David

  • The Battlefield

    Generals, I’ve established a war room. Quickly, gather your X1 Carbon Lenovo’s, refill your branded waterbottles from the San Pelligrino tap, and meet me in the glass board room overlooking the city. I’ll have my assistant cater kale salads, and together, we’ll defeat the axis of evil aka new procurement agency that is coming after our pricing. And if we don’t make it, well, it will have been an honour to serve with you all.

    War metaphors are often used in business. We have the war room (meeting room). We are in the trenches (mostly excel). We are in a knife fight (for better packaging). We must protect the front lines (of service agents). We are going nuclear (with bright colour branding).

    And I must admit, these analogies are actually pretty helpful and commonly understood, so they are useful in conveying a message. But sometimes I like to remind myself that the repercussions of being wrong in my war room are different than being wrong in a real one. That’s not to say my work or corporate work in general is unimportant, but it is good to recognize the relative significance of it. And not to take it too seriously.

  • What’s more important? Being liked or being respected?

    Over time, leaders tend to make different decisions based on what they care more about: being liked or being respected. It took years and many lived experiences, not all positive, for me to operate more intentionally with respect as the objective. The reality of managing to be respected over being liked is much harder than the concept. At some level, I believe every person – and professional – has a desire to be liked. For some people that desire is naturally very strong and for others it’s more modest. But I believe it’s present in all.

    Here are several examples of situations I’ve lived through or have seen firsthand where the desire to be liked can conflict with being respected.

    1. You have a direct report that is excellent at their job. You get along with them great. They haven’t yet mastered the role, but they believe they have. They want to be promoted and have made that clear. You really want to support them, even though deep down you know they aren’t ready for a promotion. You promote them anyway. Initially, they are thrilled. Unfortunately, they are set up to fail and you ultimately end up having to fire them, or they become uncomfortable enough and dissatisfied from struggling in the position that they quit. This whole scenario erodes the cultural trust in the organization’s promotions because it’s apparent to others they weren’t ready.
    2. Your direct report is fantastic at most things but horrible at public speaking. You’ve built a strong relationship, and they’ve reported to you for years. They are a very sensitive individual. You always give them praise when they do a great job… but you never tell them how bad they are at public speaking. You’re worried it will hurt their feelings. In the short-run, that’s great – no hurt – but over time, their career is limited because they don’t have an opportunity to improve.
    3. You have a new, junior employee on your team. They’ve taken the initiative to put together a plan for one of the team’s key initiatives: reducing your product’s shipping times. They are incredibly enthusiastic, and you’re thrilled they are going above and beyond expectations. When they present the plan… it’s awful. It makes no sense and completely misses the mark. You don’t want to dampen their enthusiasm, so you tell them it’s not bad, just needs a few tweaks. Unfortunately, they have the wrong impression and continue working on it despite you knowing it will never be used.

    Often, making respect the goal leads to harder conversations and choices in the short-term, but benefits the individual, team, and company in the long run.

  • Design for the majority

    Since moving to Calgary, we’ve organized an annual ski trip with my in-laws. We usually head somewhere driving distance from Alberta, so often Inner BC: Fernie, Golden, Revelstoke, and Red Mountain (Rossland) have all been destinations. This year we went back to Fernie, and it was our first time taking a ~weeklong road trip with Henry. With Frankie (the dog), Henry (the baby), and all the ski gear, we pretty close to maxed out our vehicle (Tiguan) for space. Now, for years, my in-laws have been joking that at some point we’ll need to buy a Suburban. And for years, I thought that was a joke. But I think it’s become a bit more serious.

    I hate the suburban. It’s a stupid looking car. It’s humungous. It’s expensive. It looks like a bus. But clearly, it’s very practical if you are hauling a lot of stuff and a lot of humans. The nature of these conversations about getting a suburban is tied to a very specific event: an annual ski road trip. An annual road trip to ski is probably the most space-consuming trip we make as a family all year. At no other time do I need to fill my car with that much stuff. In fact, 95% of the time we use the car, it’s more than sufficient for space. I have been left thinking; do you purchase an oversized vehicle to satisfy 5% of your usage? I think the answer is no. Generally, you should design your life around the majority of use cases and solve for the exceptions as outliers (e.g., perhaps we rent a suburban once a year?).

    One principle I value when it comes to creating a new product or policy is to design for the majority. A habit I picked up from working in an investing role is to attempt and identify uncommon outcomes; identifying uncommon but potentially significant outcomes was a valued skill. That mindset – naturally considering hypothetical scenarios – has sometimes made it hard to balance my desire to design for the majority when designing new HR policies (do we create the overhead to satisfy a rare but possible need?) or providing feedback on software development (do we solve for that uncommon, but very painful use case a client has?).

    I’m still working through my opinion on this, but where I’m circling is to start by designing for the majority, yet consider the potential frequency of uncommon events and the severity of their outcomes to determine when an exception is needed.