THE LEAFLET
September 26 2024
nearby utopias, q’s for interviews, against farewell tours
NEARBY UTOPIAS
For many people on teams, even those who have an appetite for some risk-taking, it’s common to imagine a nearby utopia where a) all of our systems are in good shape b) people we like and trust run those systems and c) things don’t change. This utopia is one of predictability.
There are merits to this vision but I’ve found it to promote more cynicism and ennui than ambition and enthusiasm. When you compare your shifting, unsettling world to this neighboring, static one, you get bummed out and disillusioned. You get annoyed at leaders or colleagues who propose ideas that shake things up, even when those ideas match your values and point at your mission.
I’ve found more value in a different nearby utopia. In this other imagined place, we all take change as a given, as a precondition for our work, as part of the assignment. In this place a) our people adapt as change inexorably arrives b) by testing, learning, and refining and c) returning to mission and values as the arbiters of good and bad ideas.
In this utopia, unexpected circumstances, sudden departures, big opportunities that mean your carefully built systems have to get reconfigured or cast aside - these are embraced as facts, sublimated as fuel. You get better because of them. You even find gratitude for them.
-Eric
Read the rest here.
QUESTIONS FOR YOUR INTERVIEWER
A few questions I like to ask the interviewer when they give me the chance to turn the tables:
Tell me about cultural signatures of your team / org. What’s a thing that happens regularly that makes you go “oh, that’s so [our org]?”
Everyone has the stated list of core values. Often there’s a de facto, hidden nth one that’s not in that written list but really does exist in practice. What’s that hidden value for you all?
What’s a rate of change that would strike your team as fast or dangerous? In some startups, that rate is “less than a day”; at some foundations it’s more like “less than a quarter / year”
What’s your theory on talent development? How central is growth mindset in your talent strategy?
What would be true of someone who is the best you’ve ever had in this role?
-Eric
Read the rest here.
AGAINST FAREWELL TOURS
A teammate’s departure is a stakes-y cultural moment. It’s a bundle of opportunities for a leader. For better and for worse, the departure magnetizes the attention of the team.
Strong leaders make deliberate choices in these moments about what they put in front of all those eyes - what they put on stage. They choose with the knowledge that “attention from the leader” and “praise from the leader” might be the two most precious currencies in the organization. People will often optimize for the things that they’ve seen earn these currencies, even despite themselves.
When a strong performer is stepping away you want people to see that the path to leader approval is a pile of values-aligned, team-oriented action. However, a proper send-off for someone who has offered a pile of such contributions can become an extended farewell tour. The team can draw the conclusion that the path to leader attention and praise is not the pile of contributions - it’s quitting (or taking another job or whatever else prompts the departure). Remaining teammates who are hustling to make their own pile of contributions can reasonably feel ignored, hurt, or undervalued.
One solution to this is a recommendation we make a lot around here. It’s one you can start doing today, before you have any knowledge of a forthcoming departure. Increase the frequency and specificity of your recognition of good moves on your team. This way, the praise and celebration you’re offering at the farewell moment feels like a special version of a thing you already do. It’s no less special for the departing teammate but it’s significantly more coherent for everyone else.
-Eric
Read the rest here.
COMPELLING QUOTES
Playwright, poet, and essayist Sarah Ruhl on life intruding:
I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.
Magazine founder Sir Richard Steele on passion and service:
People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.
Novelist Joseph Conrad on insolent youth:
Youth is insolent; it is its right – its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence.
Keep going, keep growing,
Ben & Eric