being an energy source

“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 relationships, we should try to be somewhat of treadmill people - who can lift others up than bring them down. 

Leaders are supposed to be people who give others energy. Does it mean they suppress their fears, disappointments and frustrations? If they do, wouldn’t it explode sometime in unexpected ways and cause more harm? Or will the stress eat them up? I read somewhere that there should be someone in our work and life who offers a shoulder to cry on, someone with whom we can open up, voice our fears and lighten our load. My experience is that we cannot treat our manager as this person since they have their own bigger burden to carry than take ours too. Hence maybe the adage that “I want to hear your solutions, not your problems” (I saw this quote hanging in one person’s door). It cannot be our team since they will get depressed if you reveal all your apprehensions, just like a father or mother may not tell the kids about their financial troubles. It doesn’t mean we hide all emotions - be authentic, but knowing ourselves well, hold our irrational, unverified, impulsive, ugly ones that doesn’t help anyone who sees it. 

It will have to be a peer or a friend who can take us as we are. I read recently in “The Covenant of Water” (fiction) about these benches raised to the shoulder length along the pathways in Kerala about hundred years back when there were no vehicles, for travellers who carry loads on their head and walk long distance, to temporarily unload themselves, take a bit of rest and carry on further. This peer or a friend whose shoulder we can cry on may be like those rest stops. But then what about this friend - they will need a sofa to lie on after talking to us. I was lucky to have one or two such peers and friends with whom I can share my irrational and ugly fears, talk things out and feel relieved. 

I also read a phrase sometime back about “emotional vomit” - as ugly as it sounds, having heard of this once, I cannot unhear it ever since. Hence I am careful not to take advantage of even friends such as this by covering them with my ugliness, but to talk things out, coming at a situation from different angles, to reason things out in the process of talking. 

Now what are these things that saps our energy? I stopped reading Newspapers for years. I lost count as to how many years it has been since I stopped. I don’t watch news on TV. The best explanation for this was written by Aaron Swartz here. Most news is sensational, intended to shock, shame and make us angry. News moves slowly, stories develop over time and I don’t need to follow it minute by minute or day by day. I will still get the news I need when I go look for it or if it is important enough, it will come up somewhere. I uninstalled Facebook and Instagram - friends who truly matter to me will reach out directly and I don’t need the algorithm to recommend feeds that will amplify my fears or fill my head with junk. I archived school groups, college groups and alumni groups in WhatsApp. I stopped reading the algorithm recommended news feeds. I have put timers on Youtube and LinkedIn so that I can use them just when I need. 

Now what more can make us depressed? I read recently that if your job is to take care of others, you need to take care of yourself first. Sleep for seven hours, eat healthy, regular exercise and get some sun everyday. Being a vegetarian, I am chronically low on Vit D which is a mood killer. Hence I don’t depend on the sun alone and take supplements. 

There is still more that is needed. Seeing the glass half full since I can’t imagine being a pessimist. Seeing the good in others, actively looking for qualities in others that we can like and respect, since we can work or live only with people we like and respect. Not going to extremes in any spectrum whether it is politics or religion - I imagine those on the extreme left or extreme right will be very angry with the world since they will see wrong everywhere. 

Being able to forgive and forget easily and not holding grudges. Being able to trust people first, not needing them to prove to you first why they should be trusted. Not being rigid with one’s principles or using the principles as the crutch to fight the world and its perceived injustices at every opportunity. Not burning with righteous indignation at every perceived slight. Looking for success stories and small wins in what we do and celebrate them. 

Having a sense of proportion about the problems, injustices and unfairness that we see every day - we need to save an injured calf in the flock that we are responsible for, but it cannot be at the expense of hundred others who are not complaining and who need our time and energy too. Being able to listen and soak up the pressure, but being able to prioritize which ones we act upon. 

Taking effort to understand and make sense of the world so that we can explain it to everyone who needs that clarity and light their way out of the darkness. Looking up frequently to elevate the collective aspiration of everyone around us so that we can one day rise above the current troubles. 

Holding one’s tongue to avoid making a sharp remark when we are provoked, suspend immediate judgement and allowing some breathing space between stimuli and response. Listening deeply, listening between the words, understanding the other side, understanding the unspoken. Trusting that fixing root causes takes time and having the patience to see it through in the long term, while we absorb short term pain. 

It takes effort to be an energy source and avoid being a black hole that sucks all energy. 

process oriented vs just-get-it-done

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 us would be second. If we are able to change ourselves to suit the method needed to solve the problem/project, that might be perfect.

Even if we start with System 2 for some projects (greenfield projects), it may need to switch to System 1 once it scales and complexity increases. Similarly even if we start with System 1 for complex mammoth projects, micro problems within that might need inventiveness and System 1 approaches. So shifting between both (not mixing both for problem statement, but changing approach from problem to problem) might be needed.

Questions to ponder upon: Is it possible to change like this from project to project? Is it just better to have different kind of people handle different kind of projects – whichever is best suited for them?

toxic leadership

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, lack of humility, hypocrisy, not liking anyone else looking even slightly good, not interested in details, taking rigid positions, simplification, generalization and host of other problems.

I think another factor has amplified the problems that such leadership is inflicting on the world. How we consume information and form opinions have fundamentally changed with social media and such leaders are adept at managing the perceptions through such mechanisms. If both of these combine, it multiples the power.

From the article: “The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.”

Someone remarked couple of days back that even if Trump shoots someone, it will not change anything. Another was betting that he will still win a second term. I have met people who think in spite of everything, the nation is benefiting overall, so can put up with everything else. A grain of truth inside a mountain of lies still makes people “agree partially”.

Should some of our positions be one or zero, with or against, than partial? How should we avoid getting toxic leaders? How to call them out in clear terms without being stripped of civility and stooping low?  

persian messengers and deaf leaders

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 fan. I need to read up more about him – I did not realize someone like is partner of Warren Buffet. Everyone has heard of the Oracle of Omaha, but may not about Munger. Other repeated reference that cannot be avoided is the book “Influence” by Robert Cialdini which is in my list for long. But Munger cites the book as one that filled the holes in his understanding of human psychology and behavior. The book went up in my toread list. Both could add to my understanding of working with irrational people.

Back to Persian messenger and deaf leader. I think this could be one of the crippling problems of leadership and cause of the misery in the world caused by such leaders.

I met an Architect with Kerala’s public works department (PWD) today. He was talking about ministers and secretaries in government going through similar deaf ear problem. We were talking about the recent flood disaster, environmental protection and government’s understanding of the issues. He said some of these officials are quite intelligent, practical, disciplined leaders. But they surround themselves with technical advisors who are yes men and can’t take criticism or difficult messages which will further curtail people from speaking up. In meetings even if you bring up an opposing view in most diplomatic form, he will get kicked under the table by his seniors to shut up or the minister will explicitly cut off and ask someone else to comment. This behavior will reinforce itself and people will stop talking. It seems the minister took an year to understand the difference between role of architecture and structural engineering in PWD since he wasn’t ready to listen or learn.

Now with these kind of leaders and administration, how do we get lasting change for the better? With such leaders in our corporations and government, what hope do we have for a better world? It is said that the leaders of large organizations have psychopathic tendencies, empathy which allowed them to create successful networks and coalitions dies as they climb up the ladder and nature of their jobs (working insane hours, pushing people to deliver against impossible timelines, pressure to show results) necessitate them to be ruthless. How do we keep them in check – whether they are learning, someone is able to give them dose of reality and criticize and give them the bad news.

short links

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 couple of good articles to keep me company. I shared this with a few colleagues and later someone did a quiz which had a question on who is a servant leader – my version of deja vu. I have come to believe that this is the right way to lead. I also think such leaders may not climb the corporate ladder, data yet to prove me wrong.

Stop hiring for culture fit – I think it is time to redefine HR (in fact none of the divisions to should operate “typically”). HR function should be done by a business person and should rotate. Hiring is such a pivotal role in building a team and we don’t spend enough time learning how to correctly assess people in a short time. I think it will great to have clarity on the characteristics / qualities of people we want in a team.