Future
Long Term Thinking | NFX
While most founders adopt a "What's Important Now" mindset to launch their startup, "great" leaders do something different at the same time: they are obsessed with what will endure 10 or 50 years from today! Here are highlights of an insightful interview with Kevin Kelly, legendary tech thinker ...
"I think that taking a longer view of things can set you apart. What happens when you take a longer view is you think less about things like competitors, and you think more about civilizational scale, infrastructural necessities, and feeding the network. You focus on all of these other things that, in the long run, will be more important, and may liberate you in having an approach that others don’t .... One of my missions is to be a good ancestor — to try to incorporate more of a long-term view. This is counter in some ways to the mission of a young startup, which is often battling for survival."
nfx.com
Leadership
Empathy + Assertiveness in Negotiation | Harvard PON
In negotiation, a fundamental challenge is to strike an effective balance between empathy and assertiveness. Empathy involves effectively understanding your counterpart's perspective and expressing their viewpoint in a nonjudgmental manner. Assertiveness is the ability to express and advocate for your own needs, interests, and perspectives.
Ready yourself for the assertive component of negotiation by practicing your story - saying out loud what you want, why, and how you can help the other side meet their needs. Revise and rehearse your story until you think it's strong and persuasive. Then make a list of your key points so that you will be able to recall them when the negotiation begins.
To practice and display empathy at the negotiating table, ask your counterpart to present their view before you present yours. Listen without judgment, and make it clear that your understanding does not necessarily indicate agreement!
harvard.edu
Engineering
Puncture Proof Tires | Interesting Engineering
Puncture-proof tires are a big yet challenging product innovation that French tire maker, Michelin, has been working on since 2005. After decades of research, testing, and learning, Michelin will launch puncture-proof tires in 2024 that are airless, rechargeable, connected, and sustainable.
More than three billion tires are produced annually around the world. Sooner or later most of these tires end up in landfills where they sometimes catch fire and discharge toxic fumes. Michelin's puncture-proof tires are manufactured with more eco-friendly materials and designed for a longer, greener, more durable life cycle.
interestingengineering.com
People
When Does It Make Sense to Have Mixed-Mode Meetings? | MIT Sloan
While organizations prepare for return of workers to offices, many senior leaders question how to lead a reassembled workforce when not everyone is together.
MIT research shows that bringing people together adds value when there is deep teamwork — that is, work that requires collaboration (meaning the deeper integration of knowledge), innovation, acculturation (which requires face-to-face connection to develop shared understanding), and dedication (meaning interpersonal bonding and commitment to a shared purpose).
Based on these findings, we envision a future where geographically dispersed teams will meet and engage periodically when deep teamwork is required. They otherwise will operate virtually when doing the shallow teamwork of coordination, information sharing, and straightforward decision-making.
Here are five principles to help leaders decide when it’s best to hold meetings with both co-located and virtual participants.
- Avoid mixed-mode meetings unless there is a strong foundation of trust and connection for the team. 2. Convene mixed-mode meetings only when having some people together physically creates business value, not just because of proximity. 3. Enable virtual participants to have a powerful presence in the meetings. 4. Build time into mixed-mode meeting schedules for informal connection between the in-person and remote participants. 5. Recognize the risks of creating a two-tier team, and strive to mitigate them.
Science
Welcome People Who Question Your Beliefs | Oxford
A new paper in the Journal of the European Economic Association, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that we tend to listen to people who tell us things we'd like to believe and ignore people who tell us things we'd prefer not to be true. As a result, like-minded people tend to make one another more biased when they exchange beliefs with one another.
While it would be reasonable to think that people form decisions based on evidence and experience alone, research confirms decision makers believe things in part because they would like such things to be true.
"This experiment supports a lot of popular suspicions about why biased beliefs might be getting worse in the age of the internet," said Ryan Oprea, one of the paper's authors. "We now get a lot of information from social media and we don't know much about the quality of the information we're getting. As a result, we're often forced to decide for ourselves how accurate various opinions and sources of information are and how much stock to put in them. Our results suggest that people resolve this quandary by assigning credibility to sources that are telling us what we'd like to hear and this can make biases due to motivated reasoning a lot worse over time."
phys.org
Technology
30 Top Blockchain Applications to Know for 2021 | Built In
Although blockchain technology is most closely associated with cryptocurrency, its ability to create more transparency, security, reliability, and fairness while also saving businesses time and money is beginning to transform industries and government. Here are 35 real-world blockchain applications that are changing healthcare, finance, logistics, media, marketing, security, and IoT operating systems.
builtin.com
Numbers
Belief-driven Employment| Edelman via KPMG
The pandemic has prompted people to reconsider their work and their lives. One in five respondents told us that they have left their jobs or are planning to do so within the next six months; that number is 41 percent in the U.S. The most compelling rationale for departure was finding a better values fit (59 percent), nearly two times higher than better compensation or career advancement (31 percent). There is also a lifestyle aspect to the desire to change jobs (50 percent); nearly half of respondents (43 percent) said their employer is not doing well addressing employee burnout.
More than a year into the pandemic, workers are burnt out and fed up. They’re resigning at record rates. As industries operate at full speed, companies are doing everything they can to entice workers to apply and stay. There is a new compact between employee and employer that requires business to take a more ambitious role in society, while fundamentally reconsidering the motives of the worker.
edelman.com
Fun
Jake Shimabukuro Teaches 'Ukelele | BCedX
Jake Shimabukuro is a Japanese-American ukulele virtuoso known for his fast and complex finger work. Born in Honolulu, Jake’s music combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco. Listen to Jake, "Jimi Hendrix of the 'ukelele", play Dragon! ...
zendesk.com