Resources for product teams from industry experts
One other trick I use to get away from my ego is curiosity. I also have a daily habit of writing a page or two of free-flow thoughts every morning, to clear my mind and prepare for the day. I always end with the mantra “Get curious.” For me, becoming a great leader was a series of difficult lessons, mistakes, and challenges.
— The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
Two inner forces can drive a person to use all of his capabilities. He can be competence-driven or achievement-driven. The former concerns itself with job or task mastery. A virtuoso violinist who continues to practice day after day is obviously moved by something other than a need for esteem and recognition. He works to sharpen his own skill, trying to do a little bit better this time than the time before, just as a teenager on a skateboard practices the same trick over and over again. The same teenager may not sit still for ten minutes to do homework, but on a skateboard he is relentless, driven by the self-actualization need, a need to get better that has no limit. The achievement-driven path to self-actualization is not quite like this. Some people—not the majority—are moved by an abstract need to achieve in all that they do.
— High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own self-gain. With trust comes a sense of value—real value, not just value equated with money. Value, by definition, is the transference of trust. You can’t convince someone you have value, just as you can’t convince someone to trust you. You have to earn trust by communicating and demonstrating that you share the same values and beliefs. You have to talk about your WHY and prove it with WHAT you do. Again, a WHY is just a belief, HOWs are the actions we take to realize that belief, and WHATs are the results of those actions. When all three are in balance, trust is built and value is perceived.
— Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Very rarely does something happen with no chain of events to follow. It’s your job to look past the positive reinforcement and gratification you may receive, which frankly may be blinding you, and understand what could go wrong, how wrong it could go, and why it might go wrong. What if you viewed each decision as having the potential to topple other dominoes and set about identifying them? Tedious yet informative. Second-order thinking allows you to project the totality of your decisions. Even if you don’t change your decision because of what you determine through second-order thinking, you think through ten times as many scenarios and thus make far more informed choices than you would otherwise. Sometimes, that’s the best we can do as a person. We can’t predict the future, but we can’t not think about it.
— Mental Models: 30 Thinking Tools that Separate the Average From the Exceptional. Improved Decision-Making, Logical Analysis, and Problem-Solving by Peter Hollins
There is a certain zone of satisfaction where your input and effort provide an acceptable amount of satisfaction or outcome. If you expend too many resources and effort, you move out of the zone—too little outcome. If you expend too little, you move out of the zone—too little outcome. If you expect too much or too few results, you also move out of the zone. Seeing the world clearly requires having a clear understanding of cause and effect.
— Mental Models: 30 Thinking Tools that Separate the Average From the Exceptional. Improved Decision-Making, Logical Analysis, and Problem-Solving by Peter Hollins
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