The Hagakure #69: Sunday Round-Up

Growing your career like playing a game, culture is what you reward, and my principles to live and work by.

This past week has been challenging.

Last Sunday, shortly after I published last week’s round-up, I had a bike accident and hurt my hand. It’s not super serious (fracture has been ruled out) but it’s painful soft tissue damage. Luckily, one of the few things I can do with little pain is type. 😅

In the meantime, I’m being reminded of all the ways we use our thumbs. 🤬

And I learned that we have something called the carpometacarpal joints. I recommend you avoid injurying those.

This also reminds me of one of the principles I highlight at the bottom of this post: pain + reflection = progress.

Valid for both physical and mental pain.

Ancient Buddhist wisdom says that pain is inevitable (as I’m currently well aware) but suffering is optional. Work in progress, I guess.

Onwards to this week’s round-up.

Growing in your career is like playing a game.

Too easy, and you're bored and demotivated.

Too hard, and you're anxious and frustrated.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called the sweet spot in between the "Flow Channel."

It's the point where the challenges are just right for your abilities, where you are highly motivated and fully engaged in the game.

You lose track of time, you forget about your surroundings, and you feel a deep sense of satisfaction.

It's what makes level-based games so addictive.

Here's my challenge to you.

For each person you lead:

• What is it that gets them 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 out of their comfort zone?

• What takes them 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘳 out?

• What might be boring for them and how might you help them change that?

Reframe your manager role as a coach that helps your people be in their flow channel—and watch their performance soar.

PS - I love being this support for the leaders I coach. How do 𝘺𝘰𝘶 do it?

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You cannot "engineer" culture.

Culture — the way people behave — is a product of the system.

To change the culture, you must change the system.

To change the system, you must change what you reward.

Here's two examples.

Company A focuses on output and keeping developers busy:

• If a developer goes idle, a task will be promptly assigned.

• Lots of work is started, not much is finished, increasing work in progress.

• Dependencies multiply, wait times go up, delivery is routinely delayed.

• Teams have little to show for, are blamed, blame others in return.

• Resentment grows, mistrust follows, silos form.

• That's culture.

Company B focuses on outcomes and how value flows through the system:

• When idle, devs help colleagues deliver highest value work.

• Teams self-impose WIP limits, new work starts only if not over the limit.

• WIP stays low, mitigating dependencies and context switching.

• Teams learn constantly and delivery real value to their customer often.

• Functions appreciate each other, as they work (and win) together.

That's culture, too.

Company A rewards busyness and output, trusts little.
Company B rewards value creation and results, trusts much.

You get what you reward.

(Note: I was later reminded by attentive readers that culture is also very much what you tolerate. I couldn’t agree more.)

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If I hit my head, lost all my knowledge and had to start from scratch...

...these 20 life and work principles are what I’d like to have on a piece of paper for me to rebuild:

1. Failure is the successful discovery of what doesn’t work.

2. Giving control depends on clarity and competence.

3. Be impatient with actions but patient with results.

4. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

5. Avoid stupidity before seeking excellence.

6. Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems.

7. Pay attention to what has your attention.

8. Seek and show what good looks like.

9. Consistency over time equals trust.

10. Focus on what you can control.

11. Think in (and act on) systems.

12. Pain + Reflection = Progress.

13. Manage things, lead people.

14. What you do is who you are.

15. Learn to enjoy being wrong.

16. Think using first principles.

17. Pareto is your friend.

18. Don’t fool yourself.

19. Lead yourself first.

20. Stay humble.

PS - Which of my principles most resonates with you and why?

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And for upcoming week, I have a challenge for you:

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, try to pay a little bit more attention to your wins than you do to your losses. ⭐️