Quotes & Insights from My Readings

Four Norms of the Geek Way:

1. Science: Conducting experiments, generating data, and redebating how to interpret evidence

2. Ownership: Compared to industrial-er organizations, geek companies have higher level s of personal autonomy, empowerment, and responsibility, fewer cross-functional processes, and less coordination

3. Speed: A preference for achieving results by iterating rapidly instead of planning extensively. 

4. Openness: Sharing information and being receptive to arguments, reevaluations, and changes in direction. 

Increasing observability and decreasing plausible deniability are core to the geek way. They're two essential tools in the geek toolkit for building and maintaining healthy norms.

We all have inner press secretaries that deceive us not just about the quality of our ideas and judgment, but also about many other things: our generosity, morals, ethics, social status, looks, etc. Always been on the alert about one's egotistical tendencies when debating.

Most large projects are finished late with problems not being apparent until the original completion date draws near which is known as the 90 percent syndrome. The "liar's club" is a major cause of the 90 percent syndrome. Members of the liar's club say that they're on time even when they are not and thrive on low observability and high plausible deniability.

Avoid defensiveness by embracing a norm of openness defined as sharing information and being receptive to arguments, revaluations, and changes in direction.  

Ultimate Geek Ground Rules

Ultimate Geek Ground Rule: Shape the ultrasociality of group members so that the group's cultural evolution is as rapid as possible in the desired direction. 

Ultimate Geek Ground Rule for Science: Conduct evidence-based arguments so that the group makes better decisions and predictions, and estimates. It's all about arguing and using evidence to win the arguments.

Ultimate Geek Ground Rule for Ownership: To reduce bureaucracy, take away opportunities to gain status that aren't aligned with the goals and values of the company. 

Ultimate Geek Ground Rule for Speed: To accelerate learning and progress, plan less and iterate more; organize projects around short cycles in which participants show their work, have access to peers and models, deliver to customers, and get feedback.

Ultimate Geek Ground Rule for Openness: Welcome challenges to the status quo and increase common knowledge in order to combat defensiveness and undiscussable topics. 

The Geek Mantras:

1. Science: Argue about Evidence

2. Ownership: Align, then Unleash

3. Speed: Iterate with Feedback

4. Openness: Reflect, don't Defend

Geek Way Statements to Agree With:

1. Rely on evidence to make important decisions.

2. Conduct a lot of tests or experiments.

3. Seniors people rarely override data-driven recommendations based on their judgment or gut instinct

4. Debate is seen as a normal and healthy part of making decisions.

5. The more important a decision is, the more likely we should spend time debating and gathering evidence about it. 

6. Have a data-driven culture.

7. In debates, people rarely support their positions by saying things like: "Trust me, I'm the expert." or "I've been in this area for the longest, so I know best." or "I'm the boss, so we're doing it my way"

8. People are empowered to bring up evidence that doesn't support their boss's views.

9. People frequently change their mind and change course after being shown new evidence.

10. When agreement on how to process cannot be reached, the usual approach should be to run a test or experiment to help decide which way to go. 

11. Have a bias for action over planning and coordinating.

12. Allow people to be free to act autonomously in the areas that are most important for their work. 

13. Reward initiative

14. Senior leaders should be willing to be vulnerable and admit that they are wrong or that they don't know the answer. 

15. Senior leaders want to hear bad news.

16. Frequently challenge the status quo and speak up when there is disagreement with a course of action. 

Level 5 Leadership

• Embody a paradoxical mix of humility and professional will. 

• Be ambitious, but first and foremost for the company or the group, not to oneself. 

• Setup successors for even greater success in the next generation.

• Display a compelling modest.

• Be self-effacing and understated.

• Be fanatically driven and infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results.

• Display a workmanlike diligence - more plow horse than show horse.

First Who, then What

• To begin a transformation, first get the correct people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus; then figure out where to drive it. First "Who", then "What."

• Be rigorous, not ruthless, in people decisions

  • When in doubt, don't hire - keep looking. 

  • When a change in people is necessary, act.

  • Put the best people on the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems.

• Have team of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers and unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.

• The correct people are the most important asset.

• "To let people languish in uncertainty for months or years, stealing precious time in their lives that they could use to move on to something else, when in the end they aren't going to make it anyway - that would be ruthless. To deal with it right up front and let people get on with their lives - that is rigorous.

Confront the Brutal Facts

• Always start with an honest and diligent effort to determine the truth of your situation so that the correct decisions become self-evident.

• Create a culture where people have a tremendous opportunity to be heard and, ultimately, for the truth to be heard.

• To create a climate where truth is heard involves four basic practices:

  • Lead with questions, not answers.

  • Engage in dialogue and debate, no coercion.

  • Conduct autopsies, without blame.

  • Build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored. 

• Face adversity head-on

• Follow the "Stockdale Paradox:" Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.

• Spending time and energy trying to "motivate" people is a waste of effort. The real question is not "How does one motivate people?" The correct people will be self-motivated. The key is to not de-motivate them. 

The Hedgehog Concept

• Understand the three intersecting circles of the Hedgehog Concept to identify the core mission:

  • What is your passion?

  • What can you be the greatest in the world at?

  • What drives your economic engine?

• Set goals and strategies based on understanding and NOT bravado. 

• Keep it simple - know the 'one big thing' that is the core of the mission and stick to it.

A Culture of Discipline

• Sustained greatness depends on building a culture full of self-disciplined people who take disciplined action, fanatically consistent with the circles of the Hedgehog Concept.

• Avoid bureaucratic cultures to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline by having the correct people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.

• Adhere to a consistent system  and also allow freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system.

• A culture of discipline is about disciplined people who engage in discipline thought and take disciplined action.

• Disciplined budging is about deciding which arenas should be fully funded because they best fit with with the Hedgehog Concept and which arenas should not be funded at all.

• "Stop Doing" lists are more important that "to do" lists. "Most of us leave busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding "to do" lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing - and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of "stop doing" lists as "to do" lists. They displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk."

Technology Accelerators

• Think differently about technology and technological change

• Avoid technology fads and bandwagons

• Be a pioneer int he application of carefully selected technologies

• Use technology as an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it.

• Respond to technological change with thoughtfulness and creativity, driven by a compulsion to turn unrealized potential into results.

Becoming a Member of the Club

• Success in Life = (The people you meet) + (What you create together)

• Building a web of relationships is time-consuming, demanding, but never dull. It feels great o learn about oneself, other people, business, and the world. 

• There is satisfaction when one's peers and organizations share in advancement.

Don't Keep Score

• There's no point in keeping track of favors done and owed. It's better to give than receive.

• If interactions are ruled by generosity, rewards will follow suit.

• Relationships with others are the finest, most credible expression of the individual and what individuals have to offer

• Individuals are brands and self-branding presents individuals values to everyone around them. 

• Contribution is Miracle-Gro for networks. Giving time, money, and expertise grows a community of friends.

Determine the Mission

• Identify one's passion.

• Put goals to paper.

• Have a personal "Board of Advisors" - mentors, friends, and others who will provide honest feedback and insight.

Build a Network or Community before it is needed

The Genius of Audacity

• Find a role model - someone who represents and exemplifies skills and talents to strive for.

• Learn to speak - public speaking is terrifying and it is important to conquer this fear.

• Get Involved - relationships are easiest to build when sharing activities.

• Get Therapy - don't shy from getting the help that is often necessary in life.

• Just Do It - don't fear failure. Fail, Fail again. Fail better.

Avoid Being the Networking Jerk

• Don't schmooze.

• Don't rely on the currency of gossip.

• Don't come to the party empty-handed.

• Don't treat those under you poorly.

• Be transparent.

• Don't be too efficient.

Do the Homework

• Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation.

Warming the Cold Call

• Draft off a reference.

• State your value.

• Talk a little, say a lot. Make it quick, convenient, and definitive.

• Offer a compromise.

• Live and die by the Subject Line.

• Game the timing.

• Be brief.

• Have a clear call to action.

• Read the written words aloud before sending.

Managing the Gatekeeper

• Relationships with the gatekeepers are just as valuable as the relationships with the ones they keep the gates for.

Share Your Passions to Keep in Touch

• 15 minutes and a cup of coffee.

• Share a workout.

• Early meals - food always helps break the ice.

• Invite people to special events.

• Entertain at home.

• Volunteer.

Follow Up or FAIL

• Follow-up is the key to success in any field.

• Always express gratitude.

• Include an item of interest from the initial meeting.

• Reaffirm commitments made.

• Be brief and to the point.

• Address thank-you notes to people by name.

• Timeliness is key.

• Don't forget to follow up with the gatekeepers and go-betweens in life.

Conference Commando

• Help the organizer.

• Listen, but better yet - speak.

• Organize a conference within a conference.

• Draft off a Big Kahuna.

• Be an information hub.

• Become a reporter.

• Master the deep bump. Become a master of using the two minutes you get when you 'bump' into someone.

• Know one's targets - the people most desired to connect with.

• Breaks are where the real work happens at a conference.

• It's the people, not the speakers.

Connect with Connectors:

• Restaurateurs

• Headhunters

• Lobbyists

• Fund-raisers

• Public relations people

• Politicians

• Journalists

• Authors, bloggers, and gurus

• "Face-to-face, we have access to a much richer data stream about people - what they look like, how they carry themselves, whether they say tomato or a tom-ah-to, and so on. But there's more to it than that. Physical meetings, during which we can't cloak ourselves in anonymity or edit ourselves before hitting Send, have more authenticity, and that alone promotes trust, as does (potentially) the context in which you mean. 

Art of Small Talk

• Learn the power of nonverbal clues.

• Be sincere.

• Develop conversational currency - have something to say before speaking.

• Know and adjust the personal Johari Window - the method and style each person has for communicating and interacting with others.

• Make a graceful exit.

• End small talk with an invitation to meet again.

• Learn to listen.

• Give a good chat with the correct tone for each different style of communication

Pinging - All the Time

• Stay at the front of peoples memory.

• Use social media for automated pinging.

• The most important pings are personal.

• Birthdays are the most staple ping of them all.

Become the King of Content

• The Algebra of Trust: Generosity + Vulnerability + Accountability + Candor = Trust

• Explore radical honesty.

• Generosity is key.

• Join conversations before you start them. 

• Speak in a language that matters.

• Every headline is a pitch.

• Give your tweets legs. A great prompt to answer is: "What has your attention?" instead of "What are you doing now?"

• Whenever possible, co-create.

• Be vulnerable

• Blend anecdotes with utility.

• Go public with failure.

• Mug for the camera.

• Be authentic and say what no one else will. 

• Grope, fail, adapt, and repeat.

Engineer Serendipity

• Be where it's at.

• Let diversity find you.

• Create safe social opportunities.

• Passion is a possibility engine.

• Have an optimistic operational mind-set.

• Make serendipitous moments matter by learning and doing.

Be Interesting & Become an Expert with a Unique POV

• Get out in front an analyze the trends and opportunities on the cutting edge.

• Ask seemingly stupid questions.

• Know yourself and your talents

• Always learn.

• Stay healthy.

• Expose yourself to unusual experiences.

• Don't get discouraged.

• Know the new technology.

• Develop a nice.

• Follow the money.

Build Your Brand

• Develop a personal branding message.

• Package the brand.

• Broadcast your brand.

  • Go Visual.

  • Caring is sharing - posts with emotional impacts within seconds are the ones that get shared.

  • You are your own best public relations representative.

  • Work the angles. 

Synopsis Rather Than Quotes

Outliers essentially opens our eyes to the many subtle actions in our life that gives us advantages to succeed or fail in our goals. Everyone has advantages at some level or another. My kids have advantages of being born to a pair of middle class suburban, some what techy save public school teachers that kids born into a different setting or family do not have. The are kids out there with bigger and better advantages than mine and kids that have fewer and lesser advantages than mine. Arguably, every person born in America has advantages over kids born in other countries and vice versa. 

This book points out many interesting phenomena that impact who we are and our chances of success in certain areas of life. 

What month were you born in?

What year were born in? 

What was happening in the world around the time you were born in?

Who are/were your parents?

What is your biological ancestry? 

Where were you born?

Where did you grow up and what opportunities existed where you grew up that others may not have had?

Think about all the little choices that were made before and after you were born that you may not have had any influence on make, but the what the results of those choices have had to put you where you are today, who you are today, and you levels of success or failure to this point in your life? An excellent read and highly recommended .

The Recipe Ingredients

• Be deliberate and disciplined.

• Know the difference between reckless and principled insubordination.

• Don't take rebels for granted.

• Point out the cost of inaction.

• Know the four psychological booste.rs

• Acknowledge your status quo bias.

• Bring dissenters into your teams.

• Be patient.

• Make openness your default.

• Devote energy to establishing common bonds with fellow group members, supporting group norms, and ading to the positive group identity.

• Signal your courage.

• Don't expect to dazzle everyone right away with your non-conformist idea. 

• Get some allies to help you.

• Build trust with your allies by making yourself vulnerable.

• When creating alliances, attend to the dual, opposing psychological needs of individuals in groups.

• To withstand distress better, cultivate psychological flexibility. 

• Mobilize the Psychological Flexibility Dashboard.

• Stick with it.

• Engage with the newly Powerless.

• Stay focused on the ways in which power compromises self-awareness.

• Nurture critical thinking. 

• To interact more productively with insubordinates, practice self-distancing.

• Cultivate curiosity.

• To become more receptive of non-conformist ideas, practice "deliberate humility."

• Treat rebels as uniquely valuable contributors.

• Fight back against confirmation bias.

• Repeatedly reinforce norms for permitting dissent and embracing it when present.

• Foster a sense of agency in your kids.

• Build your kids' critical thinking skills.

• Expose kids to curious forms of courage and give them the language to describe their own bravery.

The Big Ideas

• To disobey effectively, it helps to know our enemy; the overriding human motivation to fit in, stick to the herd, accept conventional wisdom and "go along to get along."

• People blindly assume that the prevailing system is better. Next time you want convince someone of an idea or approach, remind them of its long, storied history.

• Four psychological "boosters" fuel voluntary conformity on our part:

  • Reassurance by the status quo's familiarity

  • When facing systemic threats, we often salute.

  • We feel dependent on the status quo.

  • Holding out hope for better days ahead

• It's human nature to defer toward long-standing, widely accepted practices and beliefs. The would-be insubordinates among us must acknowledge this reality so that they can deal with it and ultimately overcome it. The rest of us must, too, so that we can overcome our internal resistance to change and support progress. 

• Something special happens when you have even on dissenter in your midst. You don't automatically default to assuming the dissenter is right. Instead, you feel motivated to contemplate an issue carefully and consider that the dissenter might have good reason for upholding a contrary position. 

• Creativity isn't an innate gift. It's a way of thinking. Regularly interacting with those who hold non-conformist views pulls us into a creative mindset. With rebels openly airing alternate and unpopular views, groups become better than the sum of their parts.

• Acts of insubordination don't usually win over members of the majority right away. Instead, they sow seeds of doubt, and these mature over time into new perspectives. 

• There are five essential principles rebels can use to maximize the persuasive potential of their message: Work it from the Inside, Spark Curiosity instead of Fear, Project Aura of Objectivity, Project Courageous Self-Sacrifice, Be Flexibly Consistent

• You don't need to change the world on your own. Enlist trusted allies to support you through the tough times. 

• Seek out people who complement you. Partners who are interesting, challenging, and a source of enlightenment. You want people who will blow your mind - in a good way - on account of their ability to introduce you to new ideas and perspectives. 

• If you wish to enlist allies to your cause, don't shrink from tackling difficult challenges and sharing painful moments together. To the extent you can, run headlong into moments of shared adversity. it's not easy making yourself vulnerable around others but doing so leaves us feeling more connected and courageous. 

• With knowledge of how humans are tribal in nature, especially during transfers of power, we can behave more thoughtfully and rationally, neutralizing impulses to demonize those who once doubted and persecuted us. 

• if you, as a successful rebel, are gaining adherents and power, you would do well to provide assurances to everyone involved in the war of ideas - friends, foes, and neutral observers - that their opinions still count.

• To prevent yourself from going astray as a victorious rebel, stay focused on the ways in which power compromises self-awareness.

• In addition to showing restraint and mustering empathy and charity for the Newly Powerless (even if they didn't show such generosity of spirit themselves), the Rebels Who Won should welcome good faith skepticism from all quarters, recognizing skepticism's power to reshape and refine orthodoxy to everyone's benefit. Relatedly, they should welcome humor. 

• Your own mind closes you off from accepting new ideas, without you even realizing it. Fortunately, you can take back control and learn to become more receptive. 

• New ideas can cause unnecessary psychological distress. use self-distancing to short-circuit this problem and render yourself more open to novelty. 

• We won't learn much from principled rebels if we think we know enough on our own to arrive at competent judgments and decisions. fortunately, we can shrink our big heads by cultivating that most precious of virtues: curiosity. 

• Society needs fewer street preachers and more intellectually humble thinkers who can bridge social and intellectual divides. Courageously resist simple falsehoods and instead make it your practice to explore complex truths fully and honestly.

• Diversity alone or the presence of non-conformists won't magically supercharge performance in team settings. We must make cultural changes based on an understanding of what allows the presence of diverse people and viewpoints to work for us. 

• To maximize a group's collective intelligence, build a culture that affirms certain values: autonomy, critical thinking, freedom of thought, and the desire to seek out useful information regardless of where it originates. 

• To resolve conflicts with messengers that challenge our belief system and increase our ability to consider messages, we must wrench ourselves away from confirmation biases.

• Perhaps the most profound way to breed principled rebels is the simplest. We must lead by example, becoming more rebellious ourselves and more solicitous of other's insubordination.

Principle Number 1: Always invite A.I. to the table.

• Try inviting A.I. to help you in everything you do. 

Principle Number 2: Be the human in the loop. 

• A.I. works best with human help (for now).

Principle Number 3: Treat A.I. like a human (but tell it what kind of person it is.)

• Include direction to the A.I. to act like the human you want it to act like as part of the prompts and training.

Principle Number 4: Assume this is the worst A.I. you will ever use. 

• A.I. is only going to keep getting better.

The Wizard's Rules

1. People are stupid. People will believe a lie because they want it to be true or they're afraid it might be.

2. The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

3. Passion rules reason.

4. There is [love] in sincere forgiveness; in the forgiveness given and more so in the forgiveness received.

5. Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.

6. The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.

7. Life is the future, not the past.

8. Deserve [Earn] victory.

9. A contradiction cannot exist in reality. 

10. Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.

Other Quotes:

[Paraphrased] "The first law of reason is that what exists, exists; what is, is, and that from this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built... that is the foundation from which life is embraced. Thinking is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discover them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality - that's it is our basic tool of survival. People are free to evade the effort of thinking - to reject reason - but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see. Feelings may be the warm marrow of vil. They may provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They may be a virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every depravity ever hatched. Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life iw wholly embraced through reason. In rejecting reason, one embraces death."

"Your life is your own. Rise up and live it."

"You cannot simply wait for help. All people are responsible for their own lives, their own destinies….The best way to insure your peace is through strength….you would not need to be rescued if you weren't victims in the first place." - Death's Mistress, Vol 1.