from Quiet by Susan Cain.

“Coding war games” was an extensive research study that involved 600 developers from 92 companies. Each developer designed, coded and tested a program working in their own office. The results made for interesting study –

– The best outperformed the worst by 10:1 and the median by 2.5:1
– Attributes like years of experience, salary, time spent on programming etc had little correlation (in fact, programmers who sent in 0 defect work often spent less time on their programs)
– BUT, programmers of the same company more or less performed at the same level even if they never spoke to each other

So, the researchers dug in to understand what these companies did differently. The results, here, were illuminating –

– 62% of the best performers all said they had an acceptably private workspace
– 76% of the worst said people interrupted them needlessly

In short, top performers worked for companies that gave them control over space, physical environments and freedom from interruption.

Sketch by EB

We all know interruptions dramatically decrease productivity. But, on the other hand, we’ve had office design consultants push open plan office to increase group work and “brainstorming.”

If we produce our best work in privacy, how productive are we when we “brainstorm”? Coming up next week..

Here’s to ensuring we find quiet time to do our most productive work this week!

It’s 3 weeks since the new year. There were lots of hopes, dreams and resolutions. Most of all, there were habits that were supposed to have been nailed by now – more exercise, more reading, better focus, better relationships, etc. These initiatives seem like they are failing well in advance of the typical failure date (1st Feb..).

That’s all right. Give it time.

Don’t stop measuring progress. But, don’t be too hard on lack of it, either. 

Rome was not built in a day. It wasn’t easy. Why should building character and habits be any easier?

Until then, keep plugging away..

I was in a taxi when the driver asked me for the exact address of the place we were traveling to. As I moved to the side and leaned forward, the joints of my right knee took a knock against a small knob that stuck out. The knob had hit a spot between bones and for a minute and a half I knew nothing but intense pain.

I screamed. I swore. I rubbed my knees with my palm as I just felt everything else blank out. A minute and a half later, the pain began to dull and a few minutes later, I was ready to behave normal.

Those few minutes made me think. During that minute of intense pain, I cared for nothing but my pain. It didn’t matter that the taxi driver was confused. Even if there was a serious crisis at hand, it wouldn’t have mattered. For that minute and a half, I was incapable of doing anything else. Slowly, as the pain lessened, I began thinking about other things. Five minutes down, I was ready to do work, be nice and continue attempts to make that small difference in the world.

I realized that pain changes everything. If we are in pain, we are incapable of doing anything other than to just focus on it. In this case, the pain was physical and such instances are rare. More often than not, the pain is mental. We feel low, bad, sad, etc.

On a macro level, this is why stability is key to making meaningful contributions to this world. This is why creative contributions to society only happen in places experiencing periods of stability. You are not likely to hear of inventions that change the world coming from war torn Afghanistan or Iraq. The severe pain caused by a lack of security results in an intense focus on one self and one’s society. War costs more than just weapons and lives..

On a personal level, it matters so much that we have support systems in place for us to constantly put our pain in perspective. Maybe things are not that bad after all and maybe we need to read a book, get some exercise, speak to a close friend or a mentor to tell us that. Else, we can end up just spending a large part of life being incredibly self involved..

Here’s a very cool tool to get a quick primer of etiquette in places you go to. I’ve learnt a lot of this stuff thanks to being stared down at a restaurant or by a taxi driver and it’s nice to know that we now have a pretty comprehensive collection of these tips in one place.

1 more item for your pre-travel checklist!

The Quick Access bar is a big time saver if you are a frequent Microsoft Office (2007 onwards) user. It doesn’t really matter if it’s Excel, PowerPoint or Word as it gives quick access to all your most used commands.

It is pretty easy to do – right click on the bar next to the home button and choose “Customize Quick Access Toolbar” and start adding your favourite commands.

This is what my PowerPoint Quick Access toolbar looks like. I pretty much do all my formatting using this – aligning, distributing, changing colours, etc.

Any Office hacks that you would like to share?