Michael Rill

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Category: Leadership

  • Six great ideas from Above All Human

    Six great ideas from Above All Human

    There are some very special conferences, where the actual conference-track is embedded into a much broader community experience with very deliberate choices of venue, speakers, code of conduct and support like day-care for children. It’s a celebration of the organisers’ superb sense of taste as if they imagined a great day that happens to be a conference. With Above All Human, Susan Wu, Bronwen Clune and Scott Handsaker created such a wonderfully curated event in Melbourne:

    “Above All Human is a conference for startup founders, makers, designers and innovators who want to do great things, build innovative products, and be the most effective entrepreneurs they can be.”

    I had heard very good things about last year’s first instalment and it single-handedly surpassed those high expectations.

    Things that I really, really liked about the conference:

    • The quality and variety of speakers — a lot of people whom I’ve never heard of or whom I would not have actively sought out, but they shared such a great variety of topics and backgrounds. Who knew I’d be fascinated by the philosophical aspects of astrophysics?
    • The diversity of speakers — apparently is was no big deal to pull off 50% female speakers, but I think it was and think it should be highlighted as an example for other conferences to follow.
    • The tone of the conference — there was very little brouhaha and a lot of sincerity. As pointed out in the opening remarks, it was a heartfelt, inclusive and honest conference. Presenters talked openly about their struggles to share their hard-won learnings and present food for thought rather than half-baked solutions.
    • The venue — it easily hosted 1,000 people and never did I feel constrained, packed or uncomfortable, which is not a given for an introvert at conferences.
    • The food — plenty, good and easily available. Such a great idea to place food all over the place instead of having one central trough where everybody crams around.

    So, what did I learn on Friday?

    1. JOMO — The Joy of Missing Out. Being so immersed in the moment and disconnected from everything else that you very deliberately avoid any distractions. That was not part of the conference itself, but it came up in a conversation with a stranger in-between sessions.
    2. There is still room for growth in the Australian venture capital (VC) ecosystem. $500m was invested amongst the Australian VC community in 2015 vs. $800m that were gambled just on the Melbourne Cup in one day alone. I found that an exceptional way to illustrate that the Australian VC community is way below saturation and Australia has a significantly higher tolerance towards risk that it currently admits to startups. In that same session, I liked Annie Parker’s version of know your customer intimately: “The best ideas at our refugee hackathon came from non-technical caseworkers and refugees themselves. Those ideas had little tech involved and a lot of impact.”
    3. A culture-first company (i) knows what it is willing to suffer for, (ii) builds on a promise (a brand is a promise to a customer and its culture is how it is going to deliver on that promise) and (iii) sees a world that others don’t. Didier Elzinga gave a great presentation about why culture matters and why it is not that soft and fluffy thing, but a hard-hitting tool to drive company performance. As Didier put it “moral makes the difference between whether you get on your dollar a return of 25 cents or $3.” I wish that talk had been longer with time for Q&A.
    4. Persistence come from purpose — if you have a strong purpose and can communicate it with passion, you will inevitably end up with traction with employees, customers and investors. Kate Morris of Adore Beauty told the unglamorous story of her startup and how she got to be as successful as she is now. Long story short: a lot of suffering and conviction — it’s not pretty (ironic for an online beauty business). It reminded me of the Parker’s law: “Running a startup is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood.”
    5. The total amount of kids taught coding by Code Club Australia could now fill the entire Googleplex in Mountain View. Being one of their volunteers that visual made me very proud, especially given that we target a very specific niche of kids between 9 and 11. Just imagine the potential of a whole generation being able to understand how code works, its potential and its limitations. I’m looking forward to seeing us fill another Googleplex in the next year or two.
    6. Software is the ultimate infinite game. Ali Rayl of Slack gave a good reminder that in hardware businesses like construction it is very difficult to continuously improve your creations, whereas software can improve infinitely. It’s a way more optimistic view of the world where bugs are constantly fixed, features implemented and new functionality invented.

    There were two other sessions by internet royalty at the conference, that were just too rich to put into a simple bullet of insight (fortunately, you can find their talks here and there). The first was by Mike Monteiro talking about the apprentice model and why it might be a good idea as a designer toget some experience before joining a startup (very applicable to other professions as well — you can see a version of the talk over at Vimeo). He’s a force on stage, very insightful and highly entertaining. If you haven’t seen him, I highly recommend checking out some of his presentations online.

    The closing session was by Anil Dash talking about why we should get rid of the cynical notion of “don’t read the comments on the internet” and rather start transferring our learnings from 10,000 years of building a society into the online world. In his Q&A he gave one of my favourite quotes of the day: “These companies [Google, Facebook] have all the money in the world. They shoot rockets into space, design self-driving cars and work on pro-longing life. But once you ask them to make sure that the jerks on their platforms behave for five minutes, they throw their hands in the air and declare that it’s too hard.” Anil posted earlier this week his talk Against “Don’t Read the Comments”.

    It was a great conference with very insightful talks and great people on stage. Thank you, Susan, Bronwen and Scott. You’ve done a fantastic job. I am very grateful for this conference and hope to have the chance to attend again next year.

    Image by Scott Handsaker at Vimeo.

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

    Mark Manson wrote a nice piece about what it means to take ownership and when to say no. It’s a nice long-read with good lessons for leadership. Two pieces I liked in particular.

    A quote by Eric Hoffer:

    A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

    And his three subtleties on what it means to not giving a fuck:

     #1: Not Giving A Fuck Does Not Mean Being Indifferent; It Means Being Comfortable With Being Different

    #2: To Not Give A Fuck About Adversity, You Must First Give A Fuck About Something More Important Than Adversity

    #3: We All Have A Limited Number Of Fucks To Give; Pay Attention To Where And Who You Give Them To

    It’s well worth the read even if it’s just for the images and this wonderful pearls of wisdom: “Fucks don’t grow on trees”. It fits quite well with a story on Obama from last November:

    President Obama genuinely gives no fucks at this point. He is fuck devoid. Fuck deficient. Fuck deprived. Fuck destitute. His cupboard of fucks is barren; his tank of fucks has been depleted. You know how, on cloudy nights, you might look up into the vast and endless sky and not find any stars? The same thing would happen if you looked at Obama and searched for fucks.

  • The creative power of no

    Over at Medium is Kevin Ashton wrote about Creative People Say No. It’s a great reminder of the trade-off everybody needs to make when doing others a favour. It’s coming more from a time management perspective.

    Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know. We are not taught to say “no.” We are taught not to say “no.” “No” is rude. “No” is a rebuff, a rebuttal, a minor act of verbal violence. “No” is for drugs and strangers with candy.

    It’s a pretty extreme position. In the end, as with so many things in life, it’s about getting the balance right.

    In that context, there is always the Apple clip from a few years ago about their product strategy: there are a thousand no’s for every yes.

  • Writing good copy

    Writing good copy

    I write a monthly newsletter at work. Our team is distributed across three continents and too many timezones. From time to time things slip through the cracks and you hear the inevitable “I wish I had known that earlier”.  The newsletter tries to close the space between the cracks and helps people know what’s going on. It is also a welcome place to highlight the great work that people contribute to the team.

    I very much enjoy writing it. It’s a highlight of my month, because I can channel the best person I want to be: fun, enthusiastic, empathetic, helpful, … My objective is to write in the tone that I would like to have a good conversation in. As a German, I’m a non-native speaker in Australia and tend to overthink and over-structure my sentences when I speak. I choose words deliberately and it’s common to hear me talk in numbered lists. The newsletter is an opportunity for me to freshen it up. And it works: people enjoy reading the newsletter, they forward it – even our CEO reads it. Not bad for a 30 people team in a company of 40,000.

    My big secret is that I copy the newsletter. Not the content, that would be obscure. But I try to channel my inner Slack. They have such a wonderful tone all their copy, be it tweets, quirky messages when you open their app or even release notes for software updates. Anna Pickard is Editorial Director at Slack helped create that tone:

    It is sometimes funny, sometimes serious, sometimes just plain and informative, but throughout, it should feel like nothing more than a person, talking to another person. Human to human […] making sure we’re treating people with respect, empathy and courtesy all the way through. […]We want people to like using Slack, and to want to share the experience. 

    Slack’s Editorial Soul: Anna Pickard
    on Writing the Brand Experience

    And the best thing: they got their inspiration from Mailchimp, who have been kind enough to publish a Style Guide for Content. I’ve only dipped my toe into it for now, but it looks like a wonderfully written guide on how to write well, especially the section on Voice and Tone. Mailchimp rules and I love them for doing this.

    Once you manage to have good topics and write them up well, you have a winning formula to make a lot of people’s lives easier and happier.

    Photo credit: Martin uit Utrecht / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

  • Bad writing is a meeting factory

    From Guilded, a Seattle web design & engineering firm, comes a nugget around why good writing is so important:

    Bad writing is a meeting factory. Being able to articulate a thought in writing means your team gets to take advantage of asynchronous communication. Whereas meetings are synchronous— requiring all parties to be present and engaged for the duration of the communication event—written communication is asynchronous, meaning the recipient can address your request or idea on their own time.

    Source: Software is 10% Code

  • How Medium’s engineering team works

    Medium has a regular Way We Work session where their engineering team shares tips in lightning talks of ~5-10 minutes. The topics covered in the Teams Session are: the value of diversity and listening, finding your path, management roles at Medium, and running effective meetings in a holacracy environment. I got most out of the first presentation (diversity and listening). Two points stood out in particular: (1) the listening framework: Receive, appreciate, summarize and ask and (2) “conversations are not contests”. If you just have only seven minutes, go watch the first presentation. It’s well worth the time.

  • Advice to new graduates

    Advice to new graduates

    Amongst other things, I’m a manager of new starters in my job. A few weeks ago I was asked to speak to the upcoming class of new starters in our organisation and share some of my learnings with them. Below is a write up of the talk, which I thought might be helpful. It isn’t meant to be advice, but rather it’s an opportunity to share a few things, that I remind myself of from time to time and which I believe might help a new starter:

    1. Build your network

    One advantage of working for a larger organisation is that you have access to a lot of great people. However, a pitfall of networking is viewing it as a transactional activity for the sake of increasing your influence. Don’t do that. Rather view it as an opportunity to learn. Here are three tested strategies to build your network as a graduate:

    • One of our core values is “better together”. As a graduate you have basically a license to tap into other peoples’ minds. So find interesting people and approach them. My last graduate was bold enough to chat up our CEO on the intranet … and got a response. Not that I recommend doing that to everybody, but it shows that people are open to engage with one another.
    • Learn from your fellow graduates. Exchange ideas and experiences so that you can help each other avoid mistakes. All of you are going to join the company at the same time, which typically creates a great bond. This gives you a great network and support group from the start. Use that.
    • Look for networking opportunities in seemingly mundane tasks. As an example, I’m working in a small team of 30 people. Every once in a while we need to update the team chart. I typically ask one of the graduates to do that. I could do it myself with a simple mass email. However, it’s a great opportunity to interact with the rest of the team and become visible. Volunteer for those tasks that give you exposure … even if it is something as mundane as updating contact information and profile pictures.

    Bonus tip: if you have the opportunity, meet people in person. The experience is typically much richer, you can associate a face to the person and it is not uncommon that the senior person takes up the check for coffee. Free coffee, what’s not to like.

    2. Get organised

    You will be thrown lots of curveballs and your job will get hectic at times. The last thing you want to worry about in those moments are questions like “What was that task I was supposed to do by end of the week?” or “What did we agree over coffee last week?” If that wasn’t enough, your brain will frequently remind you of those questions, typically at 4am, when you can do very little about it.

    Getting organised and learning some basic self-management will help reduce your stress levels significantly. Here are three tips that will help you get better sleep at night:

    1. Write things down. Invest in a nice notebook, a pen and start taking notes in meetings. It will have multiple benefits, e.g. you are more engaged, you remember facts better and you have notes in case you forgot something – very important to calm down your mind at 4am. Don’t take notes on the computer. Trust me on this one: Science is pretty unanimous, that recall rates for hand written notes are far superior to typed ones. I always carry a notebook with me. If I have an idea, I write it down. If somebody says something smart, I write it down. This ensures that I don’t lose those nuggets. Once a day I review those notes and highlight the keepers or transfer tasks into my task manager. Which brings us to:
    2. Maintain a list of all your tasks. This can be a page in your new notebook, an app on your phone or a file on your computer. The only thing that matters is that you have a complete inventory of things that you need to be doing for two reasons:
      1. Your brain is good for having ideas, it is not very good for holding them. So get them out of your head onto paper. That alone releases stress.
      2. You can only feel good about the things that you’re doing, when you know what you are not doing. Having that inventory of all tasks will help you be very intentional about both, what to do and what not to do.
    3. Ask somebody who is good at this to share tips with you. Alternatively, read a book on personal organisation – and keep it to one book, because it is easy to read about productivity without actually doing the work. Two books I can recommend are “Getting Things Done” by David Allen or “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey – pick one.
      Getting organised will help you maintain a cool head in hectic times and make sound decisions. And most importantly, it will make you sleep well at 4am.

    3. Aim to be good

    Every single one of my graduates has asked me at some point: How do I become an exceptional graduate? While I appreciate the aspiration, the answer is not as straight forward. Especially when you work in a team, where everybody is motivated to bring their very best to work. Over time I have come to the following conclusions:

    1. Get the basics right – 100% of the time. It is not the fancy stuff that will set you apart, but consistently getting the basics right, e.g. being on time, being polite and treating others with respect even under stress, writing emails without typos, being open and honest when you made a mistake (and you will make mistakes, that’s part of the learning process). Exceptional graduates get that right 100% of the time. And if you don’t get the basics right, everything else won’t matter.
    2. Don’t compare yourself to others. The easiest way to misery is to compare yourself to what other graduates are doing. The temptation is there, because you all seem to start from the same point. But every one of you has different strengths and weaknesses. Be aware of those and use them to your advantage. Everybody runs their own race and constantly trying to run other peoples’ races isn’t much fun and won’t set you up for success.

    4. Be kind to yourself

    Work can be tough at times and you will without doubt run into a rough patch at work. This is going to be a time of growth for you after being a top student. Everybody here was a top student – that’s one of the reasons why you got the job. You will get criticised a lot and you will improve tremendously over the next 18 months … and honestly, for the rest of your career. It is hard work and can feel overwhelming at times. The good news: we’ve all been there at some point and you come through and will learn something, but it will be tough while it lasts.

    That’s why it is important to have something to get your mind off of work like sports, meditation, cooking or dancing. Your best ideas will come when you’re not at your desk, but hiking in the mountains, surfing, showering or just being bored.

    Do that regularly, because it is important to maintain a healthy perspective. Most days you won’t save lives. And to do great work, you need to be able to disengage from work from time to time. It is important to take care of yourself and your well-being. It is an investment in yourself that will pay off with long-term dividends.

    Conclusion

    The graduate program is designed to give you a wide range of experiences. Every six months you can chose a new challenge and try out something completely different. Use this opportunity and try out things that you have no idea about. And if the conclusion after a rotation was that you don’t like that specific area. That’s OK, because you didn’t know that before.

    Get out of your comfort zone, experiment with areas that you don’t know anything about and make mistakes and learn from them. You are just starting out and this is the time to figure out what you’re made of. You might be surprised what you’re capable of doing.

    In the end, all that is written here is nice to know and bleak theory. It will only prepare you so much for what is waiting for you. To really learn, you have to be there, make the mistakes and get your bruises (and I can promise you, every one of them will hurt). But then you get up, try again and succeed.

    Photo credit: JohnE777 / Foter / CC BY