Working In A Small-Big Company.
Edition #160
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 here.
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.
Should Managers Still Code?
This is an often-discussed and hotly debated topic when people move into manager or leadership positions - What mix of doing and managing must you adopt? Can you learn a best-in-class formula from others who have gone through this phase? James Stanier, Director of Engineering, Shopify, writes about this and shares some lovely perspectives on how to think about this topic.
Here are some interesting perspectives that James shares:
The legendary technologist and co-founder of Intel, Andy Grove’s equation of a manager’s impact, can serve as an excellent reference for this - ‘The output of a manager is the output of their team, plus the output of the neighbouring teams under their influence.’
Understand this subtle difference - ‘All managers should be in the code, but not all managers should be writing code.’
What does the difference between ‘being in the code’ and ‘writing the code’ mean. Here are some points that he makes for you to understand this better:
‘Should they be able to write code? Yes’
‘Should they be able to do code reviews? Yes.
‘Should they review all design documents and architecture proposals from their team? Yes.’
‘Should they write code themselves? Maybe.
James ends by beautifully summarising it:
‘Should managers be in the code? Yes, absolutely.
Should managers write code? Maybe, but it also depends on what you mean by writing code.
Read the entire article here.
Ravi Gupta - AI Or Die.
Ravi Gupta is a partner at Sequoia Capital and the host of Glue Guys, a podcast on the Colossus Network that discusses business and sports. In his conversation with Patrick O’Shaughnessy, he shares his insights on how AI will transform and disrupt industries, how people and small teams will not be a constraint to solving big problems, and how there will be unprecedented opportunities for people who are willing to embrace change aggressively. Every sentence in this conversation is laced with excellent thoughts and insights.
Here are some thoughts that Ravi Gupta has shared in this conversation:
How will AI change what each person will do in the future? Sam Altman’s quote is coming true - ‘Every person will become more capable than any person is today.’ The pace of change is rapid, and AI is rapidly democratising knowledge and information through access and context.
Leave how AI will change business, careers and jobs. It will profoundly impact our kids and how they will need to learn and work. - “What is the right way to teach them in a world where the tools that are going to be available to them are going to be totally different?” They need to be curious, resilient, adaptable and have high agency.
AI will trigger the rise of small companies that can scale without too many people. Most large enterprises have a hidden cost that is not captured anywhere today: ‘The hidden cost of having a lot of people. How much of your time is spent dealing with employees in a way that actually does not help your customer?'
AI will start to define job roles and their needs. “You do have to go roll by roll and figure out what the AI superpower version of each of these roles is. Is it that it's replaced?”
AI will change how people will buy software - “Today, a lot of companies have seat-based pricing models. I don't believe that that will be the future of the way that people buy software….“Maybe they're just gonna say, I want this piece of work done, and I wanna pay just for that piece of work done. I don't wanna pay for each person that uses your software.”
In an AI era, you must develop the ability to provide context. The art of providing context will become more critical than ever.
You are in an era where you can’t accurately predict the future. Therefore, learn to become a world-class reactor rather than a world-class predictor.
AI will break and disrupt our status-seeking behaviours, such as asking, ‘How many people do you have?’ or ‘The size of the team you manage.’
Learn to embrace and develop new KPIs like ‘Magic Per Employee’ - What does that mean? - “Oh my god, you did that with 10 people. That kind of thing.”
You can also listen to this on:
Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube
Leaders Vs. Bosses: What Does It Take To Become A Leader?
This conversation about leadership in Founding Fuel has some profound insights shared by senior and experienced leaders: Dr. Anil Khandelwal, Ajay Piramal, and Nitin Paranjpe. The conversation is anchored by some very thoughtful and profound questions by Indratjit Gupta.
Here are some key takeaways from this conversation that can help you think about various facets of leadership:
Integrity, humility, authenticity and vulnerability are core to being a leader.
Leaders must be willing to do different things and constantly learn.
To become a truly respected leader, spend time on self-mastery.
Leaders must understand that if people lose their jobs, they must be willing to accept that it was first their mistake and that there was something they had not done right in the past.
Great leaders take risks with their people by believing in them.
Best leaders are deeply anchored in their values, regardless of outcomes and consequences.
To become a truly great leader, one must learn to be resilient and self-aware, develop the ability to connect the dots, be hungry, have conviction and build an immutable character.
Great leaders are also great followers. They are also the best followers of their belief system.
You can watch the video by clicking the above link.
Working In A Small-Big Company.
What difference does working in a big company make compared to working in a small company?
In a big company, roles seem distinctly clear, policies are set regarding what you are expected to do or not, the hierarchy is well-defined, tasks are identified and given to be completed, the business is in a steady state for the process to thrive, responsibility and accountability seem neatly carved out for people, work is predictable, work boundary is well defined etc. Work is broken down into small components within a department, like a factory, within functions, within roles in those functions, etc. Therefore, from the outside, for many people working in a big company, everything looks organised and perfect. The day begins at the said time and ends at the set time. If something is not delivered or delayed, they know who to point fingers at, and if something gets done well, there are more than enough people to take credit.
When people work in such environments, they fail to sense the underlying turbulence that is happening in the business as they deeply care only about what they are being asked to do. Also, when work is broken into really small components, knowingly and unknowingly, the ‘bloating’ of teams happens. It also leads to people developing ‘islands of skill’ that create huge overheads and time to coordinate and get things done. People then start to overestimate their competence and contribution. This is unchecked in big companies as they have huge margins and profits to support this hidden cost and inefficiencies. When a crisis hits these companies due to market forces changing the environment, like how it hit GE and Intel, it is a tornado that destroys people and their jobs. This is when actual tests of competence and skills happen for people seeking new jobs and roles.
In a small company, the work environment is just the opposite - small companies are always resource-starved, things are volatile as they are figuring things out, there is a lack of a steady-state climate as there is constant change in the air, there are no clear job descriptions, etc. However, what small companies teach people is the ability to accomplish big tasks with fewer resources. It teaches people to be adaptable and resilient. It forces people to learn new things they have never done before, making them uncomfortable yet getting skilful and better every day. They are forced to stay curious and solve problems never encountered before. However, the same people cannot adapt when team sizes grow or when they get acquired by bigger firms. They are disillusioned by unproductive meetings, discussions and inefficiencies that creep up as more people join to do the same thing!
With AI, this may be the beginning of the era of small-big companies. Small companies can become bigger without adding too many people, with AI agents performing many tasks while remaining small but able to scale. People who have worked in small companies may be able to adapt to this change faster, but the scale of their ambition needs to be reset. Those working in larger companies need to move from just ‘managing to doing’. That requires being relevant with hands-on skills and leading small teams by not being a boss but an expert leader.
In the AI era, people in big companies need to learn to work with small teams, leaders need to transform from managers to founders, and people in small companies need to accomplish big stuff by thinking like big companies with small teams.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
As you get senior positions, learn the art of ‘being’ at work rather than ‘doing’ the work.
Skills that will make a difference in the AI era are curiosity, resilience, adaptability, and high agency, as well as learning to provide context.
Leaders must be willing to do different things and constantly learn.