Week 2371

I’m still recovering from two weekends of entertaining visitors. I enjoy living in a beloved destination city, so I can sometimes share the experience of holidays without the logistics of traveling.

Managing people1 effectively can be a lot of effort, but not difficult. Actively listen to them, seek opportunities to define measurable success, proactively seek feedback from those they work with, and take the time to synthesize that feedback. Periodically, have a formal calibration to share this feedback with some structure to reinforce successes and collaborate to address weaknesses. Always, of course, stay humble.

I studied organizational psychology in school and have been managing people in various forms for 20 years, so I have a well-defined sense of what I want the experience of being managed to entail. But only once, briefly, have I personally experienced anything like it.

3 Notes

August 15th, 2019

It is inconceivable that we will prevent world-disrupting climate change. Besides trying harder to prevent this, we ought to be framing every political issue in terms of improving our resilience.