random ramblings

“Manage your energy, not your time” - heard something similar a couple of days back. I took it as figuring out your energy cycles, doing energy audit for ourselves, finding out when you are most energized (morning person vs evening person etc) and planning for the high impact activities during that time. Extending this further, being an introvert and having no option to avoid people, I have to switch myself on for large parts of the day, perform the roles I am expected to play which exhausts me by the end of the day. I have to do an energy audit one of these days.  I read this framing also recently - about being a sofa person or a treadmill person. Sofa person is someone who exhausts you with their negativity that you want to lie on a sofa afterwards. Treadmill person is someone who gives you so much hope and energy that you want to run on a treadmill afterwards to burn that off. I could relate some of my interactions with these definitions. I believe in our work and personal rela...

There are a lot of cases where balanced and middle view is better, but adopting middle path on everything might lead to average or mediocre outcomes. One such problem is whether to be methodical, process oriented and cautious OR attitude of “get it done”, use whichever way suits the best for achieving the goal and taking risks. I think it is eventually basic nature of people. I also think either approach works differently for different kind of problems. Doing something new, discovering a solution where none exists, pursuits that calls more creativity – those may call for second approach. Changing a complex system, coordinating efforts of a large group of people to achieve a single goal, size of the problem being big – these may need the process oriented / methodical mindset. Knowing what kind of person I am on this spectrum of rigidly methodical to flying by the seat of the pants would be a good start. Assessing what kind of mindset is needed to solve the problem in front of...

I read this extraordinary op-ed by a Trump administration insider. It reinforces what I was thinking about for some time. In our current time, leadership has become a farce. It could be a significant detriment to the world to have such leaders come up on top of organizations and nations. Why is this happening, in spite of a large number of people knowing that this is all illogical, improbable and irrational? Looking at the words used to describe Trump in this article: worst inclinations, misguided impulses, amorality, not moored to any discernible first principles that guide decision making, little affinity to ideals, impetuous, adversarial, petty, ineffective, whims, veer off topic and off the rails, repetitive rants, half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions, flip-flipped, erratic behavior. I see more of similar behavior from leaders, may not be such crazy levels. Narcissism, not encouraging feedback, shooting the messenger, prone to exaggeration, lac...

I was thinking about someone who is the only deliverer of bad news in a team and a leader who doesn’t want to hear bad news. Chanced upon below quote from the speech – “Psychology of Human Misjudgment” by Charlie Munger ( audio ).     Now you've got Persian messenger syndrome. The Persians really did kill the messenger who brought the bad news. You think that is dead? I mean you should've seen Bill Paley in his last 20 years. He didn't hear one damn thing he didn't want to hear. People knew that it was bad for the messenger to bring Bill Paley things he didn't want to hear. Well that means that the leader gets in a cocoon of unreality, and this is a great big enterprise, and boy, did he make some dumb decisions in the last 20 years. And now the Persian messenger syndrome is alive and well. I am hearing the drumbeat about Charlie Munger in every Farnam Street podcast – one after other, everyone interviewed in that podcast seems to be a Charlie Munger ...

Blind – an anonymous corporate social network. I think the biggest use of this will be to give true feedback to people. Such platforms have huge downside as well – but it is the kind of downside if we hear others thoughts without filters. I think most of the wastage in large corporates is due to people not being able to communicate their challenges freely with each other. Much effort and time goes in maneuvering such a tangle and get something done. There are people who will never ever know what is wrong with them because no one can tell them directly what is wrong with them. “Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth”. It is true also that even when we know the truth about ourselves, we may rationalize and continue the same way. But still, by any chance, if people use such feedback to get better, it will be a huge improvement – individually and for corporations to get things done. Why software development requires servant leaders – I was alone for lunch today and had c...