Author

Brendan Reid

Summary

Advice for a more strategic approach to career planning.

Takeaways

Corporations typically don’t operate rationally as they consist of people who have their own benefits in mind. Career progression requires a strategic approach and tactical steps contrary to commonly accepted practices.

1. Don’t be overly passionate about your ideas and rather be objective in providing optionality
2. Embrace the changes everyone else hates
3. Learn to promote your ideas instead of refining them without feedback
4. Avoid a too strong focus on result orientation and instead spend time expanding your skill set
5. Don’t be a part of the heard, and don’t gossip about peers and superiors
6. Find big problems to solve
7. Don’t hold peers accountable and mentor them wherever possible

Quotes

“People inherently want to work with people similar to themselves and who they like. Any strategy for managing a career that includes not being liked by others is flawed."

“Isn’t passion what will make people want to follow you? That is only partially correct. Passion for the best path, irrespective of whose idea it was, is a virtue that endears people. Passion for your path, because you know it to be right, is just a bullying tactic disguised as innovativeness."

“Results have a short shelf life. Skills have value over many years and roles."

“Avoid the herd mentality at all costs. Start promoting your projects. Be at your best when difficult change is afoot and everyone around you is rebelling. Stop holding people accountable and start helping them to succeed. Choose to be objective over passionate when presenting ideas and strategies. And favor high-scoring projects over reliable performance of everyday tasks."

Author

Carl Anderson

Summary

A blueprint to create a data-driven and analytics focused organization.

Takeaways

Data-driven organizations are more successful and generate more value through better decision making.

For a company to be data-driven it must have the right culture and talent in place to use data effctively along the so called analytics value chain. Sponsorship from high profile positions in the organization is needed to implement a culture that values testing and experimentation to derive insights that can give a competitive advantage.

In a data-driven organization, relevant data of high quality feeds reports and stimulates deeper analyses that are presented to decision makers who incorporate them in their decision making to influence the direction of the company.

Quotes

“A data-driven organization will almost certainly be choosing among future options or actions using a suite of weighted variables. Resources are always finite, and there are always pros and cons for different reasonable courses of action. One should gather data for each of the set of variables that are of concern or interest and determine weights among those to generate a final leading decision."

“Data is the raw, unprocessed facts about the world. Information is captured, processed data, while knowledge is a set of mental models and beliefs about the world built from information over time."

“This pseudo-progression is often labeled as analytics maturity. If you do a Google image search for ‘analytics maturity’, you will see what I mean; that many BI vendors and practitioners present this as set of stepping stones with unidirectional arrows pointing from one level to the next. Analytics is not like that: it cuts across levels within an analysis, and different parts of the organization can be engaged in analyses of differing degrees of sophistication at any one time."

“The key here is to start with the question to be answered—be question and decision focused rather than data focused. By setting out the objective clearly and unambiguously, you stand a better chance of defining which questions need to be answered and consequently which data should be collected, which experiments should be run, and what metrics you are trying to drive."

Author

Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer

Summary

The story of establishing a culture of freedom and resonsponsibility at Netflix.

Takeaways

Netflix leadership has identified two key ingredients for a creative and innovative culture: candor and talent density. Employees are empowered to contribute their opinions and ideas. They need to get enough context about the business priorities to take ownership and make informed decisions without the burden of a buerocratic approval process. Netflix aims to attract top talent and rather pays for one highly capable employee than for ten mediocre ones.

Quotes

“If you can’t afford to pay your best employees top of market, then let go of some of the less fabulous people in order to do so. That way, the talent will become even denser."

“When you succeed, speak about it softly or let others mention it for you. But when you make a mistake say it clearly and loudly, so that everyone can learn and profit from your errors. In other words, ‘Whisper wins and shout mistakes.'"

“These are all ways of controlling people rather than inspiring them. It’s not easy to avoid chaos and anarchy as you remove these controls, but if you develop every employee’s sense of self-discipline and responsibility, help them develop enough knowledge to make good decisions, and develop a feedback culture to stimulate learning, you’ll be amazed at how effective your organization can be."

“What we’ve learned is that in order to integrate your corporate culture around the world, above all you have to be humble, you have to be curious, and you have to remember to listen before you speak and to learn before you teach. With this approach, you can’t help but become more effective every day in this ever-fascinating multicultural world."

Author

Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

Summary

A summary of decision hygiene practices to reduce noise in judgments.

Takeaways

Noise is ubiquitous in situations that require judgment and leads to unwanted and costly variability and unfairness in decisions. The reasons for noise in judgments are manifold. People have cognitive biases and a natural preference for causal thinking that finds comfort in finding coherent explanations even if the reality is more complex and less predictable.

Adherence to decision hygiene principles reduces noise. The goal of the principles is to delay premature intuition and to limit the influence of cognitive biases. For example, averaging independent judgments, or relying on formulas and simple models that are noise free allows for consistent judgment in situations that are similar to each other.

Quotes

“In summary, what people usually claim to strive for in verifiable judgments is a prediction that matches the outcome. What they are effectively trying to achieve, regardless of verifiability, is the internal signal of completion provided by the coherence between the facts of the case and the judgment. And what they should be trying to achieve, normatively speaking, is the judgment process that would produce the best judgment over an ensemble of similar cases."

“The illusion of validity is found wherever predictive judgments are made, because of a common failure to distinguish between two stages of the prediction task: evaluating cases on the evidence available and predicting actual outcomes. You can often be quite confident in your assessment of which of two candidates looks better, but guessing which of them will actually be better is an altogether different kettle of fish."

“Causal thinking helps us make sense of a world that is far less predictable than we think. It also explains why we view the world as far more predictable than it really is. In the valley of the normal, there are no surprises and no inconsistencies. The future seems as predictable as the past. And noise is neither heard nor seen."

“Most people are surprised to hear that the accuracy of their predictive judgments is not only low but also inferior to that of formulas. Even simple linear models built on limited data, or simple rules that can be sketched on the back of an envelope, consistently outperform human judges. The critical advantage of rules and models is that they are noise-free. As we subjectively experience it, judgment is a subtle and complex process; we have no indication that the subtlety may be mostly noise. It is difficult for us to imagine that mindless adherence to simple rules will often achieve higher accuracy than we can—but this is by now a well-established fact."

Author

Russel Jurney

Summary

Instructions for a technical setup to iteratively develop practical Data Science applications.

Takeaways

Many Data Science applications fail because of a missing feedback loop between the Data Scientists developing the solutions and the business stakeholders and users. To avoid a disconnect, Data Scientists need to share work in progress frequently. Software development methodolodies like Scrum need to be adapted to account for the larger uncertainty of data exploration.

An Agile Data Science process needs to leave room for experimentation and variable goals. Instead of providing the ship date of a predetermined artifact, an Agile Data Science team should produce working software that describes the state of exploration (“What will we ship, when?” instead of “When will we ship”).

Quotes

“A researcher who is eight persons away from customers is unlikely to solve relevant problems and more likely to solve arcane problems."

“Several changes in particular make a return to agility possible: Choosing generalists over specialists. Preferring small teams over large teams. Using high-level tools and platforms: cloud computing, distributed systems, and platforms as a service (PaaS). Continuous and iterative sharing of intermediate work, even when that work may be incomplete."

“One thing we require is that every level of the stack must be horizontally scalable. Adding another machine to a cluster is greatly preferable to upgrading expensive, proprietary hardware. If you have to rewrite your predictive model’s implementation in order to deploy it, you aren’t being very agile."

“We will only explore a simple heuristic-based approach, because it turns out that in this case that is simply good enough. Don’t allow your curiosity to distract you into employing machine learning and statistical techniques whenever you can. Get curious about results, instead."

Author

Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein

Summary

Practical recommendations for how to design systems that support people in making the right choices.

Takeaways

The design of the environment in which choices have to be made (choice architecture) often greatly influences the results, e.g. the order of food items in a cafeteria or the order of options and default values on a website. The goal of designing choice architectures should be to nudge people to make a choice that best reflects their true intention.

Any “sludge” or obstacles that can get in the way of making the right choice should be reduced, e.g. too many or too complicated options, should be reduced.

Quotes

“Our goal, in short, is to help people make the choices that they would have made if they had paid full attention and possessed complete information, unlimited cognitive ability, and complete self-control."

“The false assumption is that almost all people, almost all the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made by someone else. We claim that this assumption is false—indeed, obviously false. In fact, we do not think that anyone actually believes it on reflection."

“The discussion thus far suggests that people may most need a good nudge for choices that require memory or have delayed effects; those that are difficult, are infrequent, and offer poor feedback; and those for which the relationship between choice and experience is ambiguous."

“So, if you remember just one thing from this book, let it be this. If you want to encourage people to do something, Make It Easy. If you’re so inclined, hum it to the tune of the old Eagles song: ‘Take It Easy.'"

Author

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Summary

An overview of communication techniques for effective messaging of ideas.

Takeaways

In order for ideas to stick with an audience they have to be framed as Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories (SUCCES). If we follow the SUCCES framework, we can drill to the core of the message to know what to say (simple) and frame it in a way that helps people to pay attention (unexpected), understand and remember (concrete), believe and agree (credible), care (emotional), and act (stories).

Quotes

“Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it. It also makes it harder to coordinate our activities with others, who may interpret the abstraction in very different ways."

“How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical Hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities—not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be”

“The story’s power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act)."

“So, rather than guess about whether people will understand our ideas, we should ask, ‘Is it concrete?’ Rather than speculate about whether people will care, we should ask, ‘Is it emotional? Does it get out of Maslow’s basement? Does it force people to put on an Analytical Hat or allow them to feel empathy?'"

Author

Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace

Summary

Practical advice on how to establish and maintain a culture of creativity and innovation in an organization

Takeaways

Running a large organization requires dealing with great complexity, and high uncertainty and instability. It is easy for managers to lose sight of the problems of their employees. The only way managers can avoid this is to encourage candor and open feedback, and to actively work on uncovering and understanding anything that is hidden.

Leaders need to embrace a mindset of humility, admit mistakes and course-correct when new evidence comes to light. Being too fixated on goals and stability is ill-advised as change and failure is unavoidable. Leaders should hold on to their ethics and values, but re-balance priorities and adjust goals as they learn.

Quotes

“I will discuss many of the steps we follow at Pixar, but the most compelling mechanisms to me are those that deal with uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, and the things we cannot see. I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them."

“Creative people must accept that challenges never cease, failure can’t be avoided, and ‘vision’ is often an illusion. But they must also feel safe -always- to speak their minds."

“Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear. Doing all these things won’t necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn’t the goal; excellence is."

“Do not accidentally make stability a goal. Balance is more important than stability."

Author

Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

Summary

A set of leadership principles from the Navy Seals and how to apply them to the business context.

Takeaways

Successful leaders need to take ownership to the next level. “Extreme Ownership” includes owning up to mistakes, believing in the mission, and providing enough context for subordinates and supervisors. The best leaders keep their egos in check and critically assess how they can contribute to the team’s success.

Quotes

“On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win."

“In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And they will not be able to convince others—especially the frontline troops who must execute the mission—to do so. Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests."

“Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own."

“Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. When plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. And when things go wrong, and they inevitably do go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into total disaster. Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise."

Author

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Summary

The story of a plant manager who discovers the benefit of systematically assessing the processing bottlenecks instead of relying on conventional wisdom.

Takeaways

Instead of relying on conventional wisdom, it is crucial to deeply reflect on the goal of an operation or organization and take a scientific and systematic approach to explore the factors (bottlenecks or constraints) that prevent us from reaching it.

The following process can serve as a blueprint to work towards achieving any goal.

1. Identify the system’s constraint.
2. Decide how to exploit the system’s constraint.
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decisions.
4. Elevate the system’s constraint.
5. If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow inertia to cause a system constraint.

Quotes

“Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to show that we can all be outstanding scientists. The secret of being a good scientist, I believe, lies not in our brain power. We have enough. We simply need to look at reality and think logically and precisely about what we see. The key ingredient is to have the courage to face inconsistencies between what we see and deduce and the way things are done."

“I stop and look at him. “What are we asking for? For the ability to answer three simple questions: ‘what to change?’, ‘what to change to?’, and ‘how to cause the change?’ Basically what we are asking for is the most fundamental abilities one would expect from a manager. Think about it. If a manager doesn’t know how to answer those three questions, is he or she entitled to be called manager?”

“The lesson that Shewhart brought to manufacturing from Physics, and Deming made known worldwide, is that trying to be more accurate than the noise (in our case, trying to use sophisticated algorithms that consider every possible parameter in an environment of high variability) does not improve things but makes them worse—the results will most certainly not be an improvement but a deterioration in due-date performance."