Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.
Savielly Tartakower (French-Polish Chess Grandmaster)
OverHeard
Overheard : On cutting down “stuff”
We’re good as humans to committing to things that are positive. That’s very motivating for us. We’re bad at trying to avoid things that are negative
– Cal Newport in conversation with Tim Ferriss
Cal was speaking about how we are good at adding things that seem good to to us (facebook is good because we can communicate on the fly), but bad at avoiding negative things (being on facebook and doom scrolling is a bad thing). He instead suggests, just using technology for things you like (I will have facebook, but only follow and read messages from folks I want to).
Overheard : Watermelon Metrics
Watermelon Metric : Green (good) on the outside and red (bad) once you dig in.
– Daniel Shapero (LinkedIn COO) on a post on LinkedIn
Some examples
- If churn is down (looks green)… but when you look into why it’s down is because all of your customers left last year (very bad)
- A manager’s EVS scores are up because everyone who was unhappy left
- Brand awareness could be considered watermelon if it’s high but brand perception is poor.
- The click-through rate of an email campaign is high, but when you dig in you learn that it’s because so many users are clicking in the footer to change their email preferences or opt out.
- YOY Revenue is increasing (Green) – especially currently as businesses are raising prices to accommodate inflation – but when you dig in, you see profits are actually suffering (red)
Overheard : Tradeoffs
Everything that you take on is implicitly something that you’re not taking on
– Francis Davidson (CEO of Sonder) in conversation with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Speaking about tradeoffs that organizations and individuals make when prioritizing work.
Overheard : Empathy
LibertyRPF on Empathy during a conversation with Jim O’Shaughnessy on his Infinite Loops podcast
Don’t just treat others how you would like to be treated. Take the extra step and figure out how they would like to treated and treat them like that.
Oveheard : Pain
our ability to deal with pain is directly proportional to our ability to see pain elsewhere.
Subroto Bagchi
Overheard : Services vs Product businesses
In the services business, you get paid to say yes to everything.
In the product business, you get paid to say no. By convincing the customer that you are not going to give what they want, but what they need.
– Sanveet Singh (CEO of $PAR) on a podcast with Richard Sosa
Overheard : On appreciation
Everyone needs to feel appreciated. It doesn’t matter what they do, it doesn’t matter who they are, that’s a need in everybody.
– Grace McNiel (Hugh Jackman’s mom)
Hugh Jackman mentioned this quote on a podcast with Tim Ferriss. Highly recommend listening to the podcast. Hugh shared a lot more such wisdom in it. My admiration for Hugh went up a couple more notches after listening to it.