EFFECTIVE LEADERS ARE GOOD TEACHERS

 In a podcast i was recently listening to Raghu Raman (former Captain of Indian Army) narrated an incident that quite stayed with me-

During his early days at Indian Army, once there was a General coming for briefing. His unit CEO suddenly looked at him and said- "You are going to conduct the briefing." Being quite inexperienced, he started palpitating and was stressed as the time was short and the fact that situation could explode if he messed up. He went through the intense preparation cycle and just before the presentation was about to begin his CEO indicated to him to sit down and he started the presentation.

Raghu could have thought- "Why the hell did the CEO put him through that shit?" But that was the mentorship. He actually put Raghu through the palpitations that are going to happen in the high risk presentation without actually the risk of doing that. So that next time he had to do it, he would be prepared for it.

Raghu said my CEO could have conveyed "'I will do the presentation and you help me.', in which case I would not have been completely invested. But the moment he asked me, I became invested personally and used that opportunity to train me on that."

Teaching doesn't mean giving only lectures, it means how the lessons can be imparted effectively. Every great leader is a great teacher, and the greatest leaders are intentional about seizing every opportunity to teach well.

These are the leaders we remember for long. What are the other traits of effective leaders ? Vala Afshar in his tweet https://bit.ly/38VTWCD shares some wonderful points that i have included in my sketchnote.

When was the last time you taught something or learned a valuable lesson ? Please do share.

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_effective-leaders-are-good-teachers-in-a-activity-6842086162660769792-LQmQ/

PROBLEM SOLVING IS ABOUT ATTENTION TO DETAILS, AND MORE

 

“I did not know that I would make 10 years’ worth of decisions in 10 weeks.”

This is how Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb summed up his experience while navigating the company through the pandemic. Airbnb's core business was hit almost unannounced and as a response the CEO made more changes, including cutting marketing, putting many non-core projects on hold and laying off a quarter of the staff.

As Chesky explained in a message to employees these decisions weren't taken a reckless manner and followed rigorous prioritization. One approach that Chesky and his team followed caught my attention. No rocket science here, it was an age-old problem solving approach.

After Co-founders relinquished their salaries, cut exec pay in half, cut ~$1 billion in marketing expenses, they simply when through hundreds/thousands of expense items “line by line.” and made numerous micro-decisions.
(Source: https://on.wsj.com/3A3gT2Q may be behind paywall)

More often than we would like to acknowledge, problem solving requires laborious hard-work, maniacal attention to details and rigorous prioritization. And no fancy creativity tools.

A similar analogy from the world of sports. Andre Agassi (former Tennis Grand Slam Champion and World#1) in an interview revealed an interesting anecdote around how he managed to beat Boris Becker after being beaten by him 3 times in a row. Agassi, despite his best efforts, wasn't able to read his service. Then, he intensely watched all the videos and analyzed. It lead him to a crucial insight. He realized that just as Becker was about to toss the ball he would stick his tongue out to the side he was going to serve. In all future matches, he could judge where the ball was going to land, just by looking at his tongue.
[Source: https://bit.ly/2X9wOej]

Similar to Chesky, the act of painfully going through videos and observing minute details, led Agassi to find key to success against Becker in his prime.

What are the the few other problem solving approaches ?

Check this article https://bit.ly/2P80gNi by Ashok Thiruvengadam on some effective insights into his methods (catch the summary in my sketchnote)

What are your favorite problem solving approaches ?

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_problem-solving-is-about-attention-to-details-activity-6841550203775008768-eVkq/

WHAT REALLY IS HUMILITY ?

 A few years back, Sundar Pichai when addressing his alma mater IIT Kharagpur students, narrated a situation. When he was first interviewed at Google (in 2004), one of the interviewers asked him what he thought of Gmail. Gmail was actually launched the same day. He responded by saying he couldn't answer the question because he hadn't been able to use the product yet. This fact that Sundar was absolutely fine with admitting his ignorance impressed the interviewers.

(Source: https://cnb.cx/3kXvtT6)

He didn't try to make up the answers and honestly communicated his stance. This trait is also known as "Intellectual humility", in other words, the willingness to admit what you don't know.

Google's former People Head, Laszlo Bock says: "If you don’t have humility–intellectual humility, to be specific–then you’ll never be able to learn."

Those who lack intellectual humility may exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:
- hard to recognize that others can have better ideas.
- hard to create space for others if their ideas and arguments are going to be challenged.
- becoming incredibly defensive when taking the blame.
- find it very hard to step back from discussions or change stance if someone else has a better argument.
- may stay quiet if someone else does better and refrain from saying "thank you" and "sorry" wholeheartedly.

One of the best definitions of humility that i heard recently came from Basketball superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
In a recent press conference (https://lnkd.in/g54dMrCc), he said something very profound-

"When I think about, 'Oh, I did this,' or, 'I'm so great", Usually the next day you're going to suck. The next few days, you're going to be terrible."

he goes on:
"The mindset to have? When you focus on the past, that's your ego. 'I did (this) in the past. I won (that) in the past.'

When I focus on the future, that's my pride. 'I'm going to dominate.' That's your pride talking.

I try to focus on the moment. In the present. That's humility. That's being humble. That's a skill I'm trying to master. And it's been working so far. So I'm not going to stop."

A brilliant reflection by Giannis that i tried to depict in my sketchnote.

How would you define humility ?

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_what-really-is-humility-a-few-years-back-activity-6840234961887465472-23vK/

WHY YOU SHOULD DRAW...AND A FEW OTHER MENTAL MODELS

 

The movie Apollo 13 (which i happened to see recently) vividly captures the story of the moon-bound spacecraft's successful return to earth after it suffers an explosion. There's a scene in the movie where the character based on aerospace engineer Gene Kranz, the flight director at Mission Control, grabs a piece of chalk and draws a simple diagram on the blackboard.

The drawing was actually a map showing the damaged spacecraft's path from the outer space, around the moon and back to the earth's surface. This trip is expected to take more than 2 days if everything went as per the plans.
Throughout the movie, Kranz returns to this goal on the blackboard. In the chaos that the team deals with in ensuring spacecraft's safe return to earth, the simple diagram helps the team focused on the right problems.

I find this story fascinating more as it brings to the fore a few mental models that i introduce in this note. Mental Models are simply the tools that you can use to improve your ability to effectively make decisions. Lets look at a few of them:

1. Walt Disney's Rule suggests that If struggling to think clearly about a subject, draw it out. Before Disney built his media empire, he had it all drawn out first in his head and then diligently on a piece of paper (checkout https://bit.ly/3zGtwRd). Drawing as a means to bring clarity is an effective yet an underrated tool. Drawing ideas helps you slow down and think through before taking on mighty problems. As in the case of Apollo-13 where a drawing kept the entire rescue mission on track.
What was the last project you worked on where a simple drawing paved the way forward ?

2. Occam's Razor: Simple assumptions are more likely to be correct than complex assumptions. In Apollo13, a drawing really helped simplify assumptions/eliminate ambiguity while dealing with a complex recovery mission. When in doubt, lean in towards simplicity.

3. Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. To counter the effect of this law, Elon Musk suggested If you have a project, combat Hofstader's Law by setting a ridiculously ambitious deadline. Even if it takes 3x longer than the deadline, you're ahead of everyone else.
Elon's law was evident in Apollo13 movie though the deadline there was forced by situation but it helped achieve mighty progress.

Catch a few more mental models here https://bit.ly/3mUaseB and in my sketch summary-

What are some of the mental models you routinely use ? Please comment and share.

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_why-you-should-drawand-a-few-other-mental-activity-6839357731003072512-doaz/

A FEW CAREER MISTAKES TO AVOID

Alan Eustace is an American computer scientist who worked with companies like Digital, Compaq and then HP's Western Research Laboratory. Retired now, his last job was with Google as Senior Vice President of Engineering. He co-authored nine publications and appeared as co-inventor in ten patents.

Alan's is no doubt a glittering career with towering achievements. But he is well known in his circles for a rare achievement outside of his job. He holds the current record (since 2014) for the highest skydive, from the elevation of 135,899 feet. He beat legendary Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record.

He became interested in Stratosphere jump in 2011 and formed a team that helped him achieve the feat. Taber MacCallum,who served as Eustace’s safety officer, says “As much as anything, Alan was interested in the learning curve. It was just a really, really hard problem. And it seemed like as the problems got harder and the challenges got greater, Alan got even more into it.”
Source: https://bit.ly/3zmbqDL

Utkarsh Rai is his insightful video https://bit.ly/3gHwuNT on "7 Career Mistakes to Avoid" talks about Dr. Kevin Eschleman's (assistant psychology professor at San Francisco State University) study on the correlation between hobbies and job performance. His more recent research found out that the less relevant the activity is to the person’s profession, the greater is the impact on workplace performance. Hobby will also help you in keeping good mental and physical health.

Alan Eustace picked up an interest area relatively late in his career and made it big. Though I couldn't find a documented evidence on how it helped him in his job but I am quite sure it did. Looking around you can find many examples where having a hobby have had a positive impact on one's job and career. Yet not many give having an active hobby a fair chance in their lives.

Utkarsh also talks about 6 more career mistakes to avoid. Highly recommend going through the video. (7 career mistakes to avoid at every stage of your career https://bit.ly/3gHwuNT)
One another point made in the video (that i find quite relevant) is about Lack of mobility in careers: Those who remain in their comfort zone and just focus on assigned work areas eventually find a glass ceiling. Be flexible in changing locations, job functions, taking additional responsibilities, filling in during colleagues’ absence, volunteering  etc.  

Please find my sketch summary of the video below

Which of these mistakes do you think are most common ?

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_a-few-career-mistakes-to-avoid-alan-eustace-activity-6837630210117128192-qXw5/

DELIBERATE PRACTICE AND A FEW OTHER LESSONS FROM OLYMPIANS

 Nicola McDermott, Australian High Jumper won an silver medal at Tokyo Olympics. I happened to see her jumps live and was intrigued with something that you don't often see sportspersons do. She carried her pen and a notebook during her event and after every jump, she was seen scribbling something on paper.

She developed the habit of ranking different aspects of her high jump efforts and focus on improving just one aspect (e.g. take-off or landing or acceleration etc.) in the next jump.

She says “My rating system is objective rather than subjective. That helps me detach the emotion from it all. It focuses me on action – what do I need to do next."

Nicola's way of achieving mastery in her chosen field was via a method called as Deliberate Practice. It refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic.

Can you use Deliberate Practice to improve yourself at work ?

In it's raw form, it is about methodically breaking the expertse area down into chunks and figuring out a way to master each section. Read this https://bit.ly/3BaV6Gm to know how Andrew Ng used Deliberate Practice to improve his presentation skills.

While embracing Deliberate Practice, Nicole also exhibited her beginner's mindset at the world biggest sporting stage.
What are some of the other lessons you can learn from Olympians ?

Romeen Sheth in his timeless twitter thread https://bit.ly/38wdTjn delayered the mindset of Apolo Anton Ohno (8X Olympic medalist at speed skating) and brings forward some of the mysteries about what makes an Olympic champion. I thoroughly enjoyed sketching the summary of this one.
My favorite point (among these):

Mental health is a compass of 4 key pillars

- Mind: How am I thinking?
- Body: Am I moving enough?
- Nutrition: Am I eating well?
- Sleep: Am I recharged?

Congruence of these 4 factors drives mental health.

What is your favorite among these learnings (in the sketch) ?

#leadership #mentalhealth #practice

My LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_leadership-mentalhealth-practice-activity-6836817963157467136-Liqr/

CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE AND A FEW BIASES TO AVOID

 While reading "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future", i came across Musk's take (in an email to employees) on a seemingly trivial issue of how acronyms gets used in organizations.

 
"There is a creeping tendency to use made up acronyms at SpaceX. Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and keeping communication good as we grow is incredibly important. Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees."
 
He hit the nail on the head when he said-
“ No one can actually remember all these acronyms and people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. This is particularly tough on new employees”
 
In summary, he almost declared a war on acronyms (as some sections of media reported this) with his wise intention to keep the communication clean and easy to comprehend. 

Over jargonizing the communication is also an effect of bias known as ‘Curse of Knowledge’. What really is curse of knowledge’ ?
 
You are suffering from the curse of knowledge when you know things that the other person does not and you have forgotten what it’s like to not have this knowledge. This makes it harder for you to identify with the other person’s situation and explain things in a manner that is easily understandable to someone who is a novice.

Biases such as curse of knowledge unknowingly drive much of our behaviors at work and in life. An awareness of these is a first step to get better at avoiding them.

Shreyas Doshi in his insightful thread https://bit.ly/37NykI0 shares about various biases that every Product Manager and a professional should be aware of and try avoid. Would highly recommended to read it.
Catch the summary in my Sketchnote below.

Do these biases resonate with you ?

My LinkedIn Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anujmagazine_curse-of-knowledge-and-a-few-biases-to-avoid-activity-6833417240109555712-6oMA/