Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Tips for Working for a Type-A Boss

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Type-A bosses tend to accomplish great things, at least short-term. But their high intensity and impatience could make them hard to work for.

If you’re more of a laid-back employee, realize that most of the time, Type-A’s intensity isn’t about you. It’s the way she relates to the world around her. Type-A is what Type-A does.

Here’s how to deal with the overly amped-up style of the Type-A boss:

  • Speak up. Do your homework and anticipate needs/wants. Be proactive and take the initiative on everything. Bring solutions, not problems. If you disagree with something, communicate directly.
  • If nothing you do seems perfect enough for your boss, don’t assume the worst and put your guard up. Be more receptive to evaluation. If you’re constantly being challenged to add “one more thing,” seek specific feedback on how she’d like you to refine your work.
  • Set boundaries on what she can expect from you. Ask for clear performance goals. With Type-As, it’s always about them; you can’t hold yourself accountable for their personality. When it gets tough, try not to take it personally. Ask for what you need, but choose your battles wisely.

Idea for Impact: One of the best ways to handle a Type-A person is to try to be Type-A yourself. You don’t have to morph into an ego-driven jerk, but try to be more organized and keep on top of everything.

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  5. No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad

Evolution, Not Revolution

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Innovation often transpires from synthesizing existing ideas in new ways, as the following case study on the iPod will illuminate.

In some sense, the iPod wasn’t a breakthrough innovation at all. It emerged from Steve Jobs’s “digital hub” approach to integrating iMac software for playing, editing, and managing photos, music, and movies. According to Walter Isaacson’s masterful biography of Steve Jobs (2011,) when Apple designers learned that Toshiba had newly prototyped a tiny 1.8-inch hard drive that could hold five gigabytes of storage (that’s about a thousand songs,) they conjured up a digital music player. Apple found that existing gadgets were “big and clunky or small and useless” with “unbelievably awful” user interfaces.

Sony’s Walkman had previously proven the market potential of portable audio players, having sold 200 million units in the two decades before Apple conceived the iPod. Napster had offered digital audio file distribution for over five years. Finger-driven touchscreens were pioneered in the 1960s, and Citibank rolled out touchscreen ATMs in the 1980s. (Apple didn’t offer touchscreens until 2007 with the iPhone.) Hence, the iPod’s innovation was in bringing all these capabilities together in a way that was easier to use and relevant to the consumer. Dartmouth’s strategy professor Ron Adner writes in The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss (2013.)

Apple was three years late [behind Creative, SanDisk, Sony, and Samsung, who had previously launched portable music players]. As we’ll see again in the case of the iPhone, Jobs tended to be late for everything because he wanted everything to be ready for him. Reflecting on catching technology waves in 2008, he said, “Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely, it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years.” Jobs’s discipline paid off.

Idea for Impact: Innovation often builds on existing technological competencies or as a synthesis of smaller innovations.

Wondering what to read next?

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Inspirational Quotations #956

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Power is the ability to do good things for others.
—Brooke Astor (American Writer, Philanthropist)

It’s been very important throughout my career that I’ve met all the guys I’ve copied, because at each stage they’ve said, “Don’t play like me, play like you.”
—Eric Clapton (British Musician)

Change does not change tradition. It strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.
—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (British Prince)

Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.
—Arthur Erickson (Canadian Architect)

With their souls of patent leather, they come down the road. Hunched and nocturnal, where they breathe they impose, silence of dark rubber, and fear of fine sand.
—Federico Garcia Lorca (Spanish Poet)

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.
—Harriet B. Braiker (American Psychologist)

Frustrated love has been the incentive for many great works.
—John Michell (English Esotericist, New Age Writer)

The best match in the world will not light a candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared.
—Algernon Blackwood (English Novelist)

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.
—James K. Polk (President of America)

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (English Writer, Politician)

In comedy, reconcilement with life comes at the point when to the tragic sense only an inalienable difference or dissension with life appears.
—Constance Rourke (American Historian)

Many people feel empty, a world that seemed so strong just collapsed. Forty years have been wasted on stupid strife for the sake of an unsuccessful experiment. The values gathered together have vanished, the strategies for survival have become ridiculous. And so forty years of our lives have become a story, a bad anecdote. But it may be possible to remember these adventures with a kind of irony.
—Gyorgy Konrad (Hungarian Novelist, Essayist)

I may have faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them.
—Jimmy Hoffa (American Labor Leader)

Quantity is the Path to Quality

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Happiness is not how much time you spend doing what you love, but how little time you spend doing what you hate.

As in Charlie Munger’s recipe for success: “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” And “I know I’ll perform better if I run my nose in my own stupid mistakes.”

Idea for Impact: The road less stupid can keep you from silly errors, if not all errors.

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Why Investors Keep Backing Unprofitable Business Models

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Investors have heaped billions into Q-Commerce—especially the rapid grocery startups—hoping to hook consumers on the convenience of groceries that would turn up immediately, sometimes in minutes.

I’ve never really fathomed how the small-basket orders of low-margin groceries can endlessly compensate for the labor costs and overheads, even after discontinuing the generous referral bonuses, discount codes, and freebies enticing customers. The prospects may evolve if these startups subsist on ever more funding and develop massive businesses with efficiencies from scale. But then they’re right in Amazon’s wheelhouse.

Idea for Impact: Some business models are never created to be profitable, and investors should be wary of encouraging—and funding—loss-making propositions. The lure of backing an initial entrant, capturing market share, and then selling out to a more determined fool isn’t viable! Who needs goods delivered in such a rush for such charges, anyway?

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Elon Musk Insults, Michael O’Leary Sells: Ryanair Knows Cheap-Fare Psychology
  4. Offering a Chipotle Burrito at a Dollar is Not a Bargain but a Betrayal of Dignity
  5. The Adjacent Move: How Johnny Andrean Built Three Consumer Brands From One Playbook

Giving Feedback and Depersonalizing It: Summary of Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’

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It takes finesse to tell your boss and colleagues what you really think and address conflicts with urgency. When individuals are hesitant to talk frankly to each other, unresolved conflict can wreak havoc on productivity and culture.

'Radical Candor' by Kim Scott (ISBN 1529038340) Former Google and Apple executive Kim Scott’s bestselling Radical Candor (2017) can help if you struggle with delivering honest feedback with the subtlety that suits the relationship. To avoid turning criticism into a personal attack, Scott suggests phrasing feedback using a “situation-behavior-impact” recipe (identical to the Manager Tools’ Feedback Model I’ve recommended for years): describe the situation where the problem behavior appeared, the other’s specific actions, and their impact. Instead of “You’re sloppy,” tell, “You’ve been working nights and weekends, and it’s taken a toll on your accuracy.” Scott also extends directions on how to educate to deal with conflict, strike positive solutions, and foster a fertile conflict mindset that everybody embraces.

Recommendation: Speedread Radical Candor. If you condone the narrative inconsistencies, excessive name-dropping, and banal Silicon Valley tenor, this text will teach you how tactful conflict and giving honest feedback can be an impetus for positive change. Bruised egos and problems nipped in the bud are better than the alternative—stalled projects, mediocre work, and resentment that festers on.

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  4. Employee Surveys: Perceptions Apart
  5. Employee Surveys: Asking for Feedback is Not Enough

Sometimes a Conflict is All About the Process

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There’s a considerable difference between a “decision conflict” and a “process conflict,” and it’s necessary to disentangle the two.

A decision conflict is about a choice or another to be made. But a process conflict is about the approach, e.g., where making a choice has lacked rigorous deliberation (haste, a lack of participation from essential stakeholders, contempt for shared priorities, lack of attention to the tradeoffs, and so forth.) A sound decision has ensued from a meticulous-enough thought process, even if the decision emerges to be defective in the fullness of time.

Idea for Impact: Worry about bad decision processes. Make the “how” the anchor for your decision-making process. Improving the quality of decisions is developing better frameworks for making those decisions.

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  5. The “Ashtray in the Sky” Mental Model: Idiot-Proofing by Design

Thirst is a Late Indicator of Dehydration

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If you’re feeling parched, if your mouth feels dry, your body has likely lost 1 to 2 percent of its water content already. That’s a late indicator of dehydration, particularly in older adults.

Idea for Impact: Amid the current record-breaking heat wave, don’t wait for thirst to set in. Monitor for early clues from your body telling you it needs fluids—darker-colored urine, reduced exercise performance, headache, exhaustion, wooziness, and hunger.

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The Great Resignation, The Great Awakening

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The Great Resignation hasn’t been just about burnout. It’s about a “Great Awakening,” notably for many folks in middle management.

Obliged to stay in their homes during COVID, they’ve reevaluated their lives while cherishing the extra time with their families and engaging in other interests. Discussions of work-life balance came into renewed focus.

As part of this great rethink, people are unwilling to sacrifice as much for a work-life balance. Some middle managers are increasingly disinclined to take the next step in their careers because “onward and upward” isn’t as appealing as it used to be, and the price to climb the corporate ladder is too high. These people are keener on setting career paths based on their own values and definitions of success.

Not that their ambitions have changed, though. But they aren’t driving for the same things they were driving for ten years ago. But they’re reconsidering how they can keep contributing to their organizations—on their own terms. They’re willing to come to terms with “career plateauing,” unhooking from the pressure to pursue an upward path someone else has set.

They may still derive a certain sense of identity from their jobs, but they’re seeking other ways to seek a more fulfilling life. They’re no longer pushing for the more prestigious title, the broader responsibility, the bigger raise, and a larger team. Instead, they’re taking energy that had been directed primarily on goals defined by the employer and focusing it elsewhere.

Idea for Impact: As part of this great rethink, reassess your options. Set clear boundaries on your willingness to sacrifice to strike a better work-life balance. Think strategically not only about the work you enjoy but also about the life you want to lead.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. How to … Know When it’s Time to Quit Your Job
  3. The Champion Who Hated His Craft: Andre Agassi’s Raw Confession in ‘Open’
  4. Transient by Choice: Why Gen Z Is Renting More
  5. The Truth About Work-Life Balance

Inspirational Quotations #955

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Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.
—C. Everett Koop (American Physician)

Hard as it may appear in individual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.
—Thomas Robert Malthus (English Political Economist)

Writing was like digging coal. I sweat blood. The spell is on me.
—Zane Grey (American Novelist)

To understand is to perceive patterns.
—Isaiah Berlin (British Philosopher, Historian)

Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.
—A. J. Liebling (American Journalist)

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is the assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.
—Jean Kerr (Irish-American Writer)

Don’t believe that winning is really everything. It’s more important to stand for something. If you don’t stand for something, what do you win?
—Lane Kirkland (American Labor Leader)

Often regret is very false and displaced, and imagines the past to be totally other than it was.
—John O’Donohue (Irish Philosopher, Priest)

Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness?
—Yevgeny Zamyatin (Russian Novelist)

If you’re not happy every morning when you get up, leave for work, or start to work at home—if you’re not enthusiastic about doing that, you’re not going to be successful.
—Donald M. Kendall (American Businessman)

All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac (American Novelist, Poet)

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.
—Fidel Castro (Cuban Political Leader)

It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward.
—Dolores Ibarruri (Spanish Communist Leader)

The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.
—Vic Braden (American Sportsperson)

That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.
—Elizabeth Wurtzel (American Writer, Journalist)