May 2013
18 posts
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The Only Thing that Matters
The journey of the entrepreneur is to figure out what matters. We know that starting a company requires extreme focus and prioritization.
But figuring that out is no easy matter because of the jumble of possibilities and complexities of running a business, on top of the cottage industry of abundant, contradictory, and just plain bad business advice.
These 6 pieces are the thoughtful reflection...
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The most productive thing you’ll do today is...
Photo: Jay Ryness
I wasn’t originally sold on the idea of blogging.
Even when I tried to get in the habit of posting, I found it hard to stick with. Blogging took time — time to write essays daily, put in links, clean up spam, and respond to the comments that trickled in, time that was uncompensated. Why, I wondered, would I take time away from paying assignments to put my work out there for...
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“You can’t change anything that has happened, but you can change...”
– Tina Lin, a 14-year-old high school student, wants to become the first U.S. table tennis Olympics Champion.
Her wise guiding principle? Don’t dwell too much on the past and the points lost. Go after the next ones.
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Image: Krissy Venosdale
Get happy by making progress and getting creative!
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The Most Innovative Employees at Google Aren't...
Google has long had a reputation for being a place that’s near impossible to get a job if you aren’t a Stanford or MIT grad. They not only asked you for your college GPA, they even asked you what you made on your SAT as a pimple-faced high schooler.
Recently, that’s all changed.
Google’s known for being one of the most data-driven companies in the world and in the...
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On Defense Against Power-Play Meetings
Photo: Victor1558
Almost all meetings are just power-plays in disguise.
Years of my life have been wasted in useless meetings. At a large company, meetings are standard. Get a few people together to talk about a problem. Sounds easy, right?
But instead of a quick resolution, you have to book a conference room for two days from now. Then, you invite stakeholders. Someone suggests so-and-so...
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Image: Bill Sodeman/Thomas Hawk
Hey, you’re pretty awesome yourself. Go ahead and do great things!
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The Emptiness of How to Work Better
Image: rytc
This painting on the wall of a Zurich office building is actually an art piece called “How to Work Better” by artist duo Fischli/Weiss (that’s Peter Fischli and David Weiss).
The interesting part? As described in the Guardian’s obit of Weiss:
How to Work Better (1991) is a manifesto comprising 10 persuasive but empty sentences, each with the aim of...
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Designing Habit Hacks to Change Your Life
Each morning, my mother would hand me my daily Flintstones chewable vitamin before I left for school. But now that I’m an adult, she can’t tell me what to do — Mountain Dew and Starcraft all night!
Well, and less vitamins. Since moving out of my parents’ house long ago, I’ve also moved away from this healthful routine. Sometimes it takes effortful self-control to do things we know we...
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“First, the seed being sown falls on good ground, but the birds get it. Then it...”
– Buffer’s Leo Widrich describes Jim Rohm’s law of averages in explaining his approach to measuring success.
Great things are not accomplished with a silver bullet shot of optimism but require work and a kind of faith that is informed by reality.
Image: Sergiu Bacioiu
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Nowadays, You're Hiring People to Think
In many companies, your manager will know the team’s and company’s objectives, but you won’t. He may keep crucial information from you so that he can consolidate decision-making power.
Not so at Qualtrics, the extraordinary Provo, Utah-based company that did $50M in revenue, raised $70M from elite venture capital firms Sequoia and Accel, turned down a $500M acquisition...
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“Google has found that the most innovative workers — also the...”
– Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers - NYTimes.com
Google has long been known as an elite organization bordering on elitist. It’s fascinating to see how their conception of prospective candidates has changed as they’ve looked at the data over time, departing from a SAT and...
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The Culture Hacker
We’ve seen an interesting trend at companies that are extremely culture-focused: the culture hacker. Software developers have built internal developer productivity tools since time immemorial because great engineering cultures push for automation and improving iteration speed. But now developers are turning their attention to addressing team dynamics and how the whole company functions and...
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A Useful Groundhog Day Type To-Do List
J.T. O’Donnell, CEO of CAREEREALISM Media, has an interesting to-do list of 10 items that she tries to do every day. This list isn’t made up of specific tasks but more general ones. Think family or genus, rather than species.
Read something related to my industry.
Read something related to business development.
Send two emails to touch base with old colleagues.
Empty my private...
April 2013
22 posts
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3 Reasons to Shut Up and Listen Well
Image: Daniela Vladimirova
The way you listen is telling, a compass that points to the true focus of your attention. For good listeners, that needle points to the person talking. For bad listeners, that needle points to themselves.
The thing is that it’s really obvious. Great listening requires you to show that it’s happening, and that it’s happening sincerely. Much of that sincere...
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Don’t get caught up on perfection. Kindle some progress!
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“[S]top telling people what to do and … start asking them their opinion...”
– Josh Patrick, founder of Stage 2 Planning Partners, on the value of asking and actually listening to your employees.
When you ask first, you’ll learn instead of assume. And while it’s tough to trust employees, mistakes are important learning opportunities.
Set and communicate greater...
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Company with the "World's Least Powerful CEO"...
The popular depiction of the CEO is the titan of industry who rules with an iron fist. The CEO’s will is the employees’ command.
Not so at Supercell, a remarkable Finnish company that’s making $2.5 million dollars every day and has been described as “the fastest growing company ever.” Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen, calls himself “the world’s least...
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“[T]ry picking a stubborn item from your own to-do list and redefining it until...”
– Tom Stafford, “The Psychology of the To-Do List”, BBC.com.
Discover four more helpful to-do list tips and how to master the art of to-do lists by understanding why they fail.
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Stop Repeating the Same Mistakes
We make a lot of mistakes in life, and a lot of those mistakes take place at work. Elaine Wherry, founder of Meebo, even made a mistake diary to remember and review her mistakes, such as time management and perfectionism issues. “I wanted to be able to reflect on them later,” she explains, “so I wouldn’t beat myself up during the week … It was a way to get more sleep.” As she saw her...
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“Frequently take stock of what’s working and what’s not — because...”
– Cali Williams Yost, author of Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day, shares simple work-life balance shortcuts.
One thing people do to “have it all”? A regular practice of checking in and reflection.
What’s happening at work and in the other parts of my life? What do I...
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“Although the pressures of society and work often cause us to behave differently...”
– Bill George, author of Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value, at Harvard Management Update.
We can’t really shut off our humanness at work, and indeed shouldn’t. Work is personal too. Do you agree that the walls between work and home are artificial?
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“The productivity industry doesn’t do this work to entertain us....”
– Seth Godin, on the whole point of getting more productive: moving past efficiency to the more important stuff of being brave.
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Marc Andreessen’s Surprising Antidote to...
It’s almost inconceivable that somebody as productive as Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware, Ning, and Andreessen Horowitz, needs a way to deal with procrastination. But it turns out he’s just like the majority of humankind.
His solution of structured procrastination is rather devious. Instead of fighting procrastination, go with the flow and put that task on hold. Meanwhile, work on...
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“The painful and inevitable struggle remains to create in a childlike and...”
– Artist Christoph Niemann writing for the New Yorker about the process of making his first app and the “most important struggle at the center of all creative pursuits: being the artist and the editor at the same time.”
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“When you are overwhelmed, overworked, and overinvested in maintaining the status...”
– Lauren Bacon, on shifting gears, accepting discomfort, and living on purpose, not by accident.
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Credit: Carolyn Sewell
Let your awesomeness abound today!
March 2013
21 posts
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Dare to Say "Yes, And"
Image adapted from camdiluv/flickr
The skills cultivated in improvisation — communication, creativity, teamwork, taking risks, and resilience — are ones you’d want to see on a résumé. Business schools are taking note and even teaching improv. Robert Kulhan, adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business explains, that at its core, “Improvisation isn’t about comedy, it’s about...
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Illustration: Dimitra Tzanos
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
You’ll be surprised how far that can take you!
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Harness the Productivity Power of Automation
All too often, to-do lists end up with more things to do and less things getting done. Humans are awful at completing lists. We often convince ourselves that we can complete our to-do list if we just buckle down and try harder.
Yet tomorrow, or next week, or next month rolls around, and the list is just as bad as it has always been. Probably worse, if you are like me.
So when we found iDoneThis...
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Busyness is Not a Virtue
People who often say they’re “too busy” or “crazy busy” sound like buzzing busy signals. And when you start sounding like an appliance, it makes it hard to connect with you. My reaction to your busy signal is much like that of Mindy Kaling, who sees stress as non-conversation:
No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out....
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Have you chased away the paper tigers of your fears? Take it a step at a time. The process is its own reward.
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How to Keep Calm and Carry On When You Feel...
(This is the last part of the 3-part “Manager’s Series” by our friend, time coach, and productivity expert Elizabeth Grace Saunders.)
When you’ve tried so hard to address team members’ emotional hurdles to accepting change and walked them through how to apply the change to their work situation, your blood can start boiling when you still don’t see the desired results. “How could...
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“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called...”
– Dalai Lama
