vault backup: 2024-08-08 17:21:24

Work/Logos book club notes/Excellence Wins.md

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+## Part 1 thoughts
+I really like the authors attitude--very positive and customer focused while being reasonable too.  
+
+Excellence seems like a quality with very little supporters today. I love the idea of doing things excellently at a high degree of quality.
+
+I love the idea of each employee having a $2000 allowance to make sure a customer was happy.  The stories he shares of employees using this (to buy metal detectors to find a wedding ring, to fly to Hawaii to get a laptop) are incredibly inspiring.  WAs there ever abuse of it?
+
+I love the long-term view he sets out. Short term cost cutting, shortcuts or other things only lead to everyone losing in the end.  The customer doesn't get your product anymore.  You don't get their money anymore. The employees lose their jobs.
+
+Mostly, what he's teaching is essentially just good treatment of other people--ie, how you should treat anyone you encounter, whether in a business context or not. It all aligns with the biblical worldview of treating people.
+
+I really loved his story about getting to the root of the problem of room service not being done quickly. I turned out to be the large delays in the elevator arriving to take the room service guy to the room.  This was because the laundry service guys were blocking the doors.  This was happening because they didn't have enough linens for each bed which was a cost-cutting measure from the opening of the hotel that had never been addressed!  Finding the root of the problem was a lengthy process that no one would have guessed without the investigation he launched.
+
+Applying the "everyone has $2000 to make customers happy" concept to us, I think this can be seen as the freedom we developers have to fix bugs and deploy the changes to production without jumping through all the hoops of approval or pull request reviews, etc.  We have license and authority to do what it takes to fix things for people.
+
+How do you effectively get everyone on board to serve customers with such high quality?

Work/Logos book club notes/Radical Candor.md

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+# Chapter One
+
+The two parts of radical candor are: care personally, challenge directly.
+ 
+Caring personally can be accomplished by "bringing your whole self to work". Bring your whole self to work means caring about people. It may mean being hated--even though you care deeply, personally about everyone on the team!
+ 
+The hardest part about challenging directly is not giving it to others, but creating the environment where they can give it to you. This may make _you_ angry at _them_ and can be hard to deal with!
+ 
+Being radically candid is not accomplished by simply starting your feedback with "let me be radically candid with you"! You have to care personally. It also does not mean saying everything you want to. A good rule of thumb is to leave three things unsaid every day.
+ 
+Radical candor is not about endless communication that exhausts introverts. It's not about endless activities together to "build team". It's simply being human.
+ 
+You may need to adjust what this means by country, team, company, etc. Not every "radically candid" practice will translate directly as you apply it in different contexts.
+
+- In Israel, respect and caring personally was shown by being extremely direct and even aggressive in communicating with each other
+- In Japan, it was more about being persistently polite
+ 
+# Chapter Two
+
+Creating a culture of open communication
+ 
+Caring personally and challenging directly = radical candor  
+Challenging directly without caring personally = obnoxious aggression  
+Caring personally without challenging directly = ruinous empathy  
+Neither = manipulative insincerity
+ 
+A useful quip: "it's not mean, it's clear". Being clear can _avoid_ being mean later--like firing someone after not being clear about their work early enough!
+ 
+When praising, giving specific praise is best.
+ 
+Most people for a "competent asshole" than a "nice incompetent". You don't have to choose between the two. You can be a competent nice manager.
+ 
+Ruinous empathy doesn't work because it's aimed at making someone feel better instead of helping someone improve at their job.
+ 
+# Chapter Three
+
+You have to understand what motivates each person on your team--how does their job fit into their life goals?
+ 
+In WWII the US Air force started to bring their best pilots home to train the next ones. This lead to finally defeating the Nazi air force because they tended to fly their aces until they were shot down.
+ 
+I would say that Justin Strandburg is a "rock star" (rock of Gibralter type rock, not Guns 'n' Roses rock star) and that Ezekiel Pierson is more of the super star. Ezekiel is ambitious, rising quickly, learning a lot.
+ 
+Rock stars need to be recognized as valuable to the company--they get a lot done--and not disrespected for being "b players". I should be careful to no try to promote them, if they are happy in their current jobs. We don't want to fall into the Peter principle where workers are promoted to the position of least competence.
+ 
+Super stars need to be continually challenged.