Staying True to Yourself And Handling Reality
Edition #058
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The Newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying, Love the Complexity And Embrace Reality
Paulo André writes about his views on the tech industry in this lovely article. He asks a fundamental question - how come so many smart, talented, well-intentioned people end up within a system where the outcome is burnout, disengagement, and general unhappiness?
In the words of Liz Keogh, a lean and agile consultant:
If you’ve done it before, requirements are known. If someone else has done it before, requirements are knowable. If it’s never been done before by anyone, requirements will change.
Most of the knowledge work falls in the last category!
The reality is that the work is far from predictable, and we ignore this fact at our own peril.
Yet, we still manage outcomes hoping that it’ll all work out in the end—if only we build this and this and that.
Most knowledge work is inherently uncertain and complex and, therefore, cannot be predicted and controlled.
That’s why requirements can’t be perfect—they must be discovered as you go.
If you’re a developer, a product manager, a designer, an engineering manager, or a stakeholder—what would you need to shift to embrace this reality instead of being at odds with it?
Read the entire article here.
Jeff Green on Modernizing Advertising
Jeff Green is the CEO and Co-founder of the advertising platform, The Trade Desk. In this conversation with Patrick, he discusses the parallels between The Trade Desk and equity exchange, why Jeff chose to align with ad buyers, not sellers, and how he shapes his firm's culture.
Here are some key takeaways:
The importance of thinking about a problem in technology, hypothesising what kind of company can solve the problem and then arriving at a decision to invest in a technology company. This is first principles-based thinking than getting swayed by technology innovation, the founder’s background etc.
Why only a comparison of margins alone a company makes in an industry vertical may not be the right metric, but what kind of customer segments they serve is critical.
Being vulnerable is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, this helps foster productivity and above-average commitment.
There is a difference between being nice and being good culture!
His aversion to unnecessary and discompassionate processes. This is much harder to do.
On the topic of Talent - why EQ is more important than IQ!
The importance of being obsessed with customers and people believing in the business model of price discovery for every ad dollar spent.
Act Like The Leader You Want to Be
This video by Richard Cox of Stanford Graduate School of Business talks about the set of behaviours that leaders need to have and cultivate. The importance of soft communication skills and how it turns out to be a crucial hard skill for anybody who wants to be a leader.
Key takeaways:
The 5Ss of Authority
The 5Fs of being Approachable
How to learn these behaviours
How can acting classes help improve these behaviours
On why acting is not pretending but being authentic
Being authentically authoritative and authentically approachable
How to prepare for a big meeting using these techniques
Staying True to Yourself And Handling Reality
While reading, listening and watching some of the above articles, podcasts and videos, one common chord that struck was the importance of staying true to yourself and getting better every day to handle reality.
These traits of staying true to yourself and handling reality are easier said than done.
Let’s take the trait of handling reality first:
Often, it is observed when people are taking up something to do, they seek clarity. If you are a boss, you are expected to give clarity; if you are being handed over something to do, you are continuously asking questions and seeking clarity from the other person. However, having worked with people in your workplace for some time, you know whether the person or the client on the other side can provide clarity. In reality, it may be a new type of project where things need to be clarified or a repeat project, but the specifications still need to be precise. However, you also know from the past that the person on the other side may only envisage some situations that need to be considered for delivering the project. Hence, when asked for timelines, the question of precise requirements gets thrown back at them. In reality, it is known that there is bound to be ambiguity, but this is being used as a crutch to negotiate for time or delay proposals or delivery. Nobody is willing to handle and take accountability for the reality on the ground. This then starts to become the culture of the organisation. Timelines carry buffers, and many stand-up or agile meetings become lip-service meetings as everybody knows everyone else is being managed. This toxic culture leads to poor productivity and cost overheads that affect the company long-term. Therefore, it is essential to accept the real shortcomings, handle them upfront with people, take accountability for outcomes if nobody is willing to take them up, raise them as red flags when you see them happening and handle them practically with authenticity and honesty. Only sometimes, people are trained to handle reality as it is brutally hard to accept it. Reality must be dealt with a soft landing for people, and if done that way, interactions between people get more open and transparent. This has a significant impact on productivity and effectiveness.
Let’s take the next trait of being true to yourself:
Again, we often see that many people don’t do things with enough conviction. And it shows when we either review the work or track the progress of the work they do. Most of the time, things get done because they are forced to do it, or it is a management fad, and there is a fear of missing out if it is not being done, as it is the latest trend. When you stay true to yourself, there is a lot of contemplation on the best way to do certain things or not do them, basis your strengths. Also, you are much more mindful of your deeper beliefs and values. It allows you to evaluate the best way to do it, knowing your strengths and weakness. It will enable you to look at what you want to do or currently doing, whether it fits into what you believe in, how you would like to get things done right from the people who you want to work with or hire, the way you want to work with them, how you want to run your business - bootstrapped to attracting the right of kind of investors etc. Staying true to yourself requires a lot of conviction, as it is not the path most often travelled by people, and it does not carry the common benchmarks of success that others see around you.
Finally, ‘Staying True to Yourself’ and ‘Handling Reality’ needs conviction, ruthless acceptance of your strengths and shortcomings, patience and self-belief.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
If you want to handle complexity, stay rooted in reality and find ways to accept and manoeuvre your way through it.
Staying True to Yourself is vital when starting up and building your business or career.
Leadership requires a set of behaviours which must be self-observed, learnt and cultivated deliberately and carefully over time.