Tag: books

Paternity Leave and Reading

As you may have noticed via my recent mini tweetstorm, I’m on paternity leave, and feeling thoughtful about it.

(Sidebar, is there an agreed upon definition of tweetstorm? We can all agree that 25 tweets a tweetstorm make, but what about 9? 3?)

Especially having spoken with many of my friends, who work locally, who have nothing like this type of paternity leave – it really is a landscape of gratitude, on my end. This time is special, and important, and I’m so grateful and (frankly) lucky to have it.

When our daughter was born, I didn’t take the three months – I took it in fits and spurts here and there, since the policy is three paid months within the first year of a child’s life.

Rather than take three months at the outset, I took two weeks when she was born, then some time over the holidays, Spring Break to coincide with my wife’s time off, etc. I didn’t end up using the whole three months, and the time I did take off, I could have just as easily taken off with our open vacation policy rather than the “saved pat days.”

With our second child, I was reflective on our daughter Mango’s birth and my reaction, work-wise. Why didn’t I take the time I was afforded?

It was out of fear. Even a few weeks off at a place as fast paced as Automattic meant having to recalibrate, scramble to catch up, and try to figure out how to navigate what seemed like an all-new sea. I was worried that extended leave would jeopardize my chances for advancement and recognition.

Which brings us here – though I’m a Team Lead, responsible for the careers and success of  eleven of my peers, I have chosen to take my full three months of paternity leave. Before he was born, I spent a great deal of time working with my stand-in lead, training and shadowing one on ones and (I’m not proud) linking her to lots of posts on this very blog.

She’s going to do great. I also think that, on a bigger level, it’s important  for the folks on my team to see me take this time – that even in a leadership role it’s safe, and encouraged, to take the time we’re given. Having this time with my kiddos and my wife is important, for me personally but also for me as a long-term contributor to Automattic’s success.

(Our CEO Matt Mullenweg talks a little about hiring folks using a 30-year mindset in the latest Tim Ferris podcast – knowing he sees his employees this way makes me more comfortable taking this kind of time off)

Since I am a terrible A-type monster, three months away from work is a horrifying prospect. I am bad at leisure – especially superfluous leisure.

So, I’m reading. I’m reading a lot. I asked some folks I respect for their recommendations, as well as the world wide Twitterverse. Here’s what I have ahead of me:

Orginals, by Adam Grant, recommended by @mremy
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, recommended independently by @andrewspittle and @ctdotlive
Anarchist’s Tool Chest, by Chris Schwarz, recommended by @blowery
Laws of Simplicity, by John Maeda, recommended by @photomatt
Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, recommended by Bill Bounds
The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holliday, recommended by @mikeykrapf
The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Bill Walsh, recommended by @JeremeyD
Deep Work, by Cal Newport, recommended by @thebriankerr

I’ve already finished a few – with 59 days left in my pat leave I’m looking at about 24.3 pages per day to finish them all in time. Which means, of course, I could probably sneak in one more book if you have an excellent recommendation!

Finishing Lean In

I just finished Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, and I am so very glad to have read it. It was part of my push to read more books about business or leadership that were written by folks who were not old white businessmen.

Lean In was the latest one. Here are my some of my highlighted takeaways:

Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can’t seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are – impostors with limited skills or abilities.

 

One of the things I tell people these says is that there is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.

 

Instead of blaming women for not negotiating more, we need to recognize that women often have good cause to be reluctant to advocate for their own interests because doing so can easily backfire.

 

We can joke, as Marlo Thomas did, that “a man has to be Joe McCarthy in order to be called ruthless. All a woman needs to do is put you on hold.”

 

Of all the ways women hold themselves back, perhaps the most pervasive is that they leave before they leave.

 

Now we know that women can do what men can do, but we don’t know that men can do what women can do … We need to encourage men to be more ambitious in their homes.

 

Mothers don’t want to be perceived as less dedicated to their jobs… we overwork to overcompensate. Even in workplaces that offer reduced or flextime arrangements, people fear that reducing their hours will jeopardize their career prospects.

 

If I had to embrace a definition of success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can… and accepting them.

 

In the future there will be no female leaders. There will only be leaders.

 

If this resonates with you at all, you should pick up Lean In. It’s entirely worth your time, and is an excellent perspective changer.

Next up for me is Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker, since I need some more preparation before I speak at SupConf!

From the Introduction of The Counterinsurgency Field Manual

This publication can help compress the learning curve. It is a tool for planners, trainers and field commanders. Using it can help leaders begin the learning process sooner and built it on a larger knowledge base…

…Current tactics, techniques and procedures sometimes do not achieve the desired results. When that happens, successful leaders engage in a directed search for better ways to defeat the enemy. To win, the Army and Marine Corps must rapidly develop an institutional consensus on new doctrine, publish it, and carefully observe its impact on mission accomplishment.

This learning cycle should repeat continuously as US counterinsurgents seek to learn faster than the insurgent enemy.

The side that learns faster and adapts more rapidly wins.

Two Notes from ‘Quiet’

In reading Susan Cain’s ‘Quiet,’ recommended by my colleagues Paul and Gus (and others), there have been two notable takeaways for me. I’m only about eighty pages in, and I’ve learned a lot about introversion and how society works (or fails to work) for folks who think that way.

Like anyone, though, when I have a hammer, all I see are nails. Two neat things I’ve picked up:

The Bus to Abilene:

…a family sitting on a porch in Texas on a hot summer day, and somebody says, ‘I’m bored. Why don’t we go to Abilene?’ When they get to Abilene, somebody says, ‘You know, I didn’t really want to go.’ And the next person says, ‘I didn’t want to go–I thought you wanted to go,’ and so on. Whenever you’re in an army group and somebody says, ‘I think we’re getting on the bus to Abilene here,’ that is a red flag. You can stop a conversation with it. It is a very powerful artifact of our [the army’s] culture.

I’m guilty of this, both as the suggestion-giver and the go-along-with participant. Having a name for it will be helpful in the future.

Solitude and Creativity:

If solitude is an important key to creativity – then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We’d want to teach our kids to work independently. We’d want to give employees plenty of privacy and autonomy. Yet increasingly we do just the opposite.

This resonates with me as coming from the same place that inspired Solitude in Leadership, a piece I’ve written about in the past. Even as someone who waffles between introversion and extroversion, I appreciate and value time spent alone, sometimes in quiet reflection, sometimes daydreaming.

Two Book Power Pack

I recently had the experience where two books I read resonated with one another in a surprising way. Right after finishing A More Beautiful Question my friend and colleague Daryl recommended I read Work Rules. 

These two books, read together or in quick succession, results in a gain much greater than the sum of their parts. There are common threads between the two, regarding inquiry and innovation at work, with A More Beautiful Question approaching it theoretically and on a high level, and Work Rules sitting in as a detailed case study.

If you are interested in innovation and organization in businesses today, reading these two together will bear serious fruit.