Hi,
October has been a month full of cognitive dissonance. In my day job, I teach and preach that leaders and managers should not exert command and control. Applying pressure, demanding constant status updates, stresses the team which ultimately degrades the product itself. Even in the face of extreme delays, leaders should exercise patience, trust, and seek only to remove blockers.
Yet, I found myself in a situation where a renovation project that started in the summer was grossly over budget and overdue. This delay resulted in my staying in a hotel in Istanbul while my family remained in the US. My every instinct was to yell, threaten to withhold payment, and demand daily status updates.
As fate would have it, I was teaching two classes on the principles of organizational design this month which were a reminder of the very principles I was close to violating. As a result, I did not yell, rather, I bought the workers food. I did not withhold money, I actually paid more. I did not add stress to the project manager, I taught him techniques to manage his stress. The result is a product that has just finished, and that has exceeded my expectations both in terms of quality, and the beautiful touches the team added that I had not even asked for.
Do you have measures in place to reminder you not to stress but to serve your teams in times of difficulty?
** For this month, here are some ideas, hacks, and mental models to think about:
- Stop Adding, Learn to Subtract
- Impute: Apple’s Brain Signals
- The Explore-Exploit Problem
- The Corporate Drama Triangle
- Fasting To Make Your Brain Faster
** Stop Adding, Learn to Subtract
Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, poses an interesting question: Why do we always try to solve problems by adding, instead of subtracting? More meetings, more employees, more systems, more code, etc. In research he conducted with fellow behaviour scientist Gabrielle Adams, they concluded that this phenomenon was most noticeable in three scenarios:
1- When under a high cognitive load
2- When there is little time to consider other options
3- When not specifically reminded that subtracting is an option
It appears that additive changes are easier to compute than subtractive processes. But imagine the value in training our brains to optimize by taking away, not adding?
** Impute: Apple’s Brain Signals
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs’ biographer, narrates a concept Mike Markkula (Apple’s second CEO) proposed; Impute. The idea that, even when told not to, people do, in fact, judge books by their covers and form opinions on things based on the signals that they convey. He writes:
“We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities. … You design a ritual of unpackaging to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.”
What do you and your products impute to the world?
Hear Walter speak more about this
** The Explore-Exploit Problem
A question we can probably all relate to in our lives is, ‘do I make a decision soon, based on a limited amount of information, or do I keep searching until I fully understand the available options and the implications of my decision?’
The first may result in short-term success, but it means we may never progress in our understanding of a field. The second results in an expansion of horizons, and no claims to success. This constant struggle for balance is known as the explore-exploit problem - a big concept in data science, but one that informs all areas of our life. Buying a new camera, for example, can be an exercise that takes 15 minutes, but doesn’t result in an ‘optimal’ purchase. But it can also be an exercise that takes two-weeks with the illusion of finding the ‘perfect camera’, and at the end, there is no purchase at all.
Do you exploit, or explore?
** The Corporate Drama Triangle
I have been a fan of Karpman’s Drama Triangle for years. While it was developed as a means to map destructive social interaction for use in psychotherapy, I think there are many parallels that can be drawn with the corporate world.
The theory suggests there are three main roles in conflict:
1- The Villain - the critical, oppressive, controlling ‘blamer’.
2- The Victim - the (seemingly) hopeless, helpless, powerless ‘oppressed’.
3- The Rescuer - the enabling, dependent, ‘self-ignorer’.
During times of change, you often come across these archetypes in the corporate world. I refer to this as the corporate drama triangle. I often hear of “management” as the villain. Or developers viewing themselves as the victim. I have found this breeds apathy and intellectual laziness.
Do you identify with any of the three archetypes?
Interesting podcast discussing it
** Fasting To Make Your Brain Faster
Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof Inc, shares his thoughts on how intermittent fasting can actually make your brain faster, and make you more productive. The energy your body saves from lack of digestion, can be used to improve your mental processes.
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Ahmad