This is an acronym I came across a lot in my studies. VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It’s used to describe the world we live in and was noted as the number one reason to why we need innovation. It’s also a useful reminder for any individual or organization to avoid overconfidence. The world is volatile. It moves unpredictably and doesn’t ever really trend in one direction for long....
We often have an inflated opinion of our understanding of reality. We think we know how things work. But as Philip Tetlock showed elegantly in his research, even experts are typically not much more accurate than anyone taking random guesses. This is bad because if your understanding of reality is inaccurate, you’ll inevitably make some horrible decisions in your life. The main reason for our false understanding seems to be confirmation bias....
You have 6 hours to invest. Do you read one book slowly and deeply or do you browse and skim through various articles, books, and videos? In other words, do you go deep or broad? Before you jump to any conclusion for one or the other, you have to think about goals first. What do you want to achieve? Or going about it backwards, which of the two is useful for which goals?...
If there is one takeaway from Walter Isaacson’s book The Innovators, it’s that the lone genius is a myth. Not individuals drive innovation, but teams. After learning about individual productivity, thinking about what makes teams perform is a natural progression. My thoughts here are still very much a work in progress and this is more a status report of my exploration in the topic than anything else. Team Performance Formula For a team to be effective, all its members should be competent in personal productivity habits....
Since I never liked wasting time or working just to get enough hours in, I read and experimented a lot around this topic in the past few years. I want to use my time efficiently so I can do more of what I care most about. I also want to do great work when I work and not half-ass it. During those years in the fascinating, useful, and sometimes toxic personal productivity space, I found some fundamental principles that worked consistently for myself and others....