Other

I operate at least one order of magnitude better when I’m on a roll. I suspect this is true to varying degree among most people. The effect is similar to confirmation bias, or faking-it-until-you-make-it – being on a roll is a story, one that’s hard to diverge from once I’ve entered into the core narrative. Conversely, just as momentum describes the relationship between an object’s mass and velocity, inertia describes the energy it takes to accelerate or decelerate said object....

Do you speak a language that less than 1000 people know? I speak at least 2. I have a unique set of words that only my girlfriend and I understand. Anyone else would have a hard time working out what goes on in a conversation between us. At work, my team and extended team has a similar, but smaller vocabulary. These languages give us power. They demarcate a group. They show us that we’re inside the boundary of that group....

Guilt and fulfilment are somewhat opposite feelings that pull in the same direction. They are the carrot and stick of doing what seems subjectively right. Guilt when you fail, and indulge in something that seems wrong. Fulfilment when you succeed in doing what seems right. And then there are two feelings that can easily hijack behaviour, because on the surface they seem so close to guilt and fulfilment. These are shame and pleasure....

Going remote during the COVID19 outbreak, is a tremendous benefit to an organisation that’s usually almost 100% centralised. Not for the processes, or because “remote is better”. No, just because of the new set of communication challenges that have to be overcome. A steady stream of challenges is a must for keeping any team sharp, and aligning a team to deal with the a whole new mindset and toolkit for communication is a healthy exercise for the plasticity of the organisation and, more importantly, the minds that make up the organisation....

In times of stability, the default assumption for me is that peers are doing fine. I don’t have to ask probing questions, because obviously everything’s all good. That changes in times of change, turmoil and crisis. There’s a clear challenge, and a shared experience of need. Needing to deal with it, or overcome, or get through. Such a collective experience is a time to develop and demonstrate caring for each other....