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Book Club

Book Club: Infinite Game

For the month of April we read the Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. For those who have no idea who Simon Sinek is, you’ve likely seen some clip of him speaking about business practices, ethics, etc. somewhere on the Internet: TED, Youtube, Facebook, etc. and if you, like me, have found these presentations meaningful (this is my personal favorite), you probably also felt excited to read this book.

So let’s start with the good: the principles of this book deeply resonate with me. Fundamentally, he is pushing back on the purpose of organizations: do we live to serve our shareholders (who are effectively “renters” of our organization), or to serve a bigger purpose (our customers needs, connecting people, helping the world, etc.) His point is that companies who play “the infinite game”–a long term strategy aligned to that greater purpose the company serves will make wiser long term decisions, which ultimately will accrue greater value than those who play to the market dynamics alone (whom he calls “finite” players). He gives great examples, and I found myself nodding along.

Another point he mentions are that companies who are more aligned to long term value tend to have more engaged employees (most of us want to work on something that is GOOD for the world, not just good for our shareholders), make better ethical choices, and have fewer incidents of questionable behavior (fraud, misuse of data, etc.) because they won’t suffer from the same “ethical fading” in which organizations without a clear purpose (above making money for investors) may find themselves.

But, here is where he could have cited research and helped us disambiguate between his opinions/observations and what the science tells us. In my mind, that is the biggest issue I had with this book. When we sat down to discuss it at Book Club, Dr. J Metz reminded me of “Gell-Man amnesia” a term coined by Professor Murray Gell-Mann and popularized by Michael Crichton (yes author of Jurassic Park, etc. etc.) that basically shows that we read a piece of garbage and if we know the subject, we will pick it apart, but if we don’t know the subject AND we agree with the statements, we will somehow forget that the source is the same as the previous piece of said garbage–that “amnesia” when you are biased to believe is the issue. Basically: we believe what we want to believe, and are only naturally skeptical if we DON’T already believe it, which isn’t a good way to learn (it is a great way to reinforce bias). We HAVE to force ourselves to be critical regardless of our bias, review our sources, etc. if we want to be life-long learners, and not subject to our own echo chambers (a problem often cited in these days of social-media influenced news).

All that said, I really loved these quotations from the book:

  • “Leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results. And the best way to drive performance in an organization is to create an environment in which information can flow freely, mistakes can be highlighted and help can be offered and received.” 
  • “To ask, “What’s best for me?” is finite thinking. To ask, “What’s best for us?” is infinite thinking.” 
  • “The ability to succeed is not what makes someone a leader. Exhibiting the qualities of leadership is what makes someone an effective leader. Qualities like honesty, integrity, courage, resiliency, perseverance, judgment and decisiveness,” 
  • “One of the primary jobs of any leader is to make new leaders. To help grow the kind of leaders who know how to build organizations equipped for the Infinite Game.” 
  • “When leaders are willing to prioritize trust over performance, performance almost always follows.”

I think listening to this as a lecture and thinking about how you would integrate the messages into your personal leadership style, or your framing for your company’s mission is useful. I just think there are more meaningful books that walk through the psychology of WHY his points resonate. Specifically the value of serving a just case, having a worthy rivalry to inspire your best work, building trust with teams (great work by Amy Edmonson on the value of psychological safety) and maintaining a strong ethical basis for your business decisions to have fewer issues associated with ethical fading (I would have LOVED to see the research on this because I want to believe it).

Anyway, no regrets that I read this, but gosh it could have been so much MORE impactful and not reinforced the “business guru with no hard facts” stereotype through some really simple citations to sources that are from credible publications and not business-sponsored.

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Reflection

Remembrance

Yesterday was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. As the grandchild of survivors, this is an incredibly important day for my family. My Nana and Grandfather were survivors who picked themselves up after losing everything (children, parents, siblings, and any sense of safety), moved to the US, raised their family with love (and pain), built businesses, and contributed to making this country even better. My generation is the last to know survivors like my grandparents: to have heard their stories, seen their strength, and felt their struggle.

11 years ago, the Shoah Foundation, who has recorded so many stories of Holocaust survivors, sent my family a set of tapes from an interview my Nana did in 1995. It was such a gift. I uploaded them so her story would never be forgotten. She was there on the day the US Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in 1993 (her story is one of the ones you could experience walking through the museum), and afterward they followed up and asked her to record this piece. The Shoah Foundation has recorded the stories of so many survivors and now has posted them widely online. I urge you to listen with an open heart to their stories and never allow ourselves to forget what happened. This day is not just important for me, my family, or Jews across the world; in a time where there is increasing nationalism, hatred, dehumanization, scapegoating, and violation of other nation’s sovereignty, I urge us all to remember that these same conditions are what led to the massacre of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. Very few people wanted to see such things occur, and yet they stood by in silence, and let horrors happen. And it didn’t keep them safe. More countries were overrun, more people suffered. In the words of Audre Lorde, “Your silence will not protect you.”

It is absolutely time for us to come together, regardless of our differences to stop atrocities, not as some world wide police force, but I hope through discussion, debate, honoring our differences, and the right of our fellow humans to choose autonomously that which is best for them and their families. We need to be the change we want to see, and never forget our collective history.

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OCP

OCP 2023 Regional Summit in Prague: What Not to Miss!

It is hard to imagine, but OCP’s Regional Summit is coming up in just 2 weeks. Our last Regional Summit in Europe was in 2019 before the covid19 pandemic, and I’ve been eager ever since joining the board to connect with our European leaders to hear their perspectives, and specific challenges of running data centers and building servers in the European market.

As for every OCP event, I like to write my own “unofficial” guide on what I’m most excited about, and where you’ll find me if you are there. As always, I want to meet with you, so please do reach out!

So, let’s start with Day 1:

  • We will start with Keynotes on the morning of the 19th, and it is interesting to see the regional flavor of this event. At the Global Summit the topics were very much centered on AI (including connectivity for workloads that cannot be encompassed on single nodes), Security, and Sustainability. Here in Europe Sustainability is taking center stage (for Silicon providers, and Cloud companies), and Ethernet for AI/ML and HPC, but we are also seeing discussions about the role and future Open Source and Open Empowerment, standardization of Edge Computing (which is going to be fascinating since I can think of nothing less standardized today), and Quantum Computing.
  • In the afternoon we will transition into several engineering workshops (and yes, as wonderful as the keynotes are, THESE are the heart of the conference). I’ll be excited to see the SONiC sessions from the vibrant European community (Criteo, STORDIS, Deutsche Telekom, Broadcom, Weaveworks, and Credo), and new OCP-Ready systems and contributions from Mitac, Inspur, HPE, Giga Computing, Murata, and 9elements.
  • The other track occurring during the engineering sessions is the Future Technologies Symposium, which once again has a very different regional flavor than FTS at the Global Summit. We are seeing sessions on Quantum computing, Neuromorphic computing, AI/HPC techniques for data center energy optimization, temperature and location impact on overall IT efficiency, heat reuse techniques, and more.

That evening we will have a welcome reception, and no my band is not playing, but we will have an incredible time connecting in beautiful Prague.

Day 2 will bring additional sessions on system management, modularity, and security as well as expanding on the key networking and sustainability activities. Here are the ones I’m so excited about:

  • DC-SCM with OpenBMC compliance suite (I find this personally relevant), TEE-agnostic attestation research, fault management, leveraging ChatGPT for SSD development, scope 3 emissions standards proposals, Caliptra updates, OSF, attestation with Redfish, CXL memory expansion, and immersion (from fluids that are more sustainable to the system designs and reuse methodologies).
  • There will also be updates on chiplets, a session on “SONiC Lite” (which I think is so critical–most of us want to start with a low risk SONiC use case, but if SONiC needs significant memory to run, we will be greatly impacted on being able to leverage it for these lower risk scenarios: console/management switches), and precision time protocol options, which I also think is such an important project for standardization and improved global network management.

Fundamentally our European community is thinking about the future of innovation from the silicon to systems, software, system-level firmware, management, and so much more. I really look forward to learning from everyone and meeting our local leaders and experts.

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Book Club

Radical Candor

This month for book club we read Radical Candor by Kim Scott, both because it is an awesome book, and also because I really wanted to choose a female author in honor of Women’s History Month. I was introduced to the book a while back, and honestly wished I had read it much earlier in my management journey because there were many important lessons that resonated with me personally.

In general most of our attendees really enjoyed the book with some exceptions; the worry was that this framework might not “age well”. As we dug in the concern was that candor without a strong coupling of psychological safety will inevitably lead to bosses feeling empowered to share “toxic” feedback and employees not feeling safe enough to speak up. (I think this concern is real, and highly recommended folks pair this with The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmonson, which reiterates that feedback which can only trickle down is toxic and a waste of talent.)

The overwhelming area people resonated most strongly about was the need to “challenge directly”. Some self-identified as strong in this domain, but working on making sure it was received well, and others felt they likely weren’t as direct in the moment in sharing their actual feedback with colleagues, direct reports, and their management team. All shared how NOT challenging directly and providing timely feedback had repercussions (which Kim Scott labels “ruinous empathy”). The primary issue is that the individual could have learned something in the moment with appropriate coaching, but by trying to be nice/likeable/etc. we miss these moments, and then reserve feedback for more formal sessions (which is far less effective since with time the ability to really recall details and remember the impact is muted, so the value of the feedback is as well). When in doubt, start by SEEKING feedback–create a culture where you show you can take it, and encourage them to give feedback to one another directly (rather than escalating to you). A culture of direct communication enables issues to be resolved in a far more timely manner rather than always escalating, and eliminates back-stabbing. These ultimately make every team more effective.

One of the other critical lessons in the book is to “care personally”. Many people don’t get that coaching coming into management, and it seems like an awful shame. When people know they personally are respected and cared about, they will absolutely feel safer and more secure in sharing their perspectives (which will make your team and your company stronger), and they will also be more secure receiving criticism, which is a necessary part of learning and growing. Showing one cares does not have to involve hugs, or anything that might be deemed inappropriate: remembering to follow up on a difficult item personal or professional that they brought up in a previous 1:1, not canceling 1:1s without following up, showing that you value your people’s time by showing up on time, finding time to connect and celebrate milestones (birthdays, baby showers, etc.), encouraging people to take the time they need (for vacations, or leave if that is necessary) and ensuring that they know you have their backs during that period of time, etc. Ultimately IF you care personally, and your people know that, then offering feedback will land better because they know you are seeking to help them develop and succeed, and not to make them feel badly.

Much of being a good boss begins by knowing your people, and knowing what makes them feel cared for personally, whether in terms of personal development, or just checking in on life. There are great tips in this book for getting to know your people and helping them with their LIFE journeys both within and exterior from their current role. The best bosses I have had have been mentors for life who have come to know me and my skills and been great sounding boards for me on other decisions I made later in my career. I truly hope I can be that for my people as well.

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Reflection

When to take your foot off the gas

It has been a really difficult year. I try not to indulge in self-pity, but I am a fan of self-reflection for the general purpose of attempting to learn from my experiences. Some of what made the last year difficult was out of my control (my nephew’s cancer diagnosis and fight, our wonderful nanny moving on to a family with infants since my boys are definitely not in that category anymore, etc.), but a lot of it was my choice. Sometimes I wonder why I am so intent on pushing when situations are already stressful. I suspect human nature here, but also likely a special flavor of masochism. I self-identify as doing hard things, and sometimes, wow that makes things hard!

I started a new job a year and a month ago. The transition to this type of role was something I had contemplated for a long time–I love semiconductors and feel like we are in one of the most interesting phases of innovation within design and manufacturing that will occur in my lifetime, but having experienced Silicon and system design without ever having had to operate those systems and understand what it takes to resolve the issues that occur at scale was a hole in my development. I knew there were aspects of design tradeoffs and decisions I could not reason about fully from the feedback of my customers and partners alone. 1+ year at Cloudflare, and I am still learning daily from the teams who keep our network up and running how to build better systems and how to help our vendors design more optimal products for services like ours. In 6 weeks I learned more at Cloudflare about the realities of managing systems at scale than I learned in 20 years of development and design. And I learn more with every project everyday. I will never stop loving the fundamentals of design and manufacturing, but I have greater humility and I hope insight from this experience.

My first day of orientation was also the date of my nephew’s first brain surgery to remove a baseball sized tumor from his brain. My first month was punctuated by PICU text messages from my sister. While trying to learn a whole new suite of products, understand our current projects across my various teams, develop relationships with my key partners and vendors, understand internal processes, build my team, and formulate my vision, I also was trying to make sure my nephew was getting the care he needed, and my sister and brother-in-law got some support. I am VERY lucky to have a large family of sisters and aunties as well as amazing parents, and everyone rallied to this cause, but it was a constant weight. Then the house remodel we had been planning for nearly two years finally kicked off (with us camping in the house because the rents in the Bay Area are no joke!) So I added the “fun” of cooking in my outdoor kitchen at least three nights a week during the wettest winter I have ever seen here in California.

Throughout all of this I remained the Chairperson and President of the Open Compute Project Foundation–hiring our new CEO, helping oversee the vision and strategy, and ensuring that we have tools and capabilities in the staff and infrastructure to support a healthy and vibrant community. I also remained the singer and primary booker for my band, Sinister Dexter, and you know just for fun (or honestly stress management) ran 4 half marathons (including a PR post having babies).

Then in September, I had to find a new au pair, our first match did not work out, and the immigration process for the second meant we went with part-time and strung together childcare for 2 months while balancing the schedules of two working parents. Seriously there were days when I thought to myself, how about I call in sick? I didn’t. I took two one-week vacations with my family and one with friends who have become family, and these were precious, did weekend visits to see my nephew and my sister, and I did actually get sick enough one week that I stopped working at 4 pm to take a bath and pass out, but otherwise I didn’t miss a day.

I don’t say this because I am proud of it–there are times when you need to take a step back and take care of yourself, but the insidious thing about cancer is that the process of fighting is a lot of work for the individual and their direct support team (my sister and brother-in-law) and for the rest of us there was a lot of waiting, hoping, praying, and worrying given that we couldn’t be in the hospital due to covid19 precautions (still!) I don’t like to worry. I’d rather do things, and honestly that was why I consciously chose to stay SO busy, but I am not going to lie that there is a lot of internal reflection going on right now. We got the blessed news in February that my nephew is officially in remission, and the precious dinners, and family nights with him over the last few months are particularly sweet. I want to say yes to the trips, visits, TIME together to make memories. I want to have family dinners around my new kitchen table. I want to be with the people I love and take a deep breath, and maybe, just maybe, not run up a hill in the rain for the next few months.

Stay tuned for a slightly chiller Rebecca. There are times when we just have to take a step back in order to be able to step forward. I think this is finally the time.

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Reflection

International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day. You may not realize this, but as of 2022 women held only 28% of roles in tech with even lower representation at higher grade levels. In data, security, and infrastructure, there are even fewer of us.

I got where I am today not only because of the strong women in my life, but very much because of the men who supported me, particularly early in my career and even now when I am not in the room. Advocacy matters, and we cannot change the ratio without the entire tech community stepping up to embrace equity. Equity is not the same as equality–this is a distinction that Cloudflare has particularly educated me upon.

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities.

Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

In tech we need to do a better job of bringing people up and into the dialogue. I fully thank the bosses, colleagues, and partners in my life who held the door open for me. I see you and I am grateful. AND we need to do more to make sure the doors are easier for our next generation.

Today, and every day, those of us in leadership need to encourage, enable, and support other women and underrepresented minorities to stay engaged in tech despite the challenges of being the “only” or the “few.” We are stronger and better together. This means making sure if you observe bias you call it out, and speak up for equity. It also means recognizing the additional burden agents of change feel and giving them support.

That also means stating my commitment to others: for those of you earlier in your careers who are struggling, know that you are not alone. Please ask for help, reach out, and know I am here to help. Also, you need to help yourself. Build your support system, your sponsors, your mentors, and your advocates, so you can continue to thrive.

In life we will all face bias. You will be underestimated. The world will not always be fair. For the record, you too have bias. I was recently confronted in a meeting for speaking about a leader whose story inspired me, and reminded by a fellow woman in tech that leader was incredibly racist and very much a product of imperialism. Our history is not perfect, and it is hard to have a discussion about any historical figure who would measure up to our current ideals. Do we stop focusing on the lessons worth learning from history because the people are flawed? I don’t believe we can, AND I’m glad that person spoke up to help me see the pain it caused her, so I could be more nuanced in my commentary. Every day we get the chance to learn, if we make a space where people are willing to speak up and share their differences of opinion.

I personally find faith in one simple fact: we learn more in times of struggle than we do in success. We can only make the world better if we stay in the fight. It is a struggle to be different, to be a change agent, and advocates can speak up for you, but they cannot know what it is to walk in your shoes. All we can do is come together, hold each other’s hands, and give each other grace to learn and grow, so we can keep moving forward together.

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Book Club

February Book Review: The Light We Carry

For February book club we read The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama. At its heart this book is a call to action and a message of hope in times of uncertainty, and while it isn’t necessarily the prototypical choice for a book club on leadership in technology, I have historically found biographies and autobiographies of leaders managing turbulent times to be incredibly inspiring. This book was no exception. The book isn’t really memoir, but it is autobiographical in the sense of the stories she shares. Here are the nuggets that particularly resonated with me and the group, and might be lessons leaders in technology want to reflect upon as well:

  1. Build your “kitchen table”. Mrs. Obama talks about the kitchen table of her youth: how many people were gathered there with love and support for one another, not just family, but also friends, and that was particularly poignant to me. With Covid19 lockdowns, increased remote work, the age and associated obligations of my children, and other factors, my “kitchen table” is not as full as I personally would like. The de facto friendships I used to get at work are much harder to create remotely and without the regular touchpoints of work travel making it easier to say “yes” to grabbing dinner or drinks with friends. I try to stay in touch with friends when they happen to be in town, or if I happen to be traveling to their towns, but it is far more sporadic, and the friends and colleagues I once spoke with constantly, of course have less frequent touch points with me now that we are dispersed to other companies. Mrs. Obama shares wonderful stories about her “bootcamp” weekends with her best friends (at Camp David no less) and I have to admit that it was a personal inspiration to remember that we can choose to continue our friendships, and it has immense dividends to us personally and professionally. We need a village, and it begins by picking up the phone, texting to check in, or just sending a little virtual love on social media to the folks we care about. The limiter here is time of course, but a book club, email/text thread with besties, running/gym club/buddy, etc. can be good life hacks to keep folks in touch on a semi-regular basis. There is a great book called Multipliers, which changed my life on this topic, and I know lots of other folks refer to Never Eat Alone. There is never enough time to do all the things, but if you combine objectives with friendship, there absolutely can and will be a multiplier effect, and increased accountability that results in far greater dividends throughout life.
  2. Gladness is nourishing. Mrs. Obama refers to a Toni Morrison quotation about how she looks upon her children that particularly resonated with me, “Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them.” So much of the time when we see our children (or our partners, coworkers, friends even!) we likely reflect what needs to be done “where are your shoes? Do you have your water bottle? Where are those TPS reports?” but children (and in fact all of us) look to see that that the person on the other side of the table is genuinely glad to see them. That is what fills up their hearts and allows them to flourish. So think about how you show up. Bring your gladness and watch how people thrive.
  3. The feeling of not belonging carries a mental load. Mrs. Obama shares her experiences being an “only”: the only black woman at the law firm, the only black woman in a class at Princeton, and how exhausting it is to not be in the “club”. I definitely cannot claim those same “only” distinctions, but I have definitely been the only woman in my class or in many decision forums and discussions and it is a different load to bear (particularly earlier in my career before I became more comfortable with myself.) I took the stories she shared as a reminder and a call to action to continue to remember the value of inclusiveness, welcoming all, seeking input regardless of communication style, and to be the change we want to see.
  4. Competency is the other side of fear. The book contains a fabulous discussion around decoding one’s fear and advice for how to manage one’s need to step up in difficult situations. Don’t be afraid; find ways to be prepared. This advice was also given with the recommendation “don’t make decisions in a period of fear; make decisions from strength.” I have always tried to ensure I’m running toward an outcome I seek when making my decisions versus running away from situations I don’t like. When you choose a path (even if it is difficult along the way) you are far more engaged and likely to succeed.

For me, the lessons the book reinforced were fundamentally about self-awareness and self-care. Your emotional state and your bias effect your decision making, and you cannot show up for others when your cup is empty. This book club session was particularly rewarding because 90% of the participants said they likely wouldn’t have picked up the book if it weren’t for the book club. I like when we have an excuse to get out of our comfort zones, so that made me particularly happy. We ended making a commitment to each other about what we would like to focus upon to fill our cups: friendship, parenting with joy, self-care in times of difficulty, making decisions from a good place, having empathy for one’s self, speaking up when you are not the majority, and being the change we want to see while holding ourselves with grace. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. The book is like a big warm hug, and a kick in the pants to be your best self all at once.

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Reflection

A new era of creativity

I am a runner, and an early riser by nature, so getting out to run a trail at sunrise is just about the happiest I can be. The sunrise was gorgeous this morning, and I found myself meditating on the creativity of science, engineering, mathematics…we think of poetry and art as the creative arts in our society these days, but when one thinks of the history of these “hard” disciplines they are no less creative. Cuvier had to invent natural history from studying the earth and her bleached-out fossils, Mendeleev invented a methodology to organize the elements of our planet helping us predict the existence of things which had not yet been found, Euclid formulated universal truths about the relationships of physical bodies and then we as humans expanded that through observation to an entirely different field of orbital dynamics and ultimately sent people into space…these are creative arts as much as mathematical truths. We teach these disciplines as truths and forget their inventive history, which I believe discourages the very mindset that breeds engineers to be their most effective selves. For me, I only really began to learn and love my profession in the practice of it. Through working I have seen and been a part of solving some of the most exciting problems in the world of hardware, and I am confident science and technology will continue to solve some of the most difficult problems of our world (global warming, cancer, etc.) through creativity and ingenuity if we can continue to engage and unlock our future technologists.

I guess I started thinking about this because I have heard so many dystopic conversations of late where folks are worried that ChatGPT and similar AI models will displace humans doing complicated knowledge work. Why learn to code? Why figure out circuit diagrams? All of this will be automated! Me being me, it is likely no surprise that I believe these models will unlock even greater creativity and autonomy for humans through automation of the increasingly complex tasks our mounting levels of abstraction are requiring. Code still does and will always matter, being able to understand the physics of how a pump works will always matter (to a doctor trying to understand the human heart and a systems engineer trying to understand the optimal approach for liquid cooling, whether or not surgery or servicing of those servers are conducted by human hands or robots). I fundamentally believe this is the most interesting time to be alive for a technologist (and arguably a musician, artist, teacher, student, etc.) The technology that is being built today has the capacity to unleash human potential in a way formerly unimaginable, and we are the lucky ones who will see what universal truths and opportunities it will create.

I’ve also been thinking about the power of human potential and how work is or is not serving it because I recently finished Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us. While I’ve read a lot of pieces in this vein before (Designing Your Life incorporates a lot of the aspects of flow and how you can optimize for that in your career, and several parenting books I’ve read have hammered on the disincentive of “pay to play” scenarios since they decrease the natural curiosity and propensity to learn that children are born with in favor of “unlocking the reward” behavior), I found revisiting these concepts given the current economic conditions, readjustment happening for workers in technology, and rise of more powerful AI models in our world particularly interesting. Some of the key takeaways from the book is that an incentive leads to short term results: e.g. “eat your vegetables and you will get dessert”, but less positive outcomes in the future: e.g. they don’t learn that vegetables help them feel healthier and grow stronger vs. eating dessert, which tastes good, but may ultimately make them feel sick if they eat too much, or even feel out of control negatively impacting relationships. One of the analogies used in the book is if you pay your kid to take out the trash, they will never do it again unless they are paid. It is good to have an allowance to help kids learn how to manage budgets and save. It is good to have kids do chores to help their family out of a sense of belonging and contribution to the communal needs of the family. If you correlate their chores to their allowance, then they learn to only do chores for money in perpetuity, which likely won’t help them much when they have to build their own homes and families.

This thought then make me think about my journey into engineering (the natural wonder of building my first server and playing with robots and gadgets as a kid, and how poorly my formal education fostered that same wonder), and then how my experience in work actually made me fall in love with technology and learning all over again through mentors and advocates who enjoyed what we were building. Honestly the worst parts of work have been the rote activities (writing verification tests with walking 1s to make sure there were no sticky bits–THESE TESTS SHOULD BE AUTOMATED! And then I moved to a company who built tooling to do exactly that!), and it is the complex problems, and puzzle pieces “clicking into place” where you know you are on to something and you make it WORK that make work fun. If we believe that AI will help automate the rote tasks in knowledge working (not the creativity of thinking through the problem and formulating the algorithm, but maybe the scripting to ensure that you are accessing all the right databases for the right information) and continue to expand the capacity of humans to find those big picture “aha” moments, quite possibly the future will be brighter for the individuals working to solve these problems than ever before.

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Book Club

January Book Club

For our January Book club session we read Crucial Conversations. I was first exposed to this book over a decade ago as part of a training session on communication skills at Synopsys, but it was good to revisit it since I find what you take away from this book often depends on what you are dealing with when you are reading it. Since I already had the book from my previous session, I re-read the first edition, which has mostly US-based examples, and a lot of recommendations about in-person communication for the most important discussions. My understanding is that they have added content around different cultural backgrounds and remote work conditions in subsequent editions, so I’d highly recommend editions 3+. That being said, fundamentally the skills are the same: recognize when you are being triggered, ask yourself questions to help transition into an intellectual place vs. a reactionary one, and don’t get caught in a silence or violence cycle. To stay in dialogue you need to maintain psychological safety: you have to focus on what you want to get out of the discussion and use techniques to get back on track (if you see negative reactions, try apologizing for making the other person feel unsafe, use contrasting techniques to help them understand what you were trying to say vs. what they seem to have reacted to, establish mutual purpose for the discussion, etc.) I think the value of the newer editions is really around sensitizing yourself to reading queues of others who are not the same as you. Obviously techniques differ based on the medium of interactions as well as cultural backgrounds, so keeping that in mind is incredibly helpful.

On the Crucial Conversations website there are seminars as well, and of course experiencing this as a class with a cohort is probably the most ideal methodology to practice the teachings. Reading is great, but we learn through application, so especially if this is one’s first exposure to these approaches, a class would be great.

My biggest personal takeaways from the book were:

  1. Beware the stories you tell yourself. Start with “why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person act in this way?” This question helps me understand what stories I am telling myself vs. focusing on the facts. We often observe an action and assume a meaning, but in reality there are other interpretations of a person’s actions. Rather than reacting to my story, start by questioning why a person has entered an agitated state, or why you yourself are getting agitated. If you figure out how things went off track, then you can try to reset. If you get caught up in your own reaction, you cannot reestablish trust and safety.
  2. Engage in active listening–make sure I am hearing their words vs. thinking of my response. If you were clear on the goal of the meeting before the session, then the most important part of the discussion is listening to the questions, concerns, data and insights from the other parties. If you are thinking through your response or rebuttal, you are not actually listening. Never forget the goal is connection and dialogue, not a pithy response.
  3. Seek input. Especially in positions of authority, don’t speak in absolutes, which will hinder those who are more hierarchical in their disposition/culture to engage and lead to withdrawal from dialogue. As a leader, offering your opinion first almost inevitably sends the message that the decision is made, and really why are you coming to the team if that is the case? Sometimes tops-down decisions have to be made (and if that is the case, then document why the decision was made that way and don’t waste folks’ time), but if the goal is to get alignment with other stakeholders or solve a tricky problem where you do not know all of the challenges or risks, then seek input first and foremost.

I highly recommend this book, as much for discussions at home with your family as with your coworkers. When I first read this book, I was not yet a parent, and this time around I found many of the examples I thought through in my head were with respect to negotiations with my children than with my coworkers. Ultimately, when we assume the good intentions of the people around us, and show up with an open mind, we all can accomplish so much more. Happy Reading!

Our next book for book club is Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry, which really is an acknowledgement of the times we are in, and how we manage ourselves, inspire others, and keep moving forward in times of uncertainty. I hope you will join us.

Categories
Reflection

Strength Through Hope

About this time last year, I remember a conversation with my sister. She was worried about my nephew–he was feeling nauseated regularly, vomiting daily, and it was not improving. He had been through a battery of tests (he started complaining and having symptoms in November of 2020), but by January of 2022 there still was no clear diagnosis. This wasn’t our first conversation: we had been on the journey with them for nearly a year and a half as he lost weight despite concerted efforts to healthfully “bulk up”. Then he was starting to have regular headaches, issues with double vision, and all of that reinforced her conviction that something was very wrong with her son. She had been sent home from the doctor’s office regularly, but by the end of February he had trouble seeing out of his right eye, which lead my sister to the Nurseline of her insurance, and finally an Ophthalmologist telling them to go to the ER as soon as possible. There they finally diagnosed him as having a medulloblastoma, stage 4, and they had to do immediate surgery to relieve the pressure in his brain.

The next 10 months are a blur…brain surgery, PICU where he stayed for nearly two weeks, and we didn’t know if he would make it, then a medivac to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego where a second surgery would more completely remove the tumor, which had spread from the cerebellum to the brain stem. This led to my sister and her family applying to enter St. Jude’s study for medulloblastomas, into which Jamie was accepted, and temporarily relocating to San Diego for his treatment and recovery. He went through two rounds of proton radiation, rehabilitation, and then four rounds of intense chemotherapy.

All of that culminated in a blessed visit with all of us together in Sacramento for the holidays, from which I got home about a week ago. We did our best to make our family traditions happen: big meals around my parents’ table, cuddling on the couch to watch holiday movies, going on some outings together, and just generally trying to find a bit of normalcy in a world that makes so very little sense.

Then a few days ago we got word that the treatment was not successful. We don’t know what comes next yet. The pain of knowing everything my poor nephew has suffered was not successful in getting him to remission is devastating, but I find my most deep and profound feeling is anger at how unfair this situation is. As with all things in my life, I find myself running and reading to process…running out my anger, reading about options for my nephew, ways to provide support and comfort to my family, healthy techniques to address the feelings I have. I, like most engineers I know, intellectualize my life: ‘x’ happened because of ‘y’; therefore the key learning is when ‘y’ occurs again, step back, question assumptions, think through the outcome desired, and attempt to do ‘z’. Sadly, I don’t have a great ‘z’ for this situation. I can be angry at my sister’s healthcare provider for not taking my nephew’s symptoms seriously, not diagnosing him sooner, etc. but none of that makes this situation more bearable. It is an outlet maybe, but not a solution.

There is in fact no solution or reason for why and where this terrible disease strikes. Despite all my general positivity there is no silver lining that I can see, which is not to say that I lack hope, love, and gratitude for all the blessings in my life including this precious time with my nephew, but there is no fairness or reason that I can find, and I am angry. To cope, I find myself meditating upon resilience and acceptance. Acceptance for my anger and my inability to fix things, and resilience to be there for Jamie and my family. To build that resilience, I read, I write, and when I cannot do either any more, I run. The books I have found most comforting of late are:

If you have other recommendations, I’m all ears. I recently read this article on the psychological basis of hope and found this quotation particularly resonant, “According to these theories, hope is related to goals, anticipating obstacles, acceptance, self-worth, social support, and finding meaning in your situation. However, it’s important to note that hope must be rooted in reality, for fear of being false hope. False hope is denial. Hope itself is simply determination.”

I don’t want to have false hope, and walking that line between reality and denial is hard. I find myself determined to believe that there is meaning in this even if I don’t yet understand it. I’m just running, reading, reflecting, and seeking to understand what the greater meaning is.