David

  • Leave the past behind

    One consistent theme I’ve observed in the most effective leaders I’ve worked with is the ability to leave behind past events once no longer relevant. They use the past to learn, but they don’t spend significant time or energy focusing on or talking about past people, events, old processes, etc. The go-forward plan of action and belief in the future is often much more relevant and important to the team and so prioritizing their time and focus here is more effective.

    Conversely, some of the more junior or less effective leaders I’ve worked with often spend a considerable amount of time discussing prior events, team members, or old and now outdated ways of doing things. They get a bit stuck in the past and struggle to move on.

    Let’s say you have an executive who oversees a function (e.g., marketing) and their success requires a close working relationship with a leader in another function (e.g., production). The marketing leader depends on sufficient advance warning on new products coming off the line to prepare the appropriate brand content to support a launch. Well, say the production supervisor is notorious for dropping the ball on communicating with marketing and often leaves them in a panic, and then that production supervisor is terminated. Fast forward six months: an effective marketing executive will have moved on and re-established a better working relationship and process with the new production supervisor. An ineffective marketing executive will continue to discuss the problems caused by the old production supervisor, distrust the function, and struggle to establish a better working relationship with the new production supervisor.

    Typing this out, it seems straightforward. And yet, I’ve seen examples of folks getting stuck many times over the years. Better to focus ahead.

  • Defining success

    I was listening to a podcast this week where the guest responded to a question on his definition of success. Much of what mattered to him doesn’t to me so I thought it would be interesting to take a crack at my own definition. It’s a fun exercise.

    My definition of success looks like…

    • Maintaining high-quality relationships with your spouse, family, and friends;
    • Having agency and a very high degree of control (within reason) over your schedule and how time is spent;
    • Spending time pursuing physical and intellectual challenges that are rewarding to accomplish and in which the pursuit itself is gratifying regardless of the outcome;
    • Feeling your professional time and efforts matter, can make a meaningful impact, and relate to a field you’re passionate about;
    • Spending professional time working with people you enjoy working with;
    • Continuously learning;
    • Having sufficient wealth so a) money takes up a minimal amount of mental energy and plays a small role in most decisions, and b) affords you the ability to dine out as often as you’d like, and to order what you’d like without too much consideration for price; and
    • Living an authentic life where you feel you show up both socially and professionally as your true self.

    I didn’t spend too much time on this so I’m not certain it’s exhaustive, but these all came to mind quickly.

    It will be fun to look back at this in a few years and see if anything changes.

  • Public infrastructure

    If you live in Toronto or have visited at any point in the past five years, you almost certainly have engaged in the traffic discussion. I started traveling more seriously to and from Toronto a little over ten years ago and the route from my parent’s house, where I typically stay, to the airport typically takes me on the Allen to get to the 401. When they first broke ground on the Eglington line, I was excited about finally adding to the city’s insufficient public transit network. World class cities require extensive public infrastructure. Over ten years later and with no end in sight, the whole project has turned into a real “laugh / cry” situation and public embarrassment.

    During my Secondment period at SIG Combibloc, I had the pleasure of visiting numerous SIG manufacturing facilities around the globe, including those in Germany, Switzerland, the US, China, and Brazil. Despite for the most part producing the same or similar goods and equipment, the variance across facilities was stark. What fascinated me most was how culturally different the attitudes were across the workforces. China stood out in terms of the employee’s dedication and commitment. I recall observing the shift supervisor address the floor workers before their shift began and seeing them sign off with a collective chant; it reminded me of a well-trained military. It was by far the most productive and efficient plant at that time. I reflect on that experience whenever I see videos of large-scale infrastructure rapidly being built in China (e.g., train stations in a day, hospitals in a week, etc.). It seems to me that China has a clear commitment to the “greater good” (e.g., building infrastructure) at the expense of the individual.

    I was in Toronto recently and the radio was covering a story about a man who lives next to the site of a future Ontario line station in the East end. He was complaining to a sympathetic reporter about the non-stop noise and disruption he was suffering as they built out the station by his house and shared the effort he was putting into contacting his MP and Metrolinx to limit their working hours. I couldn’t help but think how a Chinese citizen complaining about the same situation would be received and what a distinct illustration of the value we ascribe to individual rights. For the sake of this one guy’s personal inconvenience, we might add months or years to a project that will support millions of people.

    I’m an optimistic person but I have zero confidence in North America’s ability to build large scale infrastructure efficiently. We value the individual over the collective, which has many merits. But not when it comes to building public infrastructure. Hopefully I’ll be wrong.