A Learning a Day

“When the tide is in, you don’t have to paddle” | A good friend talking about the importance of macro tailwinds.

It is easy to find an abundance of genius investors in a bull market.

In decision making/strategic discussion meetings, the difference between good facilitation and great facilitation comes down to one idea – urgency. A sense of urgency embodied by the facilitator makes meetings feel vibrant and useful.

While some of this is an art, there are 4 things we can do to increase urgency when we facilitate:

(1) Replace decks with docs + pre-read time: 2 reasons – higher information density and a removal of the dependence on the pace of the presenter.

(2) Replace “round-the-room” discussions for groups >7-8: If you want to hear from everyone, give folks time to type out their notes on a shared spreadsheet and then read each other’s notes. It is at least 3x more efficient and a lot more effective.

(3) Structure brainstorms: Break each brainstorm down to: (a) solo idea generation + input into spreadsheet, (b) Read each others ideas and vote (or discuss in small groups), (c) discussion of salient points in the larger group. The more the structure, the more the value + energy.

(4) Actively stop discussions that involve <50% of the group: Everyone will appreciate it. If it helps, consider keep a rough mental note of the cost of the meeting – it’ll definitely remove any reluctance to stop these discussions. :-)

Urgency is as much about these tactics as it is about a mindset – a mindset that adds a ton of leverage across any team/organization. And, if we’re somehow able to combine urgency with light heartedness/humor, we end up having a multiplier effect on the productivity of those around us.

A few years ago, I reached out asking if I could interview someone whose work I admired. He responded with – “Alas, I can’t do this justice right now.”

When we exchanged a few more notes, he offered to do something else that was much lower effort for him instead. But, I was thrilled with the outcome nevertheless.

I learned a few things from that exchange.

First, he had no business responding to me. It would have been justified if he didn’t. But, he did. That meant a lot.

Second, that “no” felt completely reasonable.

And, finally, that offer to do something that worked for him was also lovely.

It is a learning I’ve applied many times over the years. Every time I receive a request for a call, I respond requesting we do email instead. It isn’t perfect/ideal. But, it is often what I can make work with everything going on.

It is one thing to know you need to say no to stuff and quite another thing to learn how to do it. That exchange taught me how. I remain very grateful for it.

A leader I know shared this store. When they started in a new big role, they faced what felt like a crisis every day.

Just as it was beginning to feel exhausting, this person met with a former friend who knew first-hand what the job was like. After hearing the story, this friend said – “But, that’s the job. It is going to be crisis every day.”

Hearing that turned out to be a relief for this leader. Knowing that was the expectation changed everything.

It’s a story with powerful lessons for all of us. Often, it isn’t the problems that get to us. It is the expectation that we’d be able to get by without those problems that messes with our mind.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re seeking joy, trouble, learning, frustration, perspective, disappointment, humor, calm, or something else altogether.

Regardless of the circumstances we encounter, we will find it if we decide to find it.

Our call.

The more time we spend on social media -> the more easy it is to get caught up playing someone else’s game -> the more reminders we need about the games we’re playing.

A good friend introduced us to John Mayer’s “Heart of Life” recently.

It is a beautiful song that brings together a talented artist, a lovely tune, a few gorgeous riffs, and simple, yet beautiful, lyrics.

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I hate to see you cry
Lying there in that position
There’s things you need to hear
So turn off your tears and listen

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won’t all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good

You know it’s nothin’ new
Bad news never had good timing
Then the circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won’t all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
Fear is a friend who’s misunderstood
But I know the heart of life is good
I know it’s good

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But, more than anything else, it is the spirit of the song that felt special. “But I know the heart of life is good” is part of my belief system too.

It resonated.

The more privilege we have, the less time we need to spend thinking about things that occupy the bandwidth of others.

If we have money, we don’t have to worry about our decisions impacting our financial security.

If we have a developed country’s passport, we don’t have to worry about access to job opportunities/immigration related insecurities and/or travel.

If we have good health, we don’t have to worry about getting through the day without pain.

This privilege is often driven by the ovarian lottery. But, it is also a function of the privilege we’ve accumulated over time – thanks to luck and to a lesser extent – mindset and hard work.

Regardless of the source of our privilege, this gets to why privilege needs to come with humility and responsibility. As we accumulate privilege in our life, it becomes harder to understand and truly empathize with the struggles of others. We don’t get it. Let’s start with acknowledging that.

Next, let’s make all this extra bandwidth that comes from not having to worry about the basics count.

When something we say or do causes a misunderstanding or a breakdown in communication on our team, there are typically two kinds of lessons for us.

(1) The obvious kind: We could have communicated better. Words – both spoken and written – matter. With thought and practice, we learn to use them better.

(2) The second kind: The underlying system could be improved.

Here’s an example – we forgot to update an old “welcome” slide at a broader team meeting the other day and it missed folks on the team. The obvious lesson here is – proof read slides! It’s a good lesson, an important one even.

But, the system lesson was around our prep process. If we had, for example, sent a draft of the slides to our team leads, somebody would have caught it before the meeting.

When things go wrong because of a communication mishap, it is tempting to spend all our time cleaning up the mess and kicking ourselves over the obvious communication lesson.

But, it is far more useful to examine the system instead. System-level fixes are higher leverage (they help others too) and are thus more powerful in the long run.

The best soccer players always seem to have extra time on the ball.

Great tennis players seem to conjure extra time to return a serve traveling over 100 miles per hour.

The best executives never seem rushed when they’re making important decisions.

They don’t have any more time than the rest of us of course. They just anticipate what lies ahead – that in turn gives them more time to respond.

Our skill shows in our ability to skate to where the puck is going to be.