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Systems over Psychology


TLDR: Don’t ask “what’s wrong with me?” but instead, “what system will will help me create what I want?”

The key takeaway here is not that psychology is bad, but dwelling too much into it can be a waste of time.

What I have found is that what most people need is a better system for how to improve their life, and looking at the systems they employ will often reveal the problems that they’re experiencing.

Spending too much time on the why, in the psychology underneath the actions, while interesting, is counterproductive. The systems paradigm shifts attention away from inside the head (psychology and the mind) toward the world outside the head, the world of action.

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Agreements are Crucial

A common cause of inefficiency at a startup is sloppy agreements.

Why are some startups less efficient or grow slower than others? A common reason that underpins each one is sloppy agreements. This manifests in a variety of ways

  • People don’t show up on time
  • Sales team doesn’t hit their quota
  • Junior employees flying first class and draining the bank account

The result of all of this is lack of productivity and decrease morale. The start slow and it becomes a bad place to work.

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Coach K’s Practice Masterclass

This came from a post from The Athletic that has been deleted but I wanted to re-post it. At first glance, this is about an 18-year-old plan for a basketball practice by the legendary Coach K. But really, it’s about leadership and the many things that go into it: organization, delegation, adaptability and standards.

Coach K (real name: Mike Krzyzewski), is one of the most successful coaches in history:

  • 1,202 wins, the most of any men’s college basketball coach
  • Five national championships
  • Three Olympic gold medals as head coach of Team USA

Krzyzewski is retired from Duke and has stated to TheAthletic, that he doesn’t miss the games. But he does miss the preparation, saying, “I do miss developing a practice plan.”

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3-Step Process to Success

Over the past months I’ve come to realize that much of my process with my clients is this three step plan:

  1. Figure out what you really want
  2. Decide on a strategy of how to get it
  3. Work on that

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Step 1: Figuring out what you want

This could be anything. For a person, this is where they want to go in life. It could be a promotion, a raise, a new house, moving to a new location, anything. Many people are reactive, they just chase whatever opportunity is in front of them rather than setting a course for what they really want.

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Monkey and the Pedastal

I came across this piece of wisdom in Annie Duke’s book Quit, and I love it.

The concept also shows up in Google X—the division responsible for tackling the company’s most audacious bets. Self-driving cars. Internet balloons. Robotics.

At X, they use a mental model to prioritize work:

If your goal is to get a monkey to recite Shakespeare while standing on a pedestal…
You don’t start by building the pedestal.

Why?
Because building a pedestal is easy. Training a monkey to speak? That’s the hard part—and also the part that determines whether the whole idea is viable.

Their rule: Train the monkey first.

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Travis Kalanick’s Fundraising Tips

Back in 2005-2013, I was close with Uber founder Travis Kalanick.

Before he started Uber, he was Founder/CEO of RedSwoosh which was an interesting P2P software provider for content companies. RedSwoosh was eventually acquired by Akamai and Travis made a bit of money.

At that time he worked as an advisor helping companies get off the ground and raise money (see CrowdFlower, Honestly, etc.). He then went on to be an epic fundraiser himself with Uber and CloudKitchens. I wanted to share some of his tips as he was an expert at the art of negotiating and raising money. This list is his tips for success that he initially blogged at Swooshing.com (his old blog). At the bottom there’s a great video of him talking about working with seed stage startups and how to grow. It’s a great watch.

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Willpower Isn’t Enough

I found this quick 4min video really interesting. It talks about how willpower isn’t enough to accomplish change. Similarly, neither giving someone an explanation of what’s wrong.

To truly get change, you have to have an insight. A new thought. That “aha” moment is what really drives change.

Here’s the link to the video