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Create a User Manual of Yourself for Others
Summary:
Creating a user manual for yourself, including strengths, weaknesses, triggers, blind spots, and insights for working effectively with you, enables others to understand and collaborate with you more easily.
By soliciting feedback from colleagues and using their input to enhance self-awareness, you can provide new team members with valuable insights about working with you, facilitating quicker and more effective collaboration.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
He said, you know, when i buy a new car, it comes with an owner's manual, so i know how to operate it. But when i work with a new person, whose way more complex than a car, i don't get anything. And so i'm kind of starting from square one, when fact, they have all these experiences that could teach me something from their past about how to work with them better in the present And the future. And so what he did, same as orschol nick, he sat down and he wrote up one pager on how to work with him effectively. What are his strength what are his weaknesses, what are the triggers that bring out the worst in him? What are the the moments that bring out in the best in him? And then he didn't stop therehe asked his team to write their user manual for him, so that he could gauge his own self awareness. And of course, he found the team's os is much more ecihtful and accurate than his own, because of the blind spot factor in part. But now every new person who works with him gets that one pager and gets to immediately start as if they'd known him for a month or two, and say, ok, you know, here are the things i might want To adapt if i want to be really affective with this nager. And so i've gone, i've gone and done that. I asked a bunch of people who worke with me to write my user manual. Andit is very simple. The questions are, what are my strengths? What brings those out? What are my weaknesses? What brings those out? What are my blind spots? And what do you know now about working with me that you wish you had known when we first started working?
#399 — Adam Grant — The Man Who Does Everything
The Tim Ferriss Show
The Self-Reinforcing Stigmatization of Public Spaces (Like Libraries)
Summary:
Public libraries are facing various physical problems due to under-investment.
They are often the last option for people who lack access to basic services. Libraries are used as shelters for the homeless, warm places for those suffering from addiction, and even childcare centers.
This over-reliance on libraries to solve societal issues has stigmatized these public spaces.
The lack of investment in addressing core problems has turned libraries into spaces of last resort.
This sends a message to affluent Americans that if they want a gathering place, they should build their own in the private sector.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
One of the problems we have now is most cities, suburbs, towns in America have public libraries there. There's neighborhood libraries. The building is there. The buildings are generally not updated. They need to have new HVACs. They need new bathrooms. They need new furniture, but a lot of new books. Stomachs still not accessible to people in wheelchairs. There's all kinds of problems with libraries, just physically because we've under-invested in them. Libraries, unfortunately, have become the place of last resort for everyone who falls through the safety net. If you wake up in the morning in the American city and you don't have a home, you're told to go to a library. If you wake up in the morning and you're suffering from an addiction problem, you need a warm place. They'll send you to a library. If you need to use a bathroom, you'll go to a library. If you don't have child care for your kid, you might send your kid to a library. If you're old and you're alone, you might go to the library. We've used the library to try to solve all these problems that deserve actual treatment. How many times have you talked to someone who said it's basically a homeless shelter? What's happened is we've stigmatized our public spaces because we've done so little to address core problems that we've turned them into spaces of last resort for people who need a Hand. As we do that, we send another message to affluent middle-class Americans, and that is if you want a gathering place, build your own in the private sector.
The Infrastructure of Community
How to Keep Time
Perverse Incentives Select for People Who Are the Best at Exploiting a Given System
Summary:
The original deans and administrators burn out due to their dislike of the US News and World Report rankings and are replaced by individuals driven by ranking success.
This shift reflects a difference in mentality between valuing money as a means of support versus valuing money as the sole purpose of life. Similarly, pursuing publications and citations for a job versus making them the ultimate goal shows a significant distinction.
However, these differences are connected through a temporal dynamic where initially people adapt their behavior to succeed in a flawed system.
The system then filters out those who can best exploit it, resulting in the selection of individuals with specific values.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
What happens later on, the original deans and administrators burn out because of how much they hate the US news and rule report rankings, and they get replaced by people who are all it. They think the only point is to rise in the rankings. And those people don't hold back. They only have one target. I think something similar is the difference between so realizing I need a lot of money in order to a decent amount of money to support my family, but not thinking money is the point of life. And similarly, realizing that getting a decent number of publications and citations is necessary for a job versus thinking the goal of my life is to max out citations. And for me, there's a huge gulf between those things.
Speaker 1
Well, here's where I think they're connected because I see the difference and I understand the difference you're talking about. But I think the difference is that is this temporal dynamic, right, where you start out with, let's say, perverse incentives and people saying, well, I don't necessarily value these Things, but I have to shape my behavior in order to succeed in this system. But the thing is, the system being the way it is creates a filter. And the people who are the best at figuring out how to operate in that are the ones that then end up being successful. And they're the ones that teach the next generation or emulated by the next generation. And over time, the people for whatever reasons, psychologically or behaviorally or ever their path is, are best able to exploit the system are going to be able to thrive in it. And I think that because of that, you end up selecting for people with certain kinds of values, because they're going to be the people who there's always exceptions, but are going to Be best able to thrive in this kind of thing.
Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems With Value Metrics & Governance at Scale
COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life
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