September

Reading

• Why are you so busy?

  You and your team should never be so busy that you can’t do your job properly or that you begin to hate your work. Especially if you’re a leader or a leader-of-leaders, then you should actually (yes you should, I’ll die on this hill) have free time to think alone, and to talk and ideate organically with peers. Contrary to popular belief: back-to-back meetings isn’t a badge of honour, it’s a red flag.

The Maintenance Race

The world’s first round-the-world solo yacht race was a thrilling and, for some, deadly contest. How its participants maintained their vessels can help us understand just how fundamental maintenance is.

Wonderful long-form article about 3 sailors that attempted the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 and their different approaches to the race.

From the article:

• Knox-Johnston’s style was: “Whatever comes, deal with it.” And he did.
• Crowhurst’s was: “Hope for the best.” It killed him.
• Moitessier’s was: “Prepare for the worst.” It freed him.

Knox-Johnston was the best prepared one, he brought all possible equipment and spare parts he might need for the voyage and spent countless hours maintaining his ship. Crowhurst hoped for the best and was unprepared, not long into the race he started lying about the progress and when it was finally certain and it all will come into the light, he committed suicide. Moitessier’s approach was based on minimalism and low-maintenance, he stripped his yach of all things unnecessary, he didn’t user any electronic equipment (he passed his messages to by-passing boats via a slingshot), and his ship was made out of steel.

The race has its third edition this year (2022 Golden Globe Race) which started on 4 September 2022. The race honors the first edition by imposing rules to limit the equipment and yachts to what was available to Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in 1968. Raced yachts must comply to for example following rules:

• Constructed of fibre reinforced plastic.
• Designed prior to 1988, with a minimum series of 20 yachts built from one mould.
• Has a hull length of between 32 to 36 feet (9.8 to 11.0 m). Bowsprits, wind vanes and outboard rudders, boomkins, pushpits and pulpits are not measured.

This month I learned

• The IKEA Effect - Why people fall in love with their own ideas - people overvalue things in which they put effort into (both objects and ideas). The effect greatly contributes to two more pitfalls: sunk cost fellacy and “not ivented here” syndrome. The ways to avoid The IKEA Effect:

  • Acknowledge your unconscious bias.
  • Spike rough prototypes to test ideas early.
  • Talk to customers (listen to customer struggles instead of selling your solution).
  • Run growth experiments - setup problem statement, hypothesis, and success criteria upfront to avoid confirmation bias.

• “Not ivented here” syndrome - tendency to avoid buying products, services, or knowledge from external sources.

Listening