Tech Leadership Unplugged #2: Doing the things you love
On taking time to think about time
Hey friends,
In this edition, I talk about:
how we should spend more time on the things we love
leadership advice on handling emergencies
how chatGPT is already in-demand on the job market
the book “Outlive” by Peter Attia
a poem that I love about the passing of time
1/ Thoughts on how we spend our time
I went to the theater this week, for the first time in a while, and I really enjoyed it.
When I was in my early twenties, I would go see a play every couple of weeks or so. After a while, it was once a month. Now it’s once every few months.
As I was watching the people in the audience, 80% of them were either students or people in their fifties or sixties. And this got me thinking.
Why don’t we make time for the activities that we truly love?
There are a lot of other things that I enjoyed when I was younger but seldom do at the moment.
Going to the theater is one of them; watching movies is another; and reading and writing poetry is another.
And I really do enjoy doing them; last night, for 3 hours, I forgot about everything else in my life. Reports I have to do for work, posts I need to schedule for Twitter or Linkedin, that course I want to finish shooting… and I was there, immersed in the story of the play.
Isn’t it a bit sad that our lives have become these hamster wheels where we go to work, come home, eat dinner while watching a Netflix series, spend one hour on Tiktok, go to bed, and start all over again? How did we get here?
Is this happiness?
Or is it doing the things we truly enjoy? If someone stopped you on the street and asked you:
What do you truly love doing?
What would you answer? I don’t think it’s going to be “spending time on Instagram”, or “working overtime”.
It’s Easter in Romania this Sunday, so between family visits, lamb roasts, and painted eggs, we take some time to step back and think about the things that truly make us happy.
Maybe make a conscious decision to do more of those.
and plan time in our calendars for them.
At least that’s what I’m going to do.
But more on this next week.
2/ Leadership Advice: improve your processes
I wrote a tweet this week about how managers spend a lot of time "putting out fires" instead of planning and improving the processes so that these emergencies don't come up so often.
This happens in most organizations. While it is crucial to resolve these matters promptly, such an approach can be detrimental to long-term planning and process improvement. This reactive management style focuses on addressing the symptoms of problems rather than identifying and resolving their root causes.
By dedicating a majority of their time to extinguishing these metaphorical fires, managers may inadvertently foster a work environment that is always in crisis mode, which can lead to employee burnout and decreased productivity.
To break free from this cycle, we, as managers, should prioritize proactive planning and process improvement. This may involve setting aside dedicated time for strategic planning, conducting regular reviews of processes, or providing training for employees to better handle potential issues. This is the only way we can not only reduce the frequency of emergencies but also create a more efficient, stable, and productive work environment.
Encouraging a culture of continuous improvement and learning will ultimately lead to better results and a more engaged workforce, making the organization more competitive and successful in the long run.
3/Article about ChatGPT becoming a hot skill
Guess what? ChatGPT is the latest job skill that's making waves in the employment scene, and it's something I predicted, but only a bit later.
ChatGPT is the hottest new job skill that can help you get hired, according to HR experts
90% of U.S. business leaders say having ChatGPT experience is a plus for job seekers.
This AI-powered language model is becoming a hot favorite in industries like customer service, content creation, and education, thanks to its amazing versatility.
As organizations continue to adopt AI-powered solutions, professionals with expertise in ChatGPT can differentiate themselves in the job market and secure rewarding career opportunities.
So, why not get ahead of the curve?
4/Listening to “Outlive” by Dr. Peter Attia
I’ve been listening to several podcasts with Peter Attia, so I was very excited when his book came out a few weeks ago. Dr. Peter Attia is a prominent figure in the fields of longevity, nutrition, and health optimization.
I have just started it (it has around 18 hours of audio), but I already enjoy it a lot. Here are a few ideas that got me thinking and that I really loved:
life expectancy increased in the last hundred years because we have the right medicine to deal with infections and because the so-called fast deaths no longer occur very often (work accidents, crime, war, etc). But medicine hasn’t done too much in combating conditions such as cardiovascular diseases or cancer
he introduces the idea of “healthspan” in relation to “lifespan”. We want to live for 100 years, but we don’t want to live the last 20-30 years crippled or with dementia. The idea is to live long and well.
before getting into the tactics of what we can do to increase our life and health span (exercise 3 times a week, eat 30g of proteins per day, etc) we need to be able to make a strategy for the long term. And this strategy can be very individualized.
I’m eager to finish the book and tell you more about it.
5/ Some verses on the passing of time
Connected to my first item, here’s an excerpt I love from "Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare:
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd.