Dan Cullum

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!

The writer Julian Shapiro has a great mental model called the ‘Creativity Faucet’.

The idea is simple: “Visualise your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before clear water arrives.

Because your pipe only has one faucet, there’s no shortcut to achieving clarity other than first emptying the wastewater.”

The road to good ideas is littered with many bad ideas. The bad ideas, and our willingness to discard them, is helpful signal we can use to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Don’t be afraid of the bad ideas.

I don’t know the source, but I love the concept.

Learning isn’t linear.

It takes time for us to absorb, adapt, break, and re-build.

And as we’re on the journey, a good dose of laughter, humility, and curiousity goes a long way.

Last week I posted about how the Economist has anonymous authors. I touched upon why I like this approach, how it “allows many writers to speak with a collective voice” and stems from a “belief that what is written is more important than who writes it.”

A few of you shared some interesting reflections, so I’m sharing them here to spark a conversation.

Andrew disagreed. He felt anonymity simply reduces accountability of the Economist’s writers, and that’s a bad thing overall. Furthermore, because the Economist articles are mostly opinion pieces, it’s important to understand the biases and perspectives of the writers. Finally, and ironically, he points out that a number of the Economist writers end up sharing and promoting their articles on Twitter anyway.

I see where Andrew is coming from, but I also wonder if the lack of individual accountability is offset by having more than one person contributing to a story?

Harry replied in support by saying “we live in an age where shooting the messenger has become par for the course,” so there is a benefit to “having robust debates internally, but presenting findings behind a united front.”

Overall, I’ve made some updates to my mental model based on their ideas. I’m now treating each Economist article as an opinion piece, and I read with the expectation that some amount of internal debate happens, but I’m not assuming it always happens. This allows me to bring a healthy skepticism to each reading.

Feel free to fire back any thoughts you have!

I recently had to submit a travel insurance claim. It was for cancelled accommodation after I tested positive for COVID.

Sidenote: I’m well on the mend now. Hooray!

I submitted all my evidence, and completed all the required documentation.

A few days later, I got an email saying there had been an update to my claim, and to log in to their portal to check the status.

This is what I saw:

At the very top of the screen I was given 4 conflicting messages: “we are awaiting information from you”, “documentation is required”, “we are reviewing your information”, and “there’s no need to contact us again”.

Furthermore, there was no update to my claim—contrary to the email update I had just received.

I did not know which way was up or down.

When building services that large numbers of people are going to use, these failure states are costly. They erode user trust and confidence, and ultimately end with user’s calling customer support—something none of us need more of in our lives.

A little bit of care in the design, copy, planning, or testing stages of this product would’ve spotted such a glaring issue.

Alas, although there isn’t much I can do now, but it’s a good general lesson nonetheless.

Off to the phone lines for me!

I watched the Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final yesterday.

Novak Djokovic—who has already won the tournament 6 times—was facing off against Nick Kyrgios, an Aussie competing in his first grand slam final.

I was cheering for my fellow antipodean; despite his reputation. Kyrgios is known for his on-court petulance, characterised by angry outbursts and bad attitudes. But his raw talent is undeniable—he often serves the ball at over 130mph, making it hellish for other players to return.

Kyrgios started well, winning the first set with ease. But after Djokovic took the second, and gained the upper hand in the third, Kyrgios self-destructed.

He was shouting at the umpire and his own coaching box. He could be seen shaking his head, muttering to himself, and throwing his racket at the end of a lost game. The commentators had no words. I even started to feel Fremdschämen, which is the German word used to describe the feeling of second-hand embarrassment.

Kygrios had mentally checked out. He’d lost the match in his mind almost an hour before the real match was over.

During that final hour, all I could think about was the role of the mental game in the highest echelons of sport. Djokovic had a vice-like grip on his mind, and that translated into a flowing, clinical performance on the green.

There are few other sports that require as much composure and mental clarity from its players. Perhaps that’s why tennis is such a joy to watch.

Draw a bull.

Make it as realistic as possible.

Easy enough?

Now draw a bull using only block shapes.

Let’s take it further.

Abstract away all extraneous detail: draw a bull with only a few lines.

Of course, Picasso was able to draw a realistic bull. He drew all of the above.

His magic though was in paring back—abstracting so that even a few lines can tell the same story.

Most folks are content with replicating the bull. Few explore the limit and produce something entirely new.

There’s a famous Bill Gates quote that says, “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”

The part I’m most interested in is the “underestimating”.

Instead of thinking ten years into the future, think ten years back.

Think about the friends you had, the hobbies you pursued, the type of work that excited you, the priority you placed on family time, the books you couldn’t put down, and the music that gave you pause.

Now think about how much of that is different today.

Perhaps some of you remained remarkably consistent, but I’m willing to bet many of us—myself included—are different people compared to who we were ten years ago.

How much we’ve changed in the past ten years may be the inspiration we need to set a different course for the coming decade.