Your Sorting Hat: Choosing speed vs quality, avoiding mimetic traps and teaching to learn
Career Tuesday
Careers, Life and Questions (Oct 25, 2022)
Wish you a Happy Career Tuesday!
3 Career Ideas
I.
"3 different Prime Ministers in UK in 3 months - 3 unpopular lessons
An opportunity cannot come to You, until You first believe You are ready. (all 3 PMs)
An opportunity may then come to You, when others think You are ready. (Boris /Liz)
An opportunity may still come to You, after everyone else gives up. (Rishi)"
II.
" A drunk driver may reach accident free while a sober one may crash.
A great outcome doesn't mean the decision is good - (to drink and drive)
For good decisions, rely on informed processes, not lucky outcomes."
III.
"Speed or quality - how to choose?
Where you are sure of the problem and your solution - focus on quality.
Where unsure, focus on speed to fail fast and to figure out the answer."
2 Life Quotes from Books
I.
Brian Timar, a graduate student in physics, wrote a blog in 2019 on Mimetic Traps, that resonated across readers across the globe - :
"That’s the mimetic trap in a nutshell: it hurts to leave, and there’s nowhere to go. It decouples the social reward signal from the rest of objective reality — you can spend years ascending ranks in a hierarchy without producing anything that the rest of humanity finds valuable..
..Make sure your job has clear price signals for success and failure. Be suspicious of roles that compensate you with status or non-financial rewards..
..Enjoy the process of whatever you’re doing — you’ll be happier, and much more likely to practice, which leads to better outcomes."
Source: Essay: Mimetic Traps by Brian Timar
II.
Ed Batista, executive coach, burns down to the essence of time management in his essay - The Problem with Fighting Fires -
"The problem isn't that you're too busy. You are too busy, but that's not the problem. If you view being busy as the problem, there is no solution. You will always be too busy, and that will never change. As Andy Grove once noted: "A manager's work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done."
The problem is that you're acting like a firefighter instead of a fire marshal. You're constantly rushing from one fire to the next, never slowing down to install smoke detectors.
The problem is that a few fires are truly dangerous, but most can be safely ignored, and you're not taking the time to tell the difference.
The problem is that firefighting is thrilling and addictive and makes you feel needed--and installing smoke detectors is boring.
The problem is that you're really good at fighting fires."
Source: Blog: Fighting Fires by Ed BAtista
1 Question
'Docendo discimus' — the best way to learn is to teach. (also The Protégé Effect)
What are you teaching someone currently? If not, then what learnings are you avoiding?
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Until next week,
Devashish Chakravarty
Author of YourSortingHat
Columnist for Careers at The Economic Times
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