Articles Categorised with "Career Design"

• 09-07-2024

  174 - Do you work in an organization where everybody works one level lower than they should?

  Micromanagement tends to roll down. Everybody works one level lower than they should—this is the cascade of micromanagement. Your boss’s boss meddles in your boss’s work; your boss does your work; and you do your report’s work; and so on. ...

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• 21-06-2024

  173 - The negotiating trick few talk about

  Negotiations are won by whoever cares less. We know this in our bones, yet tune it out too often. ...

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• 05-04-2024

  168 - Are you solving a higher class of problems today compared to yesterday?

  No matter who you are or what you do, there’s a consequence to solving problems. It is inevitable. The problems you solve today will create opportunities tomorrow, no doubt. They will also bring you a new set of problems. ...

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• 21-03-2024

  167 - Skeptical and open-minded - operating in two modes at the workplace

  At some point in my job, I started functioning in two modes. ...

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• 14-03-2024

  165 - What's the big deal about being independent?

  Seth Godin says in a recent episode on his podcast Akimbo that every big problem that seems to have been solved solo has actually been solved by a non-coordinated group. Even Einstein, Godin cites as an example, stood on the shoulders of giants before him to come up with a new paradigm for spacetime. ...

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• 11-03-2024

  164 - Three questions for your work and life

  Here are three ideas to consider and three questions to ask yourself this week: ...

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• 24-02-2024

  159 - Tracking a lion, or a life

  We adopted a rescue a couple of months ago. Before, we had Scotch, a British cocker spaniel, for fourteen years. He lived a full life, giving us no trouble with his eating or with his docile temperament....

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• 21-02-2024

  158 - Managing yourself during a transition

  When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he swooped in like a hero. He didn’t wait to assess things, didn’t talk to the old-timers to get a sense of the history, he only saw fires that he wanted to put out....

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• 15-02-2024

  156 - How to spend your time in the first 90 days

  In a new organization or a new role or both, how should you spend your learning time during your onboarding? ...

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• 06-02-2024

  153 - What we want from a job

  In what we want most from a job there’s a paradox: we don’t know what we want more—great work or a great work culture? ...

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• 31-01-2024

  151 Would you rather be disciplined or devoted?

  Why do we value one at the cost of the other? ...

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• 28-01-2024

  150 When working for free makes sense

  Why working for free during an internship makes sense ...

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• 10-01-2024

  145 - Why AI may not leave us jobless, why Will Hunting should not lay bricks, and why Virat Kohli should stay away from aerobics

  from aerobics ...

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• 29-12-2023

  140 - Be the only, not the best—the overlooked lesson in building a career

  I’m sitting at my desk in Mr. Ambrose’s class and I’m annoyed. I have before me a blank page I have to fill up. It’s only halfway through the term in grade nine, yet I feel like I’ve been here this term a million times already....

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• 17-12-2023

  137 - Managing how people see you at work

  Setting your narrative and course-correcting ...

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• 02-12-2023

  130 - How about a career with (probably) the worst feedback loop?

  If the accuracy and frequency of the feedback loop came written on the label of the career you have chosen, would you have made the same choice?...

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• 26-11-2023

  128 - How to Improve Your Ideas ~~By Working Harder Alone~~

  I outline the process of improving your ideas at work. This is a non-negotiable skill for knowledge workers in any creative market. We all have to build an air-tight business case for things we believe will make a difference. If we...

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• 08-11-2023

  120 - Two Kinds of Risk, Four Kinds of Luck and _That_ Worst Outcome

  Managing your odds for career success ...

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• 27-10-2023

  115 - The Status Quo Trap

  How to reduce the lingering power of the status quo ...

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• 12-10-2023

  109 - Building for the Future: Investment in Loss (Part 2 of 2)

  Last week I asked a question. What do you look for in a hire for your early-stage startup, for your less-than-30-member unit, or for your tiny 0-to-1 unit? We explored ex-Meta and ex-CZI operator [Molly Graham’s...

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• 09-10-2023

  108 - Building for the Future: The J-Curve or The Stairs? (Part 1 of 2)

  In the middle of 2021, I was heading a small business unit that was building a [smart writing assistant](https://paperpal.com/). The product was to be available as a web app, a plugin, and an online editor. We were...

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• 06-10-2023

  107 - Chasing Greatness: Shoot for the Moon but Only If You Can Train the Monkey First (Part 2 of 2)

  Henry VIII ruled over England with an iron fist for thirty-six years. For much of the second half of his reign, their king’s foul mood concerned Parliament. Word went that Henry VIII’s famed temper was down to leg ulcers. Painful and...

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• 03-10-2023

  106 - Two proven ways of chasing greatness (Part 1 of 2)

  You have permission to follow your curiosity (Part 1 of 2) ...

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• 21-09-2023

  102 - Keep calm and be like Van Gogh

  The perils of making up your mind too early ...

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• 15-09-2023

  100 - Opportunity Costs: Have you thought of what you’re giving up?

  Intrinsic motivation in a species is said to be correlated to the size of the brain relative to the body. Bigger the brain relative to the body, more driven is the species to exercise it for fun or for challenging things. That explains...

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