koolhead17
We are all sold on the idea of perfection. We want the perfect partner, job, vacation, and other worldly things.”
Our urge for this perfectionism has a side effect. We stop caring and celebrating. Our life journey is not a one-legged mammoth.
Instead of living life while aspiring to make it perfect while living, enjoying what we have now makes it more fruitful.
Working with a big team scares me. I am working under many silos. The wall of hierarchy and interacting with many personas. It is like many worlds working inside and each being clueless.
I like Jeff Bezos philosophy of 6 member team, fitting on a big size Pizza. Does it still hold for Amazon?
The inefficiency of a big team is more about the communication gap and ego of the gatekeepers. Will automation solve this? Only time will tell, as technology is evolving.
Burnout is real. It can happen to any team size. It is for a leader to keep an eye on the team. Apart from a great working environment, transparency, a leader has to be aware of setting up an honest expectation.
A leader has to nudge, encourage and empower every single team member. The radical belief in the organization bigger cause keeps a great team together.
Your engineer will not tell you about being in burn out, you have to be with them enough to realize it.
The rule of successful product development is simple: listen to your users.
But are all users equal? I would strongly say NO. My journey so far has taught me about 3 categories of users.
Noisy: They will create all the noise, what features are lacking in the product. They will show a superficial association with your product.
After this: this kind of users will play with you on the loop. Add X features, I will start using your product. After X gets implemented they will ask you for Y. And they will never put your product in their daily process.
Believers: They are the most rare breed. They will use your product even when it’s broken. They will give valuable feedback, feature requests because it is coming from their everyday pain.
If you are starting to build a product from scratch and end up finding believers, you are on a rocket ship and destined to succeed.
And if you are unlucky you will never find product-market fit because after this and noisy users will force you to change goal post regularly.
We are fighting our own little battle. It is closer to our heart and of much importance. It is difficult for others to understand and relate to it. We don’t have to waste our time explaining it to others.
A day wage labor values every penny he earns because of his need. A wealthy businessman is more worried about his brand. A stockbroker’s life is dependent on the market fluctuations.
Keeping our battle closer to our heart saves us from unwanted advice, noise.
Walmart, Amazon or Google; they all have one thing in common. They have a defined process and they stick by it.
Data tells all the story and that happens after an established process. The owner of an organization has to take responsibility for this. Ray Dalio, Sam Walton or Jef Bezos they all did it from day zero. A fleet of Ivy League veterans or consulting firm can’t do it for you. It has to come from the top, you as an owner has to take responsibility. Monkey see monkey do. We have evolved monkeys and like to follow our leaders.
How will one reap the power of intelligence without data?
If our busy life has ample time for spreading stories or sharing knowledge. How come we don’t have time for sticking by and following a process. A process which can take your organization 100X ahead of your competitors.
Reading Sam Walton‘s story about setting up Wal-mart was no less than watching a thriller. An extraordinary story of an average kid making it big by focusing on customers and sticking to the basics. Wal-mart success has lots to do with belief, persistence and customer satisfaction. I have no clue if the firm still sticks by those values.
Sam’s has shared his 10 rules in building Wal-mart.
Commit: Give your 100% when you are into anything. Just don’t do it half-heartedly.
Share: Share profits with your stakeholders, not just the board or investors.
Motivate: Building takes time and there is no shortcut. Keeping everyone motivated keeps journey easy.
Communicate: Be honest and keep the communication channel open. This will help in knowing screwups in advance.
Appreciate: Every member of your team is to your member organization. They need appreciation, he keeps them charged up and motivated.
Celebrate: Celebration should be part of the organization. It should not be limited to success, even failures are part of the learning and growing process.
Listen: Keep your eyes and ears open. The advice to make your enterprise bigger and better can come from anyone: customer, employees. Listen to it.
Exceed: Make your users, customers happy with your work or service. This will delight them and they will stick with you for long.
Control: Take care of your cash burns and stay frugal.
Swim: Go against the status quo, do things differently. There is no right or wrong way or a single template for success. One has to keep trying all avenues and methods.
This success recipe is not limited to one person or sector. To get better with life, each and everyone can make use of it.
Why are you alive?
What keeps you going in everyday life?
What are you seeking?
How are you handling this journey of life?
Are you living your own life or wearing a mask to keep others happy?
Is this how you expected your life to be?
As a seeker, one has to find answers for this. Otherwise, a lot many of us are anyways living like a robot.
We can get inspired from anywhere. It can be by reading, watching a movie or listening to the shopkeeper. We, humans, are unique in our own ways. We all have our own stories. A few chosen ones get to tell the world their journey.
Keep yourself open to listen, hear and get inspired. Don’t be biased or judgemental on the basis of pedigree or upbringings.
I have no clue what is right or wrong, it is situational. You can be right at certain things in a certain environment while wrong at others.
A lot of it depends on situations and timing. Nobody knows if they are always right.