Archives for July 2022

When I lived in Melbourne, I used to attend an after-work club for English-Spanish practise. A group of us would meet in a cafe downtown and spend an hour speaking each others’ languages.

At one of these events I met a Colombian man about my age who was obsessed with classical music—specifically Rachmaninov. I’d never heard of Rachmaninov, but I soon learned about his prowess as a composer, and his reputation for crafting piano pieces that were almost impossible to play.

Many of the world’s top pianists are scared to try. Some defer learning until they’re older—more mature. And one American pianist, 93-year-old Gary Graffman, was heard saying he regretted not learning Rachmaninov’s ‘Piano Concerto No.3’ when he was “still too young to know fear”.

This is what makes 18-year-old Lim Yun-chan’s version of “Rach 3” so special. It was the performance that earned him first place at the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

The 40 minute performance is spell binding. I encourage you to watch at least some of it. There are moments where Lim’s hands are moving so fast it’s hard to tell what’s going on. The precision, confidence, and emotion with which he plays is an example of a master at work.

Few people reach such heights of perfection in their craft. It’s a joy to watch one in action.

Speed cameras in the UK stand out.

There are signs hundreds of metres up the road warning drivers that a speed camera is ahead. And you can’t miss them, they’re painted bright yellow!

I like this approach. Warn people of the consequences ahead, and help them avoid the pain of both a ticket and a crash.

Speed cameras in France are different.

The cameras are usually grey, and they’re more likely to be obscured from view.

I’m less a fan of this approach. Surprise people with a fine, and perhaps that’ll motivate them to drive slower from now on.

One country offers a carrot, the other holds a stick.

It reminds me of my favourite Charlie Munger quote, which is rather apt given the subject: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I don’t go there.”

As a follow on from my post from the other day called ‘Always be the note taker’, I ran into similar idea that I liked a lot: Carry the water.

When I played football or rugby in school, no one wanted to carry the water.

If you carried the water, you weren’t in the starting line up. It was a job for people on the bench.

When the heroes scored a goal or a try, you were the one to lug the 12 bottles over to them so they could hydrate until the game restarted.

You got no thanks. You rarely got a glance.

However, the book ‘The Captain Class’ changed my mind.

Sam Walker, its author, puts it well: “Most people believe the leader of a team is the person who does something spectacular when the chips are down. However, great captains lower themselves in relation to the group whenever possible in order to earn the moral authority to drive them forward in tough moments. The easiest way to lead is to serve.”

I then came across an image of Richie McCaw, arguably the greatest rugby player of all time. He was injured in one of the pool matches of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Guess what he was doing?

I’ve needed a few days to cool off from last week’s UK heatwave.

Temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in recorded history.

I know 40 degrees is a walk in the park for some countries, but in a place unused to such temperatures, our buildings, transportation systems, and homes were unprepared.

Transport for London advised only essential journeys.

Some offices told staff to stay home because their air conditioning units were only capable of cooling down the building if the outside temperature was below 32 degrees.

And little south-facing flats like ours—which I’m grateful for in the middle of the UK winter—were baked during the day and retained that heat throughout much of the evening.

The BBC shared an image which was equal parts crushing and fascinating. It was a comparison of global temperatures in 1976 and 2022, with the average global temperature between 1951 and 1980.

I love when a chart summarises a huge amount of data into something easily digestible and understandable.

Read: the world is getting hotter. Much hotter. And it’s not isolated to one area or another, but is happening across the global.

I’ll spare you the climate change platitudes, but perhaps think about sharing this image with someone who needs to see it.

I once heard a tale about a Japanese village famous for the longevity of its residents. One of their supposed secrets was celebrating birthdays—deliberately getting together and appreciating the passage of time.

I like that; as both an idea and as an attitude.

This blog just turned three years old.

And I’m celebrating.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. The experience is all the richer for the time you take to read, share, and thoughtfully reply.

I subscribe to Wired magazine, and I recently received this tote bag from them in the mail.

I’m not big on these subscriber gifts, but I made an exception for this tote because of its message and its execution.

Use fewer words.

Make text bigger.

Take a stance.

All good stuff.

What we learn after formal education is proportional to how curious we’re willing to be.

There’s always that awkward silence at the beginning of meetings when someone asks, “Who wants to be the note taker?”

People look at others in the room; hoping someone else will step in.

Today I’m going to share why I think you should always be the note taker.

Before I get to my logic, here’s what you should do.

1. At the beginning of the meeting say, “I’ll take notes.”
2. Share your screen.
3. Take notes: write down what people say, the agreements, the disagreements, the options, the trade-offs, the decisions, the action items.
4. Do it as often as you can.

Being the note taker has so many benefits.

1. It forces active listening. You don’t have the luxury of zoning out. You put yourself in a position where you must listen.
2. It forces you to understand. If it’s a hard problem, you have to understand it to write coherent notes. Don’t be scared by this. You can always ask someone to clarify, or asking them to sense check your notes in real time.
3. You get to influence the decision. With the pen comes the opportunity focus the group, cut through the mess, and get to a decision.
4. It’s an attitude. The note taker who turns up with energy and confidence doesn’t get swallowed up by the size of the problem. One word and one sentence at a time, they’re helping the group get closer to a solution.

I’ve seen senior leaders at Meta doing this, and their meetings are some of the most focused and impactful I’ve ever seen.

This isn’t a coincidence.

Always be the note taker.

Note: Of course there are definitely exceptions to this rule—such as large meetings, or if you’re not involved in the core conversation or decision. But most of the time, you can be the note taker.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, really hates the idea “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.”

Instead, he says “When you find a job you love, you’ll work hard, but you won’t mind doing so.”

In particular, I loved his phrase “the tools will feel light”.

The work may be hard, but picking up the tools to do the work will feel natural, easy, and obvious.

I love that.

My trainer, Julian, recently noticed a lull in my training.

He asked me a simple question, “Are you committed?”

The simple answer was “no”.

He didn’t ask about tactics.

He knows I know the tactics.

He went straight for the root cause.

“Are you committed?” is a great question to ask anyone who cares about something, but may seem a little off track.

A colleague is letting me borrow their ergonomic keyboard, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever typed on before.

Many of the functional keys are in different places, there is a specific mapping of fingers to keys, and there is a hell of a learning curve.

The underlying idea is for your hands be in a fixed position that only requires minimal effort to reach all the keys. This, in theory, reduces the risk of repetitive strain injury and other office ailments in the long run.

But it’s tanked my typing speed today.

I like to think of it as a “go slow to go fast” example. It may not be efficient immediately, but over the long run it’ll likely save some pain and discomfort.

I’d started a thing—a tradition—of posting when I find little fighters out in the wild.

They’re little miracles and deserve their time in the sun—even if that time is fleeting.

Previous posts here, and here.

A friend of a friend of a friend is preparing to open a restaurant here in London focusing on Uyghur cuisine.

They’re still ironing out the details: the menu, the place, the decor, and the service, but I got to experience a “practise run” before they open later in the year.

The food itself was great — packed with flavour and spice! And the hand-pulled noodles were borderline mind blowing.

But my favourite part was watching the operation come together as the staff were still learning their roles and processes. Sure, they missed some of the finer details—like serving large platters without utensils, or forgetting to add final garnishing to dishes—but I could see them identifying their gaps on the fly and working quickly to resolve them.

They were polishing the edges.

It reminded me a lot of how my colleagues and I approach building and testing software products—but it was awesome to see it happening in person, in real time, and all whilst enjoying a delicious meal.

Nothing beats putting “the thing” in front of real people and seeing if it works.

I published a post in September last year with my framework for getting feedback on draft documents.

I’ve updated my framework by adding a third question:

1. What’s wrong?
2. What’s missing?
3. What can be simplified?

Anytime I share a draft piece of work with someone, I ask these 3 questions. And in my experience so far, >95% of feedback falls into one of these 3 categories.

I also like how it sets a tone and expectation.

Regarding tone, the 3 questions say I’m open to—and genuinely interested in—the reader’s opinion. This is different to the person who asks for “feedback” but is doing it to tick a box, and really has no intention to act upon it.

Regarding expectation, I’m signalling with my questions that I expect a thoughtful reply. I explicitly ask the reader to be on the look out for errors, for details I may have missed, and for complexity in my thought or language that may obscure the message. People rise to expectations.

I stress again, it isn’t just about the questions, but also about the tone and expectation behind them.

If you end up giving the framework a go, let me know what works for you, and also if anything breaks!