Issue #2
Compound learning | Your no. 1 job as a Leader | Relying on Tech Giants
Compound learning
I’ve always considered myself a slow reader and used that as an excuse for not being able to get through as many of the topics I wanted to learn more about as I could.
In addition, I would sabotage myself. I’d think: “well if I want to read more I need to dedicate 1 full hour everyday otherwise the whole endeavour is pointless”. Silly me.
At the same time I got into investing and learned the concept of compound interest. Bear with me - this does have to do with developing a learning habit!
Compound interest is defined as:
The interest you get on:
the money you initially deposited, called the principal.
the interest you've already earned
For example, say you invest $10,000 into a savings account with 3% interest compounded monthly. If you leave your cash there for 10 years, you’ll have $13,494.00. That’s a total of $3,494.00 in interest.
Here’s the gist, as I put it to myself:
If I consistently invest small amounts over a long period of time, the gains can be substantial.
Back to my reading habit. Compound interest made me look at it differently so instead of a full hour, I committed to reading for 20min every night. (consistent, small investments, remember?)
Before long this turned into a habit. Now if I don’t read at night, I feel like something is missing. As a result I have read an average of 25 books per year ever since.
My learning schedule
I didn’t stop there however. I noticed that I could sprinkle this concept throughout my day to pack in more learning. So here’s what my weekday learning schedule looks like:
Morning
6-7am - Gym (it sets me up for success - find what starts you off on the right foot)
7-7:30am - Listen to local and/or international news while making breakfast (podcasts are a favourite here)
7:30-8am - Take the dog for a walk while listening to a book on Audible.
Afternoon
4:30-5pm - Puppy’s 2nd walk. Pick up where I left off on Audible.
Evening
9:30-10pm - Read a book on Kindle/paperback (I also use this as my cut-off for screen time)
I make a point of reading two different books at any given time. This works for me because I use different mediums:
Audible: great for commuting or walking the dog. Usually nothing technical, mostly about leadership and business.
Kindle/paperback: that’s where I do my technical reading.
This schedule works for me but may not work for you. That’s Ok. You’ll need to experiment - the key thing here is that you don’t have to start big. My current schedule evolved from 20min of reading per day. Compound interest works.
P.S.: None of this is new. My newfound reading habit led me to The Power of Habit, which put some theoretical heft behind my thinking. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to understand why some habits stick while others do not.
LeadBytes
Your number one job as a leader
It might sound silly to take such a reductionist approach to describing what a leader does, however this is so important that without it a lot of the other leadership principles we talk about don’t work.
So here it is:
your number one job as a leader is to share the context for what your organisation is trying to achieve.
It sounds simple, but it does require a level of awareness and transparency that isn’t present in many places today.
As a leader you need to explain why whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish is important. By sharing this context clearly, including any risks you have identified, you will have equiped your people with a framework for making decisions that are aligned with the company goals.
if senior leadership is making all decisions, it has become a bottleneck, it’s slowing everything down and it’s taking away from your people’s basic need for autonomy.
As Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings put it in their excellent book No Rules Rules, to lead with context you need four elements [italics is my own commentary]:
Have the right people on your team - you’ve hired them to do a job, so get out of the way.
The goal is innovation, not error prevention - taking risks is what allows us to move forward. Decide which type of business you want to be.
Operate in a loose coupled manner - share the context. Don’t be a bottleneck. Encourage big decisions at the individual level.
When someone does something not in line with the context, ask yourself: what context have I failed to set? - don’t jump to conclusions. Operational failures are usually a failure in management and/or leadership.
Share it often. Share it broadly, then move aside.
TechBytes
In the first issue I talked about how Telegram and Signal saw a big digital migration due to WhatsApp’s privacy changes.
Before that, January 2021 also brought us Twitter’s ban of Donald Trump. Right around the same time AWS banned Parler from being hosted in its infrastructure.
Both bans were well received by a large number of people globally, myself included.
Now why am I writing about this? Because it’s now clear more than ever just how much power has shifted to private companies. It’s fascinating to think that we have to resort to billionaires to do what the government can’t.
It works as long as it fits with their agenda. But what happens when it doesn’t? Twitter had many opportunities to ban Trump - why now?
It seems it’s hard to dissociate tech and politics these days. But we shouldn't let that get in the way of holding big tech accountable.
Q&A
I received a question during the week asking for a book recommendation on leadership that has helped in my career.
It’s hard to pick a single book. I have many favourites and they all helped in different areas, and for different reasons. As such, I’ll try and keep recommendations coming in future issues.
To kick us off, I’d point you to High Output Management by Andy Grove. Process, Operations, Delivery, Hiring, Firing… are all fundamental parts of the discipline of management. This is the stuff you’ll learn the hard way on the job and which I struggled with when I took my first management position.
I’m not an expert but this book shaved off years of learning with clear, concise and concrete advice. It’s still an important reference I consult from time to time.
If you have a question for me, please submit it here - I’ll answer it in future issues.