Category: Management

Saturday, 8.37pm

Sheffield, U.K.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. – George Orwell, 1984

When it comes to dealing with the complexity of the world around us, thinking in terms of machines and computers seems to provide some useful approaches worth considering.

Philosophers have wrestled with questions of matter and mind for millennia.

Is matter something that exists out there independent of all thought?

Light and trees and animals and movement?

Or, since everything we perceive is actually reconstructed inside the dark chamber that houses our brains, does everything really exist only in our minds?

Such questions are perhaps best left to the philosophers.

From a practical view whether a tree exists in the material world or exists only in our minds is less important than what we spend our time doing in the world we inhabit.

Most of our existence is a search for control of the world around us.

So, we build houses, create factories and form societies.

But we don’t always think about or recognise the different kinds of thinking that go into doing those things.

So, if we think of ourselves as machines – maybe as computers – what kind of programming are we following and are there ways in which we could do things better?

Let’s start with the physical transformation of the world around us.

That comes down to having tools – tools that help us change material from one state to another.

That seems a pretty obvious first step for the species and it’s something that we’re pretty good at now.

The next step is about putting different physical tranformations in a process – arranging them so that they result in something bigger than the individual things themselves.

The classic example here is a car factory – whether the gigantic integrated facility designed by Ford which ushered in the age of mass production or the lean facilities pioneered by Toyota that run to a heartbeat set by customer demand.

The task here is of saying what must be done to change from one state to another – something that is called imperative programming.

Imperative programs tell you how to do something – what the steps are that you need to follow in order to make something happen.

If you have a morning routine or insist that your staff complete their tasks in a particular way you are doing imperative programming.

Most things work just fine if you approach them with an imperative programming mindset – knowing how to do things is important most of the time.

As you go from problems of matter to problems of mind, however, there comes a point where it stops being enough.

And this usually happens when what needs to be done is not clear and the people involved look at things in different ways and have different thoughts.

This is called a pluralist situation – and things start to get fuzzy and messy and a little complicated.

Maybe even complex.

At this point what you need to do is shift from thinking about how something should be done to what needs to happen.

In programming terms the easiest one to appreciate these days is css – the cascading style sheets that govern how a web page looks.

css is a programming language – one in which you set out how you want things on your page to look and then it all happens at once – your page goes from simple html to being displayed in whatever style you wanted.

In other words you describe what you want and the programming language takes care of the details.

This kind of programming is called declarative programming and it’s closer to the idea of a mental model than a process model – what rather than how.

So, why might this be useful?

The U.S military, for example, does declarative mission planning – it sets out what needs to happen and lets its units work out how to make things happen.

That’s the essence of business and life strategy as well – without having a clear model of what needs to happen there is no point in spending time working on the how because the chances are you won’t make the right things happen.

The problem in the modern world is that there is lots of knowledge on how to do things and much less insight into what needs to be done.

A programmer or programming shop, for example, can build you anything you want as long as you can tell them exactly what you want.

Most of the time clients don’t know.

And that’s the secret – nobody really knows – bosses don’t, managers don’t and workers don’t.

And that’s because they have been trained for years to program their lives and business using imperative programming techniques but never been exposed to declarative ones.

Even the whole neuro-linguistic programming stuff seems to be (on a cursory reading) imperative programming.

Of course there are lots of discussions in the programming world about the precise definitions of these terms and which languages you should use.

For the purposes of my argument here you can ignore all that.

The point I’m making is that you should consider thinking about what you do before working out how to do it.

That’s pretty obvious really.

But what’s not obvious is how to go about doing that – how to think about the what that’s in your mind.

Perhaps you will notice the slight irony in using an imperative approach to illuminate a declarative activity.

A paper that might help you get started if this is of interest is Thoughts on learning and taking action which is about how to construct declarative mental models.

And if you’re too busy to read the paper the answer to why you might do this is to get peace of mind.

Because that is all that matters.

Cheers, Karthik Suresh

Friday, 9.52pm

Sheffield, U.K.

At times, the solution to a maze is to reduce it to embers and walk straight through the ashes. – Mary Doria Russell, Children of God”

There’s a chicken and egg sort of thing that also applies to creative work – does structure emerge from the work or is it imposed on the work?

I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Show podcast today and he mentioned that he had written the ultimate guide to writing a book – effectively setting out a playbook that you just needed to follow and he went on to say that hardly anyone ever actually followed the steps in there.

One of the points he made in the talk was that you should think about your book in terms of modules – so you could run excerpts for people to see.

The module stuff interested me.

I’m also reading a book published in 1986 called Programmers at Work.

It’s slightly strange to think that the tools I’m using to write the way I do were first written in the late sixties and early seventies – close to half a century ago.

So, researching this area is like uncovering history and learning stuff that you can use right now all at the same time.

It’s as if you unearthed an ancient cache of Saxon swords and they all turned out to be still bright and razor sharp.

Anyway, one of the people in the programming book, Butler Lampson, talked about the importance of interfaces.

If you do want to think in terms of modules there are two things you need to consider.

The first are the interfaces between the system and the outside world and the second are the interface between the main parts of the system itself.

A book, for example, has quite a simple interface.

Another now ancient book that I’ve picked up recently is Document Formatting and Typesetting on the UNIX System which talks about three major logical parts to a book – the front or preliminary matter, chapters and the end or reference matter.

If you were building a web application, on the other hand, you’d need to think about the login screens and the main pages you’d need for users depending on their roles.

The interfaces between the main parts of the system have to do with how information flows through and creates insight as a result.

The structure may be invisible in a book or an application but the quality of what you read and use will very probably depend on whether it exists or not.

At the moment, I’m working my way through another book that seems like it’s a random collection of sentences thrown together with headings sprinkled in to create a sense of order.

I’ve stopped reading and started skimming as a result.

Now, I shouldn’t judge because I’m not someone who starts with structure.

Structure tends to emerge from what I put down – it’s more organic and natural – for me anyway.

I remember a while back being taught in an English class how to use brainstorming to create a short piece.

What emerged from the logical arrangement of those ideas was a flat piece, a dead piece.

Something that had no life or rhythm or feeling.

It was writing by numbers, building with blocks and it just didn’t work.

So I ripped it up and started again and let things flow.

And that worked better – the teacher didn’t believe I’d written both pieces – but that didn’t matter.

The point is that starting with structure doesn’t work for me.

However, it does work for others and that leads to an interesting thought.

In some cases, people come up with a structure and then fill in the details.

In other cases, people start with details and work away until when they take a step back and look at what they have done a structure emerges from the work.

For both, the trick is making the structure invisible – either erasing the pencil marks after the drawing is done or moving things around to ensure that the elements are balanced and harmonious.

It’s hard to hold a lot of stuff in your mind.

It’s better to work on small pieces at a time.

Ideally five to seven pieces.

Which is why if you look at the diagram above you have 7 external interfaces and 7 system components for each external interface.

If you were to write something of consequence, you’d need around 49 pieces.

If each piece was around 1,000 words long you’d end up with around 50,000 words which interestingly is the size of most non-fiction books these days.

So I guess the trick to modular thinking is to reduce the number of elements at whatever level you’re looking at to a handful you can keep in your mind.

Each time either build up or break down the parts you need to construct each module.

That will make it easier to assemble the pieces – to create the interfaces that glue everything together.

And which, in the long run, will mean you’ll end up with something you can ship.

And maybe even be proud of.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Thursday, 8.07pm

Sheffield, U.K.

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office. – Robert Frost

I am not a fan of suits.

I feel like I have to wear them at certain times, because that’s what people do.

But really, there is very little reason in stuffing oneself into polyester or cotton, wearing uncomfortable shoes and constricting the flow of blood to your brain.

The same goes for offices. Why would you leave one box to travel in another box on wheels to then spend the day in a third box?

Wouldn’t it be easier just to stay in the first box and get on with work?

Clearly none of these questions have a right answer – the rules are made by the people who pay you and so you must follow them in order to be paid.

But what if you’re making the rules – how should you arrange things so that they are good?

If you watch a craftsperson at work – say a good joiner constructing a wardrobe – you’ll notice something about them.

They’re not on the phone chatting with their phones held between shoulder and ear, while marking off their gear or fitting a door.

They work in silence, perhaps with some music on in the background, but on the whole fixed on the task – taking care and watching to make sure edges line up and doors close smoothly.

Much of the work we do is craft – and craft nearly always benefits from periods of silence and focus.

The single biggest problem for anyone at work is being interrupted.

An interruption is like an explosion going off in the monastery of your mind.

It stops you doing whatever you’re doing and forces you to pay attention to something else.

If you’ve hired someone to do work for you the best thing you can do is get out of their way and let them do the work.

If they’re young or inexperienced you need to spend time teaching them – and then get out of the way while they practice.

In most organisations there are people who do the work that customers pay for – this is your talent and it creates revenue generating work.

You need to protect and nurture your talent and one way to do this is to think, as Joel Spolsky writes, in terms of abstraction layers.

An abstraction layer is everything you put around your talent to help them focus on the work they need to do.

In programming, for example, that means a comfortable space that they want to spend time in, good machines, and all the books and software tools they need.

Everything else – ordering stationery, sorting out the cleaning, fixing snags – all that sort of stuff needs other people to manage and solve.

Managers need to agree what needs doing with the talent then leave them alone.

That can be hard, because everyone wants to feel like they’re doing real work – but much of the time it’s as important to get the system around the real work working nicely for everything to work.

In your computer, for example, if the hard drive is down and the power supply is failing there’s no point in having a fabulous processor because it just won’t work.

The point is that in any system you need all the components to function – because the one that fails will bring down everything.

If the heating fails and the temperature falls to zero the talent can’t do its job – they need the people who enable them to work just as much as the other way around.

Now, if you work for yourself you’ll still want to think in terms of abstraction layers.

What is it you do that is revenue generating?

What else do you do that isn’t – and how can you get others to do it for you – in effect creating an abstraction layer around yourself?

The fact is that the abstraction layer is a cost – you need to pay to put it in place, just like insulation.

But like insulation it saves your energy.

So the question to ask is not whether you need it but how you can afford to put it in place.

How much do you need to earn to add someone to your staff to help you with certain things.

It’s easy to add talent – it pays for itself because it adds to revenue.

It’s less easy to add the support functions you also need just as much.

In the long run, however, that’s what makes it possible to keep talent.

Whether it’s talent you’re hiring or whether it’s your own talent you’re trying to develop.

Because when it comes down to it what you need is time to do real work without being interrupted.

Or having to wear a suit.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Wednesday, 8.44pm

Sheffield, U.K.

The best things in life make you sweaty. – Edgar Allan Poe

Simon Sinek gave a very popular TED talk where he talked about his theory that great leaders “start with why.”

He talks about how people don’t buy what you do – they buy why you do it.

And he also links this theory to a biological model, perhaps a systems one – and it sounds a little like something called a viable systems model – which I still need to get my head around.

But first, I’m wondering if Simon’s model is one that makes sense.

And the reason for that is the examples he gives seem a little too neat and tidy and don’t seem to tie up with other sources or with first principles reasoning.

Take Apple, for example. It’s set up as a company that believes in making stuff that is beautifully designed and easy to use.

And, of course, Steve Jobs came up with that.

Except he didn’t.

Jobs had a personality, a view, an affection for Zen and simplicity.

But it was Johnny Ive, a British designer, who had the ideas and he, in turn, was influenced by the Bauhaus tradition and its focus on the essence of things.

So is Apple’s “Why” the root from which everything grows or is it one manifestation of a particular way of thinking.

Another example Simon gives is that of the Wright brothers – and that they were driven by a belief “that if they could figure out this flying machine, it’ll change the course of the world.”

But seriously, who thinks like that?

Who sits down and looks at a problem and sees what it’s going to do far into the future?

Of course, some people do, and they dream up possible futures – and some of them turn out to be right because one of those futures might actually happen.

For many of us, however, we’re working on a particular problem that happens to be interesting.

Flying, as Simon says, was the dot com of its day.

Lots of people were playing with mechanical machines just like lots of people are playing with code now.

The brothers were working on problems of torque, propeller length, differential drag and a host of other things that needed solving.

So, were they driven by a dream or by an interesting problem that they were hooked on?

Now, of course, everyone has different views but I wonder whether the Sinek Golden Circle – which starts with why, then asks how and then asks what – is a little overdone.

A different question I came across recently is to ask “to what end?”

Asking why tends to lead to fuzziness – to hopes and wants and wishes and dreams.

An end seems more tangible.

It seems like something people can aim for.

Steve Jobs, for example, wanted a Macintosh to be like a Cuisinart – all you needed to make everything you wanted.

That was what led to the Mac having a closed system – one it completely controlled and within which it was perfect.

But that’s also why the Intel and Windows world pulled ahead.

And these days it plays the same way, trying to make it very hard for anyone else to interoperate with its devices.

So, if you ask to what end did Apple build its devices, maybe a better answer is they built them to be closed systems – so that they could make them as perfect as possible.

We don’t know.

But if you were to do something now – start a new project or a business, say.

Do you think you would be better off starting with why – and listing your motives and purposes.

To be independent, rich, have time with your family… etc.

Are those whys any different from the whys of your mate next door?

Or would you be better off asking “to what end” are you starting that new project or business?

What’s the problem you’re solving, the need you’re meeting?

What actually happens in the end?

I feel I know which approach I’d prefer.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Monday, 9.23pm

Sheffield, U.K.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

In 1996 Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had an idea – they wanted to access their email accounts through a web browser and Hotmail was born.

20 months later, in less than two years, Microsoft bought them for $400 million.

If you listen to what Bhatia says about that time a few things stand out.

The first is that he knows he was lucky, in the right place at the right time with a good idea.

The timing was right.

Looking back, he was also prescient about what might happen next – his other ventures have not seen the same kind of traction.

A second point is that it was hard work.

The team faced rejection from VCs, politics, competition and technology failures.

They found themselves fooled by legal trickery, double crossed by partners and didn’t make any money.

But they kept at it – and that seems to be another feature of successful entrepreneurs.

They keep going.

Then there is the paradigm that is a unique feature of the internet.

What matters is growth in users, not growth in revenue.

If you have people signing up to use your service quickly enough then that’s all that matters in the short term.

Because what matters is owning the user.

That’s something that people who use free services don’t always realise.

When you get something for free what’s happening is that you’re the product.

Or, actually, the asset.

Eventually, those assets can be sold to someone else who has the ability to monetise them.

Or you can figure out how to make money from them later.

The important thing for such a business is to own its customers.

But the sobering thing, looking back at examples of success like Hotmail, is that so much is impossible to predict at the start.

How do you know if you’ll get the timing right or create something viral?

How do you know if you’ll be able to keep going even when everything looks like its failing?

To some extent it’s pointless asking those questions before you have to.

The starting point, according to Bhatia, is to write a business plan.

The reason you do this is to “crystallize your thoughts to communicate with someone else.”

The point of the plan is not just for you to read or to send off to someone else.

It’s a way for you to talk to others and persuade them to work with you or invest in your business.

What you’re trying to do is answer the questions they will have and the very natural fears they have about whether you can do what you say.

And those questions, if you look at the picture above, haven’t changed since Bhatia first answered them.

They probably haven’t changed in a century or so actually.

And the point is you have no idea what will happen in the fullness of time.

But you can put in the thinking needed to get a good start right now.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh