I like to scroll and read, and come across a lot of nuggets that I think aha, and then forget about. Some things float to the top, and when they do, it’s really important to write them down in a good place because inevitably I’ll forget where to find them.
So today, I went back and retrieved some of these –
https://hbr.org/2023/06/to-build-a-top-performing-team-ask-for-85-effort
Came across this by scrolling through LinkedIn, thanks to the network for highlighting this. You never know how much impact the ripple effect, especially among the lurkers.
By accepting that we don’t have to be “ON” all the time, not 110%, not 200%, which aren’t even mathematically realistic, and knowing that you have some room for errors, downtime, doesn’t change anything and yet changes everything.
I took a business class flight (which sparked a new youtube channel) with my daughter for the first time (a 16-hr flight to put in context), and of course the first thing that came to mind was if the extra cost was worth it. Which brought back to mind another quote I’ve read in James Clear’s Atomic Habits newsletter email –
Sasha Aickin, former CTO at Redfin, shares some financial advice from his grandmother:
“When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it.”
Source: Groupon’s Success Disaster
It comes back to optimizing at 85% or 100%. There will be times when we ‘lose’ money because we didn’t buy something on sale, bought something that didn’t fit, paid for a service not rendered. We can stress about it or accept it, focus on doing better, and spend on items that we actually would enjoy which is a form of optimization.
Power BI (yeah I will tie it back to Power BI :D), is usually enlisted for reports that show optimization. And to optimize this, go beyond the typical metrics and focus on the factors that will make an impact.
