haruki zaemon

I’m sorely tempted to try it out, though I’m not sure how well it would work–we live in a small house, and I’m not sure if I could get away with going to sleep earlier than I do now, then waking up just as everyone else is heading to bed. But I’m intrigued.

For most of human history, people slept in two distinct periods, with an awake period in between known as the “first sleep” and “second sleep”. This pattern was common across cultures until the late 19th century. Experiments on people without electric light found they naturally fell back into a biphasic sleep pattern.

Biphasic sleep appears to have continued from ancient times until the Industrial Revolution such that by the end of the 20th Century, the practice of two sleeps had almost completely disappeared.

Zaria Gorvett for BBC Future:

From as early as 21:00 to 23:00, those fortunate enough to afford them would begin flopping onto mattresses stuffed with straw or rags – alternatively it might have contained feathers, if they were wealthy – ready to sleep for a couple of hours. (At the bottom of the social ladder, people would have to make do with nestling down on a scattering of heather or, worse, a bare earth floor – possibly even without a blanket.)

A couple of hours later, people would begin rousing from this initial slumber. The night-time wakefulness usually lasted from around 23:00 to about 01:00, depending on what time they went to bed. It was not generally caused by noise or other disturbances in the night – and neither was it initiated by any kind of alarm (these were only invented in 1787, by an American man who – somewhat ironically – needed to wake up on time to sell clocks). Instead, the waking happened entirely naturally, just as it does in the morning.

The period of wakefulness that followed was known as “the watch” – and it was a surprisingly useful window in which to get things done. “[The records] describe how people did just about anything and everything after they awakened from their first sleep,” says Ekirch.

I’ve been sitting on some of these for a while and figured I might link to them all at once…

Create time by practicing what you love. Ask yourself: how does doing what I need make time for everything else?

Mental toughness is the wrong approach to performing well under pressure. Mental flexibility is associated with superior performance and better mental health.

We’ve got to look at the conditions that create the outcomes as well as the outcomes themselves. Are people working sustainably to achieve those improvements to conversion or increased revenue?

You might be burned out and not even realise. Just because you have an objectively good life, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to acknowledge your own burnout. (via Warren Seen)

In Australia, workforce burnout is increasing. Meeting performance targets is great, but at what cost?

I promised myself I’d do more of these quick link posts…

CoreWeave is using Nvidia’s H100 GPUs as collateral against $2.3 billion debt. The kicker, it’s a startup backed by Nvidia itself.

Psychiatrists recommend different treatments for their patients than themselves for the same conditions. Another in a long line of similar research findings about medical professionals.

Embarrassed about the state of modern websites and the trend in our industry of de-prioritising product design on the web? Me too!

Performance reviews are no longer popular among big companies like Apple and Microsoft as they do more harm than good. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Ukranian forces are using cardboard drones supplied by an Australian company to attack Russian targets.

(via Ray Grasso)

Culture is behaviour, not words:

Leaders who think organizational culture is a set of concepts attempt to change it using words and concepts – and inevitably fail, because organizational culture is not a set of concepts. It’s a track record.

Create a track record of rewards for those who exhibit the behaviours you want:

If you want your people to be more engaged, change the track record of caring […] to improve teamwork, improve the track record of interaction […] People won’t ask for feedback unless there is a track record of receiving helpful and actionable feedback that doesn’t feel personal.

Go deep on one behaviour at a time:

The trick is to not address all interactions at once – such a generic goal will produce a generic approach that won’t be effective. Instead, begin by picking one type of interaction and working on that. Instead, begin by picking one type of interaction and working on that. […] The more your actions show that in your team there is a good track record, the more people will [behave in the way you want].

Don’t expect change to happen without support:

they must also have the skills to do it in a helpful way that makes [them] want to have more such interactions in the future. This requires you to train and coach them

(via Ray Grasso)

I’m a sucker for a great model. As the saying goes “all models are wong, but some are useful” and this is definitely a useful model, for me.

The focus of a company needs to change as it moves through the lifecycle: Startups should spend cash in order to grow; Growth companies can offer equity; Mature companies can afford to finance growth through debt; and companies in decline should be looking to return cash to shareholders.

People with vested interests in making off like bandits will tell you they can give your company a face lift, and that you can be young again, but you shouldn’t fight the lifecycle. If you do, you’ll end up destroying whatever value remains.

I also think there’s some interesting connections with an article I linked to recently on why companies stop innovating.

I don’t quite know what to say other than, 🤯

David Dale:

Stoudt wrote to Johnson and Johnson suggesting that they combine strips of cotton duck with a mild adhesive to create a tape that would be both durable and easily peeled […] and in 1943 its Revolite division started production on rolls of Duck Tape, designed to be ripped off by hand, not cut with scissors. In the 1950s, workmen started wrapping Duck Tape around the points where pipes joined together, and some punster starting calling it duct tape. The confusion would not have arisen if they had just christened it Stoudt Tape.

(via Warren)

Dr. Christina Maslach discussing her many decades of research showing that job burnout is a response to chronic workplace stress that results in feelings of exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy:

in various ways there’s more destructive competition. I cannot tell you how many people talk about the socially toxic workplace where you don’t trust anybody because they’re going to try and throw you under the bus and get rid of you as competition. You don’t dare ever say “I’m tired,” or “I don’t know the answer to this problem,” or “I wish I had some advice,” or “I’m feeling depressed” because you’d be showing your weak side.

What was previously a short-term operating model has now become the norm:

the “burnout shop” was really a start-up, and it was a bit was like a sprint, you know, it was a short-term kind of thing, maybe a couple of years. It was basically “We own you. You don’t have a life. When we call you come, and you’re going to work and work until you have nothing left to give.” But then you’ll have stock options, or some other thing, and “you’ll get a lot of money, and you’ll be fine.” So that was the trade-off. Interestingly, I think we’re seeing more and more is that as a business model.

There is often an assumption that people who burnout did so because they are fundamentally no good:

I’ve talked to managers and CEOs who say burnout is wonderful, and I say why do you think that? And they say “because when people burnout, it means they weren’t so good, they’re not working well now, and they’re quitting saving me the job of having to fire them. It’s very good. It cleans the house and I don’t have to spend much time on it”

However, Dr. Maslach’s research demonstrates that while resilience plays a role, it’s important to address workplace factors, and improve the fit between employees and their jobs such as increasing control, reward, and community.

In one example, an organisation addressed issues like fairness which led to positive changes in burnout levels over time.

I was in two minds whether I should publish this as a link, or as part of a more comprehensive post on my journey with Participatory Leadership. I’m a big fan of Chris Corrigan’s work and opted to let it stand on its own, as it deserves.

The talk provides a great insight into one of the ways Art of Hosting practices bring structure to the complex adaptive system that is a modern organisation, while allowing for the chaos that is inherent in our world, and that is needed for innovation and creativity to emerge.

most of the work we need to do in the world, confronting questions we don’t have answers to, is tricky because chaos is always coming in and eroding the well-ordered, predictable mindset […] this approach helps us stay in the space of bringing enough order to a project, or a meeting, or an initiative, but not so much that we choke the life out of it. We allow the chaos to come in, and we discover new things because that’s where innovation comes from.

Chris also introduces an acronym I really like, Participatory, Learning, Useful, Multi-modal, and Emergent (PLUME):

• Is it participatory? If you’re doing most of it alone, probably not. These are collaborative and collective practices.
• Are you learning? If you’re just delivering content, probably not. Ensure there is shared learning and growth.
• Is it useful? If you’re all sitting around just talking, probably not. Talking is fine, but it should be in service of, and meaningfully move us towards some strategic outcome.
• Is it multi-modal? If you’re not engaging people in different ways, probably not. Harness people’s diverse skills and abilities, and do so in different ways.
• Is it emergent? If you already know the answer, probably not. Engagement theatre benefits nobody. Have everyone leave with something that nobody brought into the room initially.

There’s plenty more good stuff in here, and I encourage you to hear it directly from Chris.

UPDATE: Be sure to also read this PDF on the process.

I’ve wanted to read this for a while. Perhaps it’s time to bump it up the list.

Check out Ray’s review to whet your appetite:

I took away loads of things to try and recommend the book.

Below are some of the salient points that stood out to me.

[…]

There are quite a few [tools and techniques] in the book. Here are some that resonated with me.

[…]

When we put too much focus on data, it feeds our natural craving for certainty through cognitive biases like confirmation bias. A decision-driven approach treats decisions, not data, as the focal point in order to directly challenge biases.

While data is important when used properly, it often becomes a filter to find what we want to believe, rather than what we need to understand.

The Uncertainty Project:

The pursuit of information is often in service of confirmation bias, not learning or understanding - but this isn’t done maliciously. It’s a natural, self-reinforcing tendency to confirm our existing beliefs and feel certain in our decisions.

The idea that perfect information is out there is an empty pursuit - it’s chasing the illusion of certainty.

Illusory certainty may very well be the current epidemic of modern strategy - which is likely why decision intelligence, as a combination of modern data science and decision science, presents a compelling evolution of the data-driven mindset.

Sketchplanations:

The name “The Chihuahua Syndrome” is from Edward Tufte and refers to messy data from variations in spelling or input—Chihuahua is easy to misspell. The quality of your data matters—errors can creep in anywhere, particularly when people enter data. Garbage in, garbage out.

Major tech companies invested heavily in AI but are seeing little return. Microsoft spent $10 billion on AI for its Bing search engine, but Bing’s market share remains low. Meanwhile, ChatGPT’s website traffic is shrinking, contrary to expectations for a breakthrough technology.

Legal challenges around copyright and privacy are mounting, and consumer demand for AI appears to be low and declining due to issues like errors, offensive content, and lack of transparency. On the other hand, AI is succeeding at “shamming, spamming & scamming.”

I finished reading Wool, the first in the Silo trilogy.

I really enjoyed it. I also wish I had read it before I’d watched the Apple TV series. Not only was the book better (unsurprisingly), I found the differences distracting. Thankfully, the first (and as of writing, only) season of the TV series only covers the first half of the book, so I enjoyed the second half even more.

Now, I’m onto book 2, Shift.

Whereas intelligence involves technical abilities, smarts involves social and emotional skills.

People with smarts are good at understanding different perspectives, accepting uncertainty, and telling compelling stories rather than just presenting facts.

Smarts, not just intelligence, are important for real-world success and allow people to navigate the complexities of human relationships and behaviours.

Morgan Housel:

A doctor once told me there’s a difference between an expert in medicine and an expert in healthcare.

An expert in medicine knows all the right answers out of the textbook. They can diagnose with precision and are up to date on all the latest treatments.

An expert in healthcare understands that medicine from the patient’s view is intimidating, confusing, expensive, and time-consuming. Nothing you diagnose or prescribe matters until you’ve addressed that reality with patients, because even a perfect solution makes no difference to the patient who doesn’t follow it.

Nothing has changed, seriously. Drucker had it figured out.

Boo!

Efforts to replicate the material have pieced together the puzzle of why it displayed superconducting-like behaviours. […] The conclusion dashes hopes that LK-99 — a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus and oxygen — would prove to be the first superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Instead, studies have shown that impurities in the material — in particular, copper sulfide — were responsible for sharp drops in its electrical resistivity and a display of partial levitation over a magnet, properties similar to those exhibited by superconductors.

No standardized processes or project management tools, and it was very difficult to get approval for new ideas or products.

Development cycles were tied to quarterly goals, resulting in long lead times.

There was surprisingly little automation and a lot of manual work.

Rather than innovating themselves, most attention was paid to copying competitors once they demonstrated successful new features.

While working at a large tech company can be valuable for career growth and working on impactful products, you may need to adjust your expectations, as the reality will likely differ from your idealized views.

Drumpf aside, I found this article fascinating.

Pope Hat:

you can think of an overt act as a sort of evidentiary requirement, and overt acts as evidence of a criminal conspiracy, not as the crime themselves. These days the custom is for prosecutors to use the overt act requirement to tell the story of the case at length in the indictment. Prosecutors also use it as a gambit to make it more likely that evidence will be admitted at trial (it’s a strong case to admit evidence of something if you’ve called it out as an overt act), and often try to connect every defendant to an overt act, even though that’s not a requirement, just so the defendant can’t say at trial “look, I didn’t even commit an overt act.”

Tips for rebuilding trust in a relationship when communication has broken down:

• Acknowledge that discussions will be difficult, speak tentatively, check for understanding, and engineer positive interactions.
• Seek to understand other perspectives rather than make assumptions is important, as is giving the other person credit for their efforts even if the communication is imperfect.
• The goal is to have more positive interactions than negative ones in order to repair trust over time through compassionate and clarifying discussions.

Justin Warren:

A classic paper called Chicken Chicken Chicken.

Well worth watching Doug Zongker’s presentation of the article here.

I recommend citing it in footnotes whenever possible. It’s like requiring no brown M&Ms.