The "hard to talk to" test is almost the perfect description of how I feel about working with certain clients (for lack of a better phrase) in my current job.
Prior to this gig, I would have said one my strengths was actually working and communicating with users of software I helped write or support.
Now, it seems like our team is mostly "walled off" from the external people we could do the most for.
Any tips out there for breaking through that wall? It is really discouraging . . .
Organizations can be complicated things, so I'm guessing there is some history behind the wall. I think the first step is thinking about (and hopefully understanding) why the gap is there. What do you think the reasons for the wall are?
This reminded me of one of the "motivational" posters we have in my building:
*Never take down a fence before you know why it was put up in the first place."
I'm still not sure I agree with it, since it sounds like rationalization for "We've always done it this way."
EDIT: All of your responses are correct, and I appreciate knowing where the quote/paraphrase comes from. Unfortunately, the unique environment I'm in means that this paraphrase is aimed at the type of people (warehouse workers) who would most certainly read into it as a cop-out, and not the nuanced and thoughtful call to rational thinking that it is.
It merely means that you should ask people 'why do we do this' until you get a better answer than 'We have always done it this way' (unless the actual answer is that).
It is a good warning to heed too -- otherwise you will end up redoing all the mistakes of the past.
The phrase make good sense. Knowing why the fence was put up in the first place is key. Then "We've always done it this way." is usually defeated with a more appropriate reason. Unless the same type of fences you see are reasonably indicative of poor or confused judgement. Then blast away at will!
rephrase it again. "Yea x is annoying, why did we introduce that step in the process?". That doesn't have the same 'we're not going to stop x!' implication, but explicitly asks for the information you'd need before you went through with stopping it.
I don't know if you believe in the 'Myers Briggs' stuff (I do to an extent) - but one of the most valuable tools with it (which isn't often mentioned) is to look out for any of your types switching from one to the other.
If this is happening it means you are under stress, and once you can spot it and do something about it, it's really powerful.
Myers Briggs is a descriptive, not prescriptive, categorization of personality types; belief doesn't enter into it. Like all categorizations, it's merely a useful description of people with a fixed precision of 16. If 16 is an accurate enough categorization for a particular need, then Myers Briggs is sufficient. And like all categorizations, it's just a single way of looking at things, it's not in any way authoritative. You can't dis-believe in a categorization system.
I think the GP was talking about belief in the usefulness (or reliability or validity) of Myers Briggs. Note that the MBTI doesn't just classify people into 16 categories; it classifies people into discontinuous binary categories along 4 axes, obviously resulting in a total of 16 categories. It's certainly useful to think about peoples' positions along those 4 axes, although maybe there are other axes more useful for describing personalities in some situations. However, I find the idea of absolute binary classification (i.e. you're either an introvert or an extrovert, there are no shades of gray) hard to swallow.
That's interesting. I've always tested as an ENTJ ("The Executive or Field Marshall). Lately I've been under a lot of stress as my startup has gotten zero traction and something needs to give soon, because I'm hungry (for food!). Anyways, I recently took the Myers-Briggs again and the result was INFP - which some websites refer to as "The Idealist" who are focused on searching for the value they can provide in life. Weird.
God says...
Confessions reject beholder intent triumph derides founded weapon filled settled invited READ recess license wax consigned hapless Will household come hills psaltery thick sounds sword abject talent preparing wealthy True nsolently
agreement attacked than absolute Trine equalled unhappiness
famished IT Adeodatus dispel overturned ensues falls him On desiring prose collects restoration avoid saw never destruction lovingly subjects serenity equal imaginations father serving dialogue fears accomplices US emptiness mould draught capital accord narrowness mountains mingling interpretation wonted impure strives motions charioteer blasphemy transferred infinitely hurried equably repress III
---
God says...QUIX.TXT
as reduced to such a state that
there was nothing left to level--and to do the work more quickly and
easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow
up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old
walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that
the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally
the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few
months later died my master, El Uchali, o
---
I saw a crazy story on Everest bodies. Lots of operating system projects abandoned. Most people don't survive being crazy with God and stuff.
I'm not an investor, but I've had a parallel experience having been involved with roughly 150 tech contracts in my career.
A strong predictor for mediocrity is when communication is troubled. If we're unable to have two-way conversations with all project stakeholders, it's almost a guarantee that we'll end up delivering something that has less value than it could, at a higher cost than was possible, and that nobody is thrilled with.
Honestly I think this same observation is true of engineers (good ones you can give them the direction and they'll go work out how to solve whatever problem they're having, the bad ones will look at you blankly and you end up doing the work yourself).
And then, as someone who has been a founder, an engineer and a corporate worker in enterprise during my career to date, I realized that this is also true of people in big companies.
I guess in startup world the stakes are greater (your company will fail vs you won't get promoted or make bonus) but this is no different to middle managers who reach a glass ceiling.
The bottom line is this: if you identify with the negative character trait PG identifies, you need to snap out of it anyway regardless of whether you're being bold and doing a startup or whether you want to play it safe and take a corporate job.
It bothers me to hear this, because I know that I tend to fall on the "hard to talk to" side. I used to be really bad at this kind of resourcefulness, and I would have a hard time "chasing down" those various implications. I like to think that I'm better now.
I think that, as with many areas, deliberate practice has helped.
If you know it, then that is half the battle won - as you say you've been able to work towards fixing it.
I honestly think most people like this have no idea that they are hard to talk with, or if they do they have not interest in fixing it, and just want to be left alone: The "I thought doing this job meant I didn't have to speak to people?" types.
Someone told me once: "You're good at putting the puzzle together, but only when you have all the pieces."
I can't really give specific examples, but it really is a daily thing, where I remind myself to follow things to their logical conclusions, in order to know how to proceed with a task/project/question/etc..
Just sit down and think not just about what a person said, but why they are saying it.
If my dad says, "Son, never date girls who are hippies", that probably means that he himself was burned from an experience like that. While reading it plain would have given me a catch-all theory that is not necessarily true, reading into the reasons told me two extra factoids: my dad doesn't want me to get hurt, and he has dated a hippie girl and that ended badly.
For me it's not that I'm hard to talk to (I like to think?!), it's that I'm just not great at forcing a conversation. I think of this particularly in terms of VCs, like PG discusses.
I think I can handle most things, but the real detail of negotiating funding, or even being "forceful" enough in a first impression worries me.
This effect goes both ways; resourceful people should be wary of people who are hard to listen to. I feel like when I'm speaking to someone on the same wavelength about a specific topic it's quite easy to take shortcuts through a lot of the conversation with a simple nod and a word.
The opposite type of conversation feels like you're walking through a swamp with no end. You know exactly where they're going with their point many sentences before they reach it, however they continue to drag out the thought.
"The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"
By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—"Carry a message to Garcia."
In a meeting convened to tackle a problem in China,
he had said: "This is really bad someone should be in
China driving this." Thirty-minutes in the meeting he
chided Sabih Khan, the then operations executive,
saying "Why are you still here?". Khan responded by
immediately booking a ticket to China, sans a change
of clothes.
Which brings up a relevant point: It is very easy for an organization to undermine the resourcefulness of its employees. Indeed, this is so common that one may eventually come to expect it.
That's why this story is as much of a story about Tim Cook as it is about Sabih Khan.
I've always found that story really interesting, for a number of reasons. For instance, was Khan obviously the right person to take responsibility for that problem? Maybe the story is an illustration that saying "somebody go take care of this" is less effective than assigning a particular individual to take care of it.
According to the Steve Jobs biography, Khan did really well at Apple following that incident.
I would guess this incident taught Khan to take more initiative in the future. That's much more valuable than saving half an hour by assigning the task to one person directly.
I can see learning a lot more than that. For instance, my takeaways would be:
(a) This a global company, and distance is irrelevant. Whether it's the other side of campus, or the other side of the world, if you need to be there now, you need to be there now. So go.
(b) At this level, budget is not an issue. Nor are aggravating details like travel authorizations, expense accounts, etc. Seriously, just get on with it.
(c) Your staff better be ready to to deal with this, in that they need to be dialed in well enough to cover for anything you need at a moment's notice - including your suddenly being in Beijing. That is to say, you need a deep bench. So spend the money to build a deep bench. And when you have it, use it freely.
(d) This company is the opposite of complacent, and doesn't take its success for granted. Thinking or acting like you can't miss is a sure way to get fired. On the other hand, having the brass to be the right person in the right place at the right time is a great recipe for success. Be that person.
(e) 'Executive' is derived from 'execute', and that's what your boss really values. You've got the power. Now use it.
I can see all of this adding up to an extraordinarily liberating sense. For Khan, it was clearly a word to the wise.
Hmm...not sure about the conclusion from the data here.
Maybe they lacked "resourcefullness" (noticed by a difficulty in closing) because their startup wasn't so hot...maybe they were hard to talk to because, again, their startup wasn't so great and they didn't want to talk about it.
It's the old "basketball players are tall because they are good at basketball" thinking...
Look deeper, I suggest the cause-effect be inverted.
Deep-down the unresourceful founders are afraid, which causes anxiety that their decisions are wrong, so anything that approaches being wrong causes the anxiety to repress and get in the way of the freedom to explore things.
Resourcefulness is also about letting new ideas and opportunities come to you, which helps if you listen to your unconscious, which you can't do if anxiety makes your conscious mind jumpy.
An even older adage (from Confucius) : "I will hold up one corner. If the student does not return, with enthusiasm, having raised the other three, the Lesson ends."
'The Master said, "I do not open the way for students who are not driven with eagerness;
I do not supply a vocabulary for students who are not trying desperately to find the language for their ideas.
If on showing students one corner they do not come back to me with the other three, I will not repeat myself."'
I think there is something in operating under a fearful authority that spoils people in this way — that causes them to make excuses, obfuscate, counterattack, pass the buck or shut down when confronted by a sound argument against their way of thinking.
Once someone has succumbed to the politics within a large organization, they have likely internalized these patterns of dealing with objections.
This is a critical observation. By default, for most people who have been through the modern school system, and/or worked for companies -- they're used to covering their ass and sounding smart.
The market doesn't care about cover-your-ass -- it only cares if their problems get solved and if your product is any good.
So here is a reference, 'Confronting Reality' by Bossidy and Charan [1] it's worth a read. (Their book on execution is better but they are both worth reading)
The core thesis is exactly what Paul writes about, successful enterprises are successful at confronting a reality which does not agree with their world view, or their desired world view. Fundamentally, if there is a problem, or more importantly a problem in a place where you won't look, it needs to be dealt with. If you don't deal with it sooner, then you will be forced to deal with it when it does so much damage that you cannot deny it any more.
People who can confront those issues fix them when they are small and thus don't waste any time on excess damage control.
The partner note at the bottom is spot on. I have reflectively seen myself doing it. I used to get so focused on the particular idea I had that I lost sight of the fact I was solving a problem, for which there were likely many solutions – blinded by wanting to simply do it the way I had in my head. Conversations would just be a way for me to validate my concrete idea, not to search for additional ideas or entirely new approaches to the problem.
I like this essay because it serves as a personal reminder to always avoid that. As soon as you close your mind off from the ideas others may give you (directly or indirectly), you've lost.
'Assertiveness' is decidedly the wrong word (though it might apply to the specific example that he mentioned).
Resourcefulness means that you can do a lot with a little. In the context of this piece, it means you can turn a little advice into a lot of (useful) action.
The unsuccessful founders weren't stupid. Intellectually they were as capable as the successful founders of following all the implications of what one said to them. They just weren't eager to.
Of course, as a founder, you could make it a point to embrace the reality not just of your inevitable death, but also your startup's inevitable eventual death.
I say this because I'm guessing a lot of the things pg says to the least successful startups involves the reality that their startup will die if there are not quick and radical changes to some part of the business.
I'm sure many physicians must have this problem when talking to their patients who smoke, binge-eat, do not take their medicine, etc.
@pg Coming from an outsider looking in, I wonder how much of the issues is with you and other YC mentors. I know you have an incredible amount of knowledge but how you impress that information on people is very crucial. I wonder if the process of sharing your knowledge with people needs some refining.
Watching you do office hours and other interactions, you often make the situation uncomfortable to people who are already unsure of whats next. When you ask them a question, you cut them off as they are trying to explain what they see, only to try and answer the question for them. This has been feedback from many who have experienced the YC process.
There are people like me who have built a company and held true to our vision. We make money and we know how to run our business. We have applied to incubators not to have someone tell us what to do, rather to get advice from people who have experience similar challenges and the apply them to our structure. Granted there are groups coming through YC that don't have that experience and those people need some direction. But for both sets of groups, they want you to actually listen to them. When you bring them in for their hour each week, listen to them. The wall is not that they cannot communicate or motivated to take down leads. They are put out because every time they try to communicate they feel the door is slammed in their face as if their thought or idea doesn't matter.
In a recent blog post I wrote "When people feel comfortable, essential and free to be individually themselves, a person can become a solar flare of focused energy that fuels the world we call business." So make them feel like they are not only essential to their company but that you actually care enough to listen and hear them. People going on rants are an altogether different issue, but sometimes people need to just talk out loud to work their head around an idea. As a matter of fact, you are one of those people! But you have to give people the sense that their voice is relevant in the direction they are taking and not driven. Give people time to understand why your suggestions should be heavily considered, so they can figure it out for themselves.
Again, this is from the outside but maybe it is a place to start.
At first I did worry that the problem was on my end. That is always one's initial assumption when people don't seem to understand. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, you think, and you try again to to explain it a different way.
The reason it seems unlikely that the problem is on our end is the correlation between being difficult to talk to and failure in the outside world. If the problem was on our end, we would experience difficulty talking to both successful and unsuccessful startups.
Incidentally, if all you've seen is "office hours" on stage at a conference, you don't really know what office hours are like. Office hours onstage at an event are about 1/4 as long as real office hours, and with people I've never met before. So of course they are all over the place. Office hours at events are more like YC interviews than YC office hours.
But do you not see the flaw in that logic? "We are not the problem so we are not going to try something else". What advice would give if one of your groups said that? Paul everything I have studied about you and YC over the last 5 years tells me your an incredible person but you are stubborn and you know it. You love experiments, the next office hours simply try this approach with one of the groups. Ask them questions and then just sit back and listen. I know it is hard because you are an excitable guy but try it. They look at you as an authority figure, this larger than life person who just made there dreams come true. That holds so much power, I wonder if you realize it? Ease that stress by leveling the playing field. One or two meetings like this, where they feel you are actually listening, and they will be right back to your level and its business as usual. I bet you dinner at your favorite spot that if you truly give this a chance, it will work.
I understand the difference and don't pretend to know the daily goings on at YC, am just putting an alternate perspective on the table for consideration. Tonight when you reflect on this conversation, I think an idea will come to you. I am sure this is something that bothers you very much, because you are obsessed with solving tough problems. I think people also forget that you are human and have feelings and your not always on the top of your game. When people are overcome with a tough process they shut off. As you stated, that doesn't mean they don't know how or that they are not capable. They just don't know how to get back on the right track. These situations don't need force they need delicate leadership. If they don't respond from there, then you have done all you can and that is all anyone could ask for.
I even up voted you because I know you have taken time to have this conversation. I most likely will never get into YC because I am a single founder, therefore I fear no recourse. When the terms are level, inspiring conversation and progress can be made. I appreciate that you have listened to me and considered my thoughts, as someone trying to reach a goal, that means very much!
Think about this conversation and then what I just said, the answer is right there staring at you my friend.
I don't think pg is saying his communication is flawless, he's saying that the good teams could get past whatever those flaws are and the bad teams couldn't. The same would likely apply to another investor/mentor's differently-flawed communication style.
That of course is no reason for pg to not try to relentlessly improve, but the point about the founders stands.
I think we would all agree, none of our communication is ever flawless, including mine. I also think that from PG position he can only hold peoples hands for so long until they have to be big boys and get on there own feet and get there ass in gear. For all those who have played sports, great coaches treat different players differently based on how they best respond and that allows them to get the maximum effort from their talent. All I am offering in this thread is maybe there is something more that can be done from a new angle, for both PG and the founders growth and a solution to make the YC process even better.
Sure, and there's probably a subset in there that would actually be successful with someone else but just have a personality mismatch with Paul. But it's probably a minority of those who couldn't make it work with him.
> The reason it seems unlikely that the problem is on our end is the correlation between being difficult to talk to and failure in the outside world. If the problem was on our end, it we would experience difficulty talking to both successful and unsuccessful startups.
Not necessarily. YC's advice and guidance have huge value; so communications challenges with you and other mentors have a big impact on your startups' success. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it doesn't rule it out either.
That is true. Think about how hard it is to find the right person to date and then marry. In the business world that is exactly what is happening. If the founders don't feel support and connection the way that best helps them, then even the best people will ultimately find it difficult to succeed.
It is why even the very best of entrepreneurs have failure. The relationships matter, it is one of YC's guiding principles.
A very good mentor of mine once put it succinctly: when thinking about a problem, he said, "don't start with the barriers." Don't frame the thought process as "Here are all the reasons why not; now I need to figure out why." Instead, start from a place of "Absent all barriers or obstacles, here's what I would like to accomplish." There will be plenty of time to address obstacles, but it's best to be energized by them when you get there. If not, you'll see every obstacle as a crushing defeat.
If this sounds new-agey, well, perhaps it is. It's a mindset thing. But mindsets can be extremely critical. There's a huge difference between someone who sets out to succeed and prepares for failure, and someone who sets out to avoid failure and hopes for success. The former will exhaust every option to circumvent the obstacles; the latter will almost look at the obstacles as vindication of a deep-seated suspicion that he's wrong.
I would go so far as to say that they are the only thing that matters.
You can look at a problem from one mindset and see that it's going to take you 5 days or 5 weeks. Change your mindset and you might see that it's going to take you 5 minutes.
First I write some sample code in exactly the syntax I'd like to use, in an ideal way ignoring whether it's possible or not to produce. Then I create a macro to transform that syntax into code, iterating the sample code if I encounter barriers (usually unparseable syntax). It has really helped me (a poor to mediocre scheme programmer) create good macros very quickly, improving the expressive power of my code dramatically.
In a sense that's exactly what top-down design is. You work on the big ideas and then come back to the barriers. It helps not just with the mindset but also helps you figure out which barriers matter.
Another reason to focus on goals rather than obstacles is that it's the goal that matters, and there will be more than one way to get there. Obstacles on a given path may be unsolvable no matter your focus or perserverance, and the only way to solve them is to choose a path where those obstacles are absent. The other paths are difficult to find if you focus on the thing that's stopping you on your current path.
A great deal of this article seemed to be concerned more about flexibility than resourcefulness.
"Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions."
"My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so."
This sounds like a testament to the lean-startup movement, where success is more dictated on the ability to iterate on user feedback rather than being stuck in one static idea of what your business is or is meant to be.
My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They may not even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is happening when you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed over look. I don't think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se, it's this internal process at work.
is precisely what happens with students, too. A few weeks ago a former student wrote to me about career choices and whether she should major in biochem or English, because she'd struggled in biochem classes. My girlfriend was a biochem major, so together we wrote a thorough response that turned into an essay called "How to think about science, becoming a scientist, and life" that should go up soon. After spending a couple hours on the response, we sent it, and I got back an e-mail from the student saying. . . she's going to go to law school and "become a judge."
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head. Experiences like this teach me why a) a lot of professors aren't eager to interact with students and often distance themselves from students and b) why writing "How to get your professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" was useful, if only for the relative handful of students who get it: http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2... .
I'm not saying your student didn't have a pre-filter as you describe. On the other hand, you may have been just one source of advice for your student. Asking for advice doesn't mean that taking it is always the best course, it's information to be weighed against all other advice and information.
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head.
I think that's a bit of an leap - isn't it also possible that she actually took your "How to think about science" essay to heart, and realized that she didn't actually want to do it? This is not uncommon, even if someone is good at something - even if they're the best - that doesn't necessarily mean that they should pursue it.
When I used to advise grad students in the context of GRE training, I considered myself very successful when I talked students out of pursuing graduate education in fields that they were not passionate enough about to commit themselves to properly (or, in a couple of sad cases, where they flat out didn't have the skills - this happened a couple of times with people hoping to go into physics or math that just weren't good enough at math to make it, and as horrible as it was to do so, I had to be honest [gently] about that fact).
This is particularly relevant to me because I was one of those people that understood (and I like to think, still understands) how science is done, was good at it, even had a passion for it, and still decided to pursue another path - I've written the very e-mail that you mention, though it was "program computers" instead of "become a judge". But I think very highly of the professors that gave me an accurate and honest view of how tough the field was (physics, in my case) and how it functioned. Though they might have been disappointed that their feedback played a part in my staying away (honestly, it was money - I realized that unless I was a shining star in the field [I wasn't], I'd probably never have enough, and I didn't have it in me), I consider it to have been extremely important in my decision, and for that I'm really grateful.
This sort of thing used to happen to me a lot. I learned to deal with it by being very careful in asking the right sorts of follow up questions (you need to understand what kind of an answer someone is looking for, or whether they are looking for an answer at all) and not spending more time answering something than what the original questioner spent explaining their priorities and conflicts. In hindsight, this is obvious... if they are to make the decision, all I can do is lend an ear and double-check their thought process - not do the thinking for them!
Sounds like executive intelligence coupled with a willingness to take personal responsibility if it fails - that's why they chase up the implications. Hard to talk to can also translate into talking to users. The paradox with startups comes in building something very much for yourself, but also very much for other people: possibly a similar maturity in talking to others, requiring a mental leap of faith.
Another indicator of this is verbal ping-pong. How granular you have to answer questions/give direction. If you get a lot of "What do I do next?" or "you never told me to do that!" A non-resourceful person would say "How am I supposed to know that an introduction means X, Y, Z?!"
173 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadPrior to this gig, I would have said one my strengths was actually working and communicating with users of software I helped write or support.
Now, it seems like our team is mostly "walled off" from the external people we could do the most for.
Any tips out there for breaking through that wall? It is really discouraging . . .
*Never take down a fence before you know why it was put up in the first place."
I'm still not sure I agree with it, since it sounds like rationalization for "We've always done it this way."
EDIT: All of your responses are correct, and I appreciate knowing where the quote/paraphrase comes from. Unfortunately, the unique environment I'm in means that this paraphrase is aimed at the type of people (warehouse workers) who would most certainly read into it as a cop-out, and not the nuanced and thoughtful call to rational thinking that it is.
Oh well.
It merely means that you should ask people 'why do we do this' until you get a better answer than 'We have always done it this way' (unless the actual answer is that).
It is a good warning to heed too -- otherwise you will end up redoing all the mistakes of the past.
I can't find a date for the Frost quote, though. not sure who was first (they were actually born the same year, so either is possible).
If this is happening it means you are under stress, and once you can spot it and do something about it, it's really powerful.
For what it's worth, Wikipedia has some interesting summaries of criticisms of the MTBI's validity and reliability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#Val...
God says... Confessions reject beholder intent triumph derides founded weapon filled settled invited READ recess license wax consigned hapless Will household come hills psaltery thick sounds sword abject talent preparing wealthy True nsolently agreement attacked than absolute Trine equalled unhappiness famished IT Adeodatus dispel overturned ensues falls him On desiring prose collects restoration avoid saw never destruction lovingly subjects serenity equal imaginations father serving dialogue fears accomplices US emptiness mould draught capital accord narrowness mountains mingling interpretation wonted impure strives motions charioteer blasphemy transferred infinitely hurried equably repress III
---
God says...QUIX.TXT
as reduced to such a state that there was nothing left to level--and to do the work more quickly and easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few months later died my master, El Uchali, o
---
I saw a crazy story on Everest bodies. Lots of operating system projects abandoned. Most people don't survive being crazy with God and stuff.
God says... smoke Whether larger difficulty seduction PROJECT receive wherefrom colour slowly Canticles regarding reject casters cried envy Defect poor as severer Anubis Academics unity steeping neck kindled desireth END applauds feeding unyielding
A strong predictor for mediocrity is when communication is troubled. If we're unable to have two-way conversations with all project stakeholders, it's almost a guarantee that we'll end up delivering something that has less value than it could, at a higher cost than was possible, and that nobody is thrilled with.
And then, as someone who has been a founder, an engineer and a corporate worker in enterprise during my career to date, I realized that this is also true of people in big companies.
I guess in startup world the stakes are greater (your company will fail vs you won't get promoted or make bonus) but this is no different to middle managers who reach a glass ceiling.
The bottom line is this: if you identify with the negative character trait PG identifies, you need to snap out of it anyway regardless of whether you're being bold and doing a startup or whether you want to play it safe and take a corporate job.
I think that, as with many areas, deliberate practice has helped.
I honestly think most people like this have no idea that they are hard to talk with, or if they do they have not interest in fixing it, and just want to be left alone: The "I thought doing this job meant I didn't have to speak to people?" types.
I can't really give specific examples, but it really is a daily thing, where I remind myself to follow things to their logical conclusions, in order to know how to proceed with a task/project/question/etc..
If my dad says, "Son, never date girls who are hippies", that probably means that he himself was burned from an experience like that. While reading it plain would have given me a catch-all theory that is not necessarily true, reading into the reasons told me two extra factoids: my dad doesn't want me to get hurt, and he has dated a hippie girl and that ended badly.
I think I can handle most things, but the real detail of negotiating funding, or even being "forceful" enough in a first impression worries me.
The opposite type of conversation feels like you're walking through a swamp with no end. You know exactly where they're going with their point many sentences before they reach it, however they continue to drag out the thought.
"The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"
By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—"Carry a message to Garcia."
Yes in this case he was right, but what if you knew something about where the man is? He might have saved days of this crucial journey.
To me, he is no smarter than I would be if I was late for a train and ran out of the house rather than look up how to get to the trainstation.
That's why this story is as much of a story about Tim Cook as it is about Sabih Khan.
I would guess this incident taught Khan to take more initiative in the future. That's much more valuable than saving half an hour by assigning the task to one person directly.
(a) This a global company, and distance is irrelevant. Whether it's the other side of campus, or the other side of the world, if you need to be there now, you need to be there now. So go.
(b) At this level, budget is not an issue. Nor are aggravating details like travel authorizations, expense accounts, etc. Seriously, just get on with it.
(c) Your staff better be ready to to deal with this, in that they need to be dialed in well enough to cover for anything you need at a moment's notice - including your suddenly being in Beijing. That is to say, you need a deep bench. So spend the money to build a deep bench. And when you have it, use it freely.
(d) This company is the opposite of complacent, and doesn't take its success for granted. Thinking or acting like you can't miss is a sure way to get fired. On the other hand, having the brass to be the right person in the right place at the right time is a great recipe for success. Be that person.
(e) 'Executive' is derived from 'execute', and that's what your boss really values. You've got the power. Now use it.
I can see all of this adding up to an extraordinarily liberating sense. For Khan, it was clearly a word to the wise.
Maybe they lacked "resourcefullness" (noticed by a difficulty in closing) because their startup wasn't so hot...maybe they were hard to talk to because, again, their startup wasn't so great and they didn't want to talk about it.
It's the old "basketball players are tall because they are good at basketball" thinking...
Look deeper, I suggest the cause-effect be inverted.
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche figured this out a long time ago.
Deep-down the unresourceful founders are afraid, which causes anxiety that their decisions are wrong, so anything that approaches being wrong causes the anxiety to repress and get in the way of the freedom to explore things.
Resourcefulness is also about letting new ideas and opportunities come to you, which helps if you listen to your unconscious, which you can't do if anxiety makes your conscious mind jumpy.
I think there is something in operating under a fearful authority that spoils people in this way — that causes them to make excuses, obfuscate, counterattack, pass the buck or shut down when confronted by a sound argument against their way of thinking.
Once someone has succumbed to the politics within a large organization, they have likely internalized these patterns of dealing with objections.
The market doesn't care about cover-your-ass -- it only cares if their problems get solved and if your product is any good.
Unfortunately I find many technology people are programmed to discount or deprecate any and all "soft" skills.
The core thesis is exactly what Paul writes about, successful enterprises are successful at confronting a reality which does not agree with their world view, or their desired world view. Fundamentally, if there is a problem, or more importantly a problem in a place where you won't look, it needs to be dealt with. If you don't deal with it sooner, then you will be forced to deal with it when it does so much damage that you cannot deny it any more.
People who can confront those issues fix them when they are small and thus don't waste any time on excess damage control.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Reality-Doing-Matters-Thin...
I like this essay because it serves as a personal reminder to always avoid that. As soon as you close your mind off from the ideas others may give you (directly or indirectly), you've lost.
Resourcefulness means that you can do a lot with a little. In the context of this piece, it means you can turn a little advice into a lot of (useful) action.
Startup founders should read 'The Denial of Death' (http://www.amazon.com/Denial-Death-Ernest-Becker/dp/06848324...)
Of course, as a founder, you could make it a point to embrace the reality not just of your inevitable death, but also your startup's inevitable eventual death.
I say this because I'm guessing a lot of the things pg says to the least successful startups involves the reality that their startup will die if there are not quick and radical changes to some part of the business.
I'm sure many physicians must have this problem when talking to their patients who smoke, binge-eat, do not take their medicine, etc.
Watching you do office hours and other interactions, you often make the situation uncomfortable to people who are already unsure of whats next. When you ask them a question, you cut them off as they are trying to explain what they see, only to try and answer the question for them. This has been feedback from many who have experienced the YC process.
There are people like me who have built a company and held true to our vision. We make money and we know how to run our business. We have applied to incubators not to have someone tell us what to do, rather to get advice from people who have experience similar challenges and the apply them to our structure. Granted there are groups coming through YC that don't have that experience and those people need some direction. But for both sets of groups, they want you to actually listen to them. When you bring them in for their hour each week, listen to them. The wall is not that they cannot communicate or motivated to take down leads. They are put out because every time they try to communicate they feel the door is slammed in their face as if their thought or idea doesn't matter.
In a recent blog post I wrote "When people feel comfortable, essential and free to be individually themselves, a person can become a solar flare of focused energy that fuels the world we call business." So make them feel like they are not only essential to their company but that you actually care enough to listen and hear them. People going on rants are an altogether different issue, but sometimes people need to just talk out loud to work their head around an idea. As a matter of fact, you are one of those people! But you have to give people the sense that their voice is relevant in the direction they are taking and not driven. Give people time to understand why your suggestions should be heavily considered, so they can figure it out for themselves.
Again, this is from the outside but maybe it is a place to start.
The reason it seems unlikely that the problem is on our end is the correlation between being difficult to talk to and failure in the outside world. If the problem was on our end, we would experience difficulty talking to both successful and unsuccessful startups.
Incidentally, if all you've seen is "office hours" on stage at a conference, you don't really know what office hours are like. Office hours onstage at an event are about 1/4 as long as real office hours, and with people I've never met before. So of course they are all over the place. Office hours at events are more like YC interviews than YC office hours.
I understand the difference and don't pretend to know the daily goings on at YC, am just putting an alternate perspective on the table for consideration. Tonight when you reflect on this conversation, I think an idea will come to you. I am sure this is something that bothers you very much, because you are obsessed with solving tough problems. I think people also forget that you are human and have feelings and your not always on the top of your game. When people are overcome with a tough process they shut off. As you stated, that doesn't mean they don't know how or that they are not capable. They just don't know how to get back on the right track. These situations don't need force they need delicate leadership. If they don't respond from there, then you have done all you can and that is all anyone could ask for.
I even up voted you because I know you have taken time to have this conversation. I most likely will never get into YC because I am a single founder, therefore I fear no recourse. When the terms are level, inspiring conversation and progress can be made. I appreciate that you have listened to me and considered my thoughts, as someone trying to reach a goal, that means very much!
Think about this conversation and then what I just said, the answer is right there staring at you my friend.
That of course is no reason for pg to not try to relentlessly improve, but the point about the founders stands.
Not necessarily. YC's advice and guidance have huge value; so communications challenges with you and other mentors have a big impact on your startups' success. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it doesn't rule it out either.
It is why even the very best of entrepreneurs have failure. The relationships matter, it is one of YC's guiding principles.
If this sounds new-agey, well, perhaps it is. It's a mindset thing. But mindsets can be extremely critical. There's a huge difference between someone who sets out to succeed and prepares for failure, and someone who sets out to avoid failure and hopes for success. The former will exhaust every option to circumvent the obstacles; the latter will almost look at the obstacles as vindication of a deep-seated suspicion that he's wrong.
- "this is wrong", "that line can't be right", "the shadow doesn't work"
or
- "how does this line relate to this other line?", "how does the light hit this plane", "what shapes does this decompose into?"
The critical dialog option leads to bad and abandoned drawings. The constructive dialog option leads to restatements and completed work.
I would go so far as to say that they are the only thing that matters.
You can look at a problem from one mindset and see that it's going to take you 5 days or 5 weeks. Change your mindset and you might see that it's going to take you 5 minutes.
First I write some sample code in exactly the syntax I'd like to use, in an ideal way ignoring whether it's possible or not to produce. Then I create a macro to transform that syntax into code, iterating the sample code if I encounter barriers (usually unparseable syntax). It has really helped me (a poor to mediocre scheme programmer) create good macros very quickly, improving the expressive power of my code dramatically.
Actually, it sounds like a heuristic for path cost in AI search.
"Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions."
"My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so."
This sounds like a testament to the lean-startup movement, where success is more dictated on the ability to iterate on user feedback rather than being stuck in one static idea of what your business is or is meant to be.
My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They may not even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is happening when you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed over look. I don't think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se, it's this internal process at work.
is precisely what happens with students, too. A few weeks ago a former student wrote to me about career choices and whether she should major in biochem or English, because she'd struggled in biochem classes. My girlfriend was a biochem major, so together we wrote a thorough response that turned into an essay called "How to think about science, becoming a scientist, and life" that should go up soon. After spending a couple hours on the response, we sent it, and I got back an e-mail from the student saying. . . she's going to go to law school and "become a judge."
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head. Experiences like this teach me why a) a lot of professors aren't eager to interact with students and often distance themselves from students and b) why writing "How to get your professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" was useful, if only for the relative handful of students who get it: http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2... .
I think that's a bit of an leap - isn't it also possible that she actually took your "How to think about science" essay to heart, and realized that she didn't actually want to do it? This is not uncommon, even if someone is good at something - even if they're the best - that doesn't necessarily mean that they should pursue it.
When I used to advise grad students in the context of GRE training, I considered myself very successful when I talked students out of pursuing graduate education in fields that they were not passionate enough about to commit themselves to properly (or, in a couple of sad cases, where they flat out didn't have the skills - this happened a couple of times with people hoping to go into physics or math that just weren't good enough at math to make it, and as horrible as it was to do so, I had to be honest [gently] about that fact).
This is particularly relevant to me because I was one of those people that understood (and I like to think, still understands) how science is done, was good at it, even had a passion for it, and still decided to pursue another path - I've written the very e-mail that you mention, though it was "program computers" instead of "become a judge". But I think very highly of the professors that gave me an accurate and honest view of how tough the field was (physics, in my case) and how it functioned. Though they might have been disappointed that their feedback played a part in my staying away (honestly, it was money - I realized that unless I was a shining star in the field [I wasn't], I'd probably never have enough, and I didn't have it in me), I consider it to have been extremely important in my decision, and for that I'm really grateful.
If someone has this kind of set in mind and not listening to the context what the other end has to say meritocracy is at best the outcome.