I'm writing to think, learn, and remember in public. I'll be here everyday.
When some construction companies invested in power drills and saws, they fired some workers to offset the costs. Then, they asked the ones that remained to ensure output kept up.
But not the successful ones.
The successful ones invested in the tools, kept their people, and grew their output. Then, they hired more people.
From B to A is a choice.
But can you coach or help a B-player become an A-player?
The first thing to understand is that not every B-player wants to be an A-player.
Some are happy being solid, reliable, and being good, maybe very good, at their job. Nothing wrong with that. But if you see potential, maybe you can pull it out.
Start by raising the bar. Set higher expectations. Give them something they can own. A-players don’t wait for permission. They take ownership and run with it. See if they do.
Take away comfort. B-players often avoid discomfort and risk. They play it safe. You’re looking to see if they avoiddiscomfort because that’s just what they know, or because its in their DNA. Put them at the front of the room or in front of the customer. Growth only happens in discomfort.
Then, make them accountable to themselves. No more coasting. No more good enough. Praise progress, but don’t sugarcoat where they fall short.
Do they want it? Some will rise. Some won’t.
That’s their choice.
We all have those moments.
The moments that feel most important, epic, and as if maybe things will all be different afterwards. Depending on your performance, it can go either way. All different, but different better or different worse?
So you focus and prepare.
And worry. And the worry goes into overdrive. The stress consumes your thoughts. Keeps you awake. Then cruely, starts to inhibit your ability to focus and prepare.
So you try harder.
Then you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach. It’s nervousness and anxiety because you probably won’t be good enough. You know it well. That feeling starts to dominate. You’re trending towards different worse. You can feel it. You can picture it all bad.
But here’s the thing — the sun will come up regardless. The next day will come, and you’re still here.
Then, whether different better or different worse, you can make the coffee, make your list — maybe the list looks different or maybe not — and then you realize it.
It was less important than you feel.
Resources are anything that can be used to achieve a goal.
Natural resources. Personal resources. Financial resources. Educational resources.
Each genre’s set of resources constrains what can be done.
In the computer world, the set of resources that constrain designs are power, MIPS (a computer’s raw speed), and time. They work together or against each much like a balloon. Access to more power means more speed, which means less time, which is great. But most of the time, we’re trying to do more in less time with less power.
Which is the whole point of design and engineering. Lots of complexity, effort, and creativity goes into making computers go faster and do more with less power.
If resources were unlimited, creativity wouldn’t matter. The best designs, the biggest breakthroughs, and the smartest strategies come from working within constraints.
The real challenge isn’t finding what you can do with unlimited resources. It’s finding the resource sweet spot.
More conversations lead to…
More opportunities.
More points of view.
More knowledge.
More understanding.
More trust.
More innovation.
More empathy.
More friendships.
More solutions.
More creativity.
More clarity.
More influence.
More connection.
Have more conversations.
As humans, we can be a curious bunch when it comes to deciding who’s good at their job.
Take medicine.
Most people, over 80%, rank the most important quality in their doctors as trust (fair enough), and the way they build trust is through communication, empathy, and personalized care — ie, bedside manner. How they feel when they interact with their doctor and the system around the doctor.
What’s curiously absent from “most people’s” idea of trust in their doctor is actual patient outcomes. Cold, hard, objective data. Data that would indicate whether a doctor is successful at diagnosis and treatment.
(Note: There is a slight generation gap here. Younger people care more about the of data, and that passes the smell test in our culture.)
What does this tell us about us?
First, it tells us that we care about humans. And we care when other humans make us feel like they care about us. No duh.
Second, it tells us that in situations that involve human interaction, we often are driven by narrative, not numbers. Our experience with our doctor is a story. We tend to trust the story we feel over the truth we can’t see or understand.
In medicine, the magic occurs when a doctor can marry objective, outcome-based competence with an outstanding bedside manner.
And that’s why I’m so bullish on AI doctoring.
Because AI is already proving itself objectively very competent at diagnosis. Much better than humans.
Which means that the human doctor with AI at their side can now focus on building trust through bedside manner.
AI doctoring will make human doctoring even better.
There’s perception, and there’s reality.
I’m an engineer. I care about reality and shun perception. The bridge stands or falls on reality, not perception.
But also, not all problems are bridges.
The engineer in me is really trying to connect with the human in me because with humans, many times, perception is reality.
Problem-solving requires a varied skill set.
Maybe that’s why some problems never get solved. They require a skill we refuse to develop.
What if the real problem is us?
I’ve been reading Ethan Mollick’s excellent book about AI called “Co-intelligence.”
If you’re looking for a good read on the topic, this is it. Smart and relevant, yet easy to digest. Nice work, Ethan.
A warning:
If and when you start using AI as a helper, please remember that you’re in charge. AI doesn’t replace your brain, your opinion, or your need to think about the results that AI provides.
Here’s what I mean.
If you’re hiring, don’t simply feed all of the resumes in, ask the AI to “tell me which is the best candidate” and then just take its word for it. Instead, ask your AI copilot to “summarize each of these candidates and rank-order them against the following criteria…” Then, you look through those summaries and decide for yourself.
The best candidate will likely not be the one chosen by AI with the simple question of “tell me which is the best.”
Outsource the busy work to AI. Don’t outsource the human work.
We celebrate people who stick to their guns. The one’s who are sure. The one’s who think the same today as they did 5, 10, 20 years ago. Same answer. Different day. Different year.
But confidence does not equal competence. Neither does consistency. Sunk costs aren’t necessarily well spent.
From one perspective, changing your mind is about science. New data, new methods of measurement, new capabilities, or new ancillary findings that inform our hypothesis.
“We used to think the earth is flat, but we’ve learned new information that now leads us to think its round.”
But we’re also human enough to understand that often, what we think or believe isn’t about science at all. It’s about feeling, and sometimes our feelings change.
“I was an atheist, but I married a Christian. Now I’m not so sure.”
Changing your mind is a very natural thing. A very human thing. We act like changing our minds is weakness. That certainty is a virtue.
Unless, of course, you change your mind and agree with me. Then we call it growth.
But certainty is heavy. It locks you in. Makes it hard to move.
Letting go and changing your mind isn’t weakness. It’s how you move forward.
Chaos and confusion can be tools.
They’re agents of change. They work against the system. Chaos and confusion create fear that creates unknown responses.
But you better know what the heck you’re doing when intentionally creating chaos and confusion. You better have an actual plan. “Let’s blow it up and see what happens” isn’t a plan.
Because if your competitor, enemy, frenemy, or opportunist sees chaos and confusion, they lick their lips. This is their time to act.
The problem with using chaos and confusion as your instrument of change is that you can’t actually predict, or possibly even influence, the outcome.
Chaos doesn’t obey.
