I’m loving Rick Spence’s idea of human nature."Most people, most of the time, are polite, cooperative and kind until they're not. And the exact tipping point and moment in which they go from one to the other is unpredictable." - Rick Spence on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Episode 451
I don’t enjoy gift giving or receiving much. Here’s why — 9 times out of 10 I don’t want the present. And I’m not alone — you are likely the same. If I acquire a gift for you and pay $10, you hope to receive more than $10 of value from that gift. Perhaps that gift is something you can use, or an experience you’ll remember, or maybe it’s something that is practical. I think of food, vacations, meals together, or a practical tool you might use day-over-day. It’s thought that the value of the gift is not the immediate surprise experienced upon opening the gift, but it’s the value experienced the next day and days after.Here’s the thing — most gifts are gifts of that nature. In fact, I don’t know what you want or need unless I ask you to reveal that information to me. I’m flying blind trying to get you a present you will find useful. Let’s say I buy you a present you never wanted or will never use, the $10 I spend is now worth much less; approaching zero. Economics would call that a dead weight loss. I am better off not spending $10 on a gift, and perhaps asking to spend time with you and enjoy a conversation and a coffee.For me, I don’t like gifts because I prefer a simple and minimalistic life. I am fortunate enough to have enough food to eat, clothes to wear, books to read, and music to play that excess ends up as waste. And why waste when there are others who have need? And, I’m the kind of person that prefers to a pleasant conversation over a meal or a coffee. The greatest gift I believe I can give, is the gift of my energy and my presence — time. Time is what I truly own, and it’s all I can truly give. And it’s the gift once given, I can never get repaid; the arrow of time points forward. I realize my idea may run against the mainstream. I’m always okay with that. I do hope they resonate a little bit and cause you to at least wonder if you value your time the way I value mine. Post inspired by Elaine Schwartz’s newsletter on gift giving.
I said what I said about feedback yesterday. But now I think about every manager out there who has been taught a “technique” for delivering feedback. I question whether these management/leadership techniques are valuable. Let’s assume that a business houses systems, and the system of examination is between individual contributors and their managers. The individual contributors are producing outputs that support the businesses ability to create profit and the contributors ability to earn a livelihood. Most individual contributors I work with not only want a livelihood but want a career and skill development — they want growth. Let’s assume that an individual contributor performs in a way that is sub optimal. A manager then provides “feedback” to correct the behavior. The feedback is delivered in a way that feels performative or templated. The goal of these techniques, like the “say something good, then bad, then good” method, are to keep a person positive and accepting of the feedback. People have come to expect that feedback, and they hate it. Instead, I argue that managers should consider the systems that are their individual contributors. What feedback loops might their teams have in place that cause them to repeat or maintain behaviors (be they good or bad)? And once that managers develops an idea, how might that manager test their hypothesis/The managers goal should be to help their teams establish self-regulating feedback loops that will elevate performance and help them achieve their goals. These leaders need to abandon the tried-and-hated playbooks of leadership academies and begin taking a look at the people in their charge.
I learned about two types of feedback — balancing and reinforcing feedback.Balancing feedback is feedback that helps a system achieve stability — not too hot, not too cold, just right. Reinforcing feedback seeks to create more inflows of a thing based on an initial result. Example, let’s say you learned how to play a difficult piece of music and receive a rush a confidence, a positive reinforcement feedback loop may leave feeling encouraged to learn another skill. If you practiced your entire for a major performance and bomb and then give up music that’s the result of a reinforcement feedback loop in the negative direction.Positive and negative feedback are neither good nor bad. Their desirability is a result of the goal. Compound interest is a powerful force, Einstein argued the most powerful force, and it is a form of positive feedback. Gaslighting and manipulating someone may lead them to behave in a way that you prefer which may cause you to continue that form of abuse. The abuser received a positive reinforcement and persisted (and perhaps escalated) their behavior. I believe you and I could agree that this is positive feedback in the wrong direction. I speculate that we create feedback loops in our mind without realizing it. And I wonder how and when those loops become created. Childhood? After a major event? And, I wonder what type of stimulus is required to force these feedback loops to move in more healthier directions or seek some form of balance. It seems to me that perhaps one of the most powerful ways we can improve the system that is our self may be through the identification, assessment, and improvement of our feedback loops.
I believe that the quality of reading comprehension is tied to the number and quality of questions asked by the reader. I believe that’s a common notion and has been so for some time. A week or so ago, Tyler Cowen wrote about using AI to read books. His big idea is: ask more questions to the AI about what you may not understand. You can read Tyler’s post here. I go a step further.Many large language models, AIs, are trained on a broad set of knowledge — including many modern books. And, AIs are like very sophisticated “auto completes” — they’re good at predicting what they should respond with based on what’s been written. Therefore, they are likely good at adopting the persona of an author and figuring out how the author might respond. My intuition tells me — ask the AI to adopt the persona of the book’s author and engage! Click here to read an output from Perplexity based on a question I asked. Yes, ask lots of questions AND ask your AI-partner to adopt the persona of the author or an expert. The link above describes exactly what that looks like.
A system dynamic equilibrium is when the sum of inflows is equal to the sum of outflows. Think about the bathtub — if the rate at which water enters is the same as the rate of water leaving the stock of water in the bathtub will remain (more or less) the same. If the amount of calories you consume equals the amount of calories you burn, your total energy (weight) stays (more or less) the same. If the daily rituals I perform (inflows) yields the desired amount of contentment (outflows), then it makes perfect sense to maintain the rituals. If the amount of energy I put into a relationship converts to the desired relationship strength, then the relationship system achieved a dynamic equilibrium. Thinking this way, I’ve decided to maintain my daily and weekend rituals because I derive the desired amount of contentment and peace from them. In terms of the system that is how I start my day, I’ve achieved a dynamic equilibrium of sorts in that way. Yesterday I offered a number of reflective questions — but I think I can simplify this to a common process improvement method:What do you want to stop? (decreasing outflow)What do you want to start? (increasing inflow)What do you want to continue? (dynamic equilibrium)
Yesterday I wrote about stocks. And stocks are easy for humans to think about. What about flows? Flows are the movements of a thing in and out. Births and Deaths, water entering and draining, calories consumed and burned. While a stock of a thing may be easier for humans to understand, flows are also deceptively easy… Adding a thing is easy. Eating more, complicating more, demanding more, adding more, playing more — it’s easy to understand “more.” More is an inflow. Example: If I earn more money my stock of money will rise. However, what baffles me is how hard it is to understand that more can be gotten from less.If I don’t increase the amount of calories I consume but do not exercise, I will gain weight. In that example, I am limiting an outflow. If I earn the same amount of money but spend less money then my stock of money will increase. In these examples, my stocks of things increase because my outflow is restricted. Yesterday I wrote about focus I said that a stock of focus may be a function of the inflow and outflow of energy. I can increase my stock of patience by increasing the amount of energy I stockpile for focus. However, I can also increase it by focusing on less things — saying “no” to more. I continued questions I asked myself yesterday and this time asked myself: what might I limit in my life? I came up with obvious answers like calories or expenditures. But as I persisted through the thinking I came up with other ideas that if applied, I might see an increase in stock of energy. So for you, some questions:What is one thing I do in a day that require me to maintain focus? What allows me to have that energy? What allows me to maintain the focus?What might I limit?
Continuing the train of thoughts on systems, stocks. In a system, a stocks is the result of inputs and outputs of a thing — stocks tell you what is present now. I’ll give you a classic example — a bathtub. The stock of water in the bathtub is a result of the inflow of water from the faucet and the outflow of water down the drain. If water leaves the bathtub faster than water flows into the bathtub, the stock will fall. The converse is also true. Additionally, the amount of flow in either direction can change based on how much you open or close the faucet/drain. Let’s consider stocks from the perspective of patience. Let’s say a stock of patience is a result of the inflow of unfocused energy and the outflow of focused energy. The amount of energy I allow in may be driven by my interest or my expectation of short/long run utility. The amount of energy I allow out may be driven by my perception of gains in the moment. More simply: perhaps my stock of patience is as great as my interest. I spent 10 minutes thinking about stocks, and I’m glad I did. I enjoyed thinking about what fuels my interests and what allows my interest to persist. I also got a lot of value identifying the stocks in my life. I’ll keep my learnings to myself here. For you, if you want to try this out, stop and ask yourself the question: What is one thing I do in a day that require me to maintain focus? What allows me to have that energy? And what allows me to maintain the focus?
Systems have obvious and non-obvious components. Take a family — a family system consists of a head and perhaps offspring. But what else? A family pet would be a component. A house, a car, a couch, you could name many different components of what might make a family. But what else?The components of the system are not as important as the relationship between each component. The relationship will help determine how the system operates. For example — let’s say one child in the family goes off to summer camp and will not be staying in the house. Does the family system still exist? Yes. The child’s location has changed but the relationship between other members of the family and the child has not. Therefore, the system can still operate. Now let’s say a tragedy strikes the family and a parent dies. Does the system persist? I believe yes because the relationship between the parent and the other members may not materially change. In fact, the surviving family members may want to hold the departed closer to them hanging on to their memory. Thinking about systems this way, I wonder how many systems we exist in? And I wonder how well we know the quality of our relationship between us and the other components of those systems? It’s never the trees, and it’s not quite the forest, it’s about the relationships of each item that make the forest.
“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.” - Poul Anderson from “The Ghost In the Machine”When you look at a flower at a distance, you see a flower. Magnify the flower and you’ll notice the pedals. Magnify more and you’ll see the hairs on the stems. Magnify even more you may see cells. Keeping going and you’ll see atoms. With each level of magnification nature reveals that much more complexity. And yet we yearn for an aphoristic view of the world.