We waste a lot of time because we misunderstand the problem.

Our poor diagnosis leads to the wrong mental models. We then waste energy focused on addressing things that aren’t really a priority.

Worse, we incorrectly assume that “correct diagnosis” is binary: either we see things the wrong way or the right way.

In reality, we don’t flip from not seeing to seeing.

Rather, we have a first glimpse of true understanding, and we sharpen what we see over time.

If, tomorrow, you finally figure out what the problem is, in your enthusiasm you might rush to turn that eureka moment into a plan for action.

Let me suggest, instead, spending some time sitting with your new understanding.

Keep doing things the way you’ve been doing, while all the while keeping your hypothesis about what needs to change in the back of your mind.

Letting this gap persist—the gap between today’s practice and your (new) view of what things should look like tomorrow—will automatically force your diagnosis to sharpen. As your understanding deepens, you will have:

1. A more complete understanding of what you need to do differently
2. Much more conviction behind starting down that new path

The clarity of understanding will itself be hugely valuable.

The strength of your conviction will make it much more likely that you’ll successfully lead those around you to rally around the changes you want to make.

I was first introduced to the concept of After Action Reviews by Colonel Patrick Tierney, a retired U.S. Army officer who I got to know in my time at Acumen.

An After Action Review (AAR) is a review of a completed operation, typically run by the commanding officer and with all members of the operation present.

In an AAR, your job is to answer four questions:

• What was expected to happen?
• What actually occurred?
• What went well and why?
• What can be improved and how?

My sense, from talking to Col. Tierney, is that there’s a level of (harsh) objectivity in an AAR that serves two purposes: surfacing the truths about what happened and building a culture of transparent accountability. Col. Tierney would describe going into an AAR as, “you have to strap on your thick skin before heading into that room.” The feeling was that any and all critiques would come out in the AAR, and then, afterwards, you were done and would put the AAR behind you.

While there’s a full AAR process that is itself very powerful, at a practical level I’ve often found our teams boiling AAR’s down to a simple start / stop / keep rubric: What do we need to start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we keep doing?

To operationalize this, create a table in a Google Doc and have all team members spend the first 5-10 minutes of the meeting filling in the document (or, better, do this before the meeting). In addition to writing, anyone can also +1 another team member’s entry to show they agree with it. For example:

Start	Stop	Keep
Sharing all spec details at the start of the project ++++ More clear pushback to the client when requests are out of scope +++++	Adding requirements late in the process +++++ Parallel conversations ++	Having daily standups ++++ Clear decision-making + Raising hands to support each other +++

As I head into 2022, I’ve found myself switching gears more slowly than in the past, likely the result of the Groundhog Day that it we’re living through: cancelled trips, postponed back-to-office plans, tons of emails from schools about new protocols and Zoom options, and global uncertainty.

That said, I know the beginning of the year is an invaluable time for reflection, planning and intention-setting, one that we shouldn’t miss.

With that in mind, I’m planning to start my year with both a personal and an organizational start / stop / keep list.

On the personal front, the list will focus on how I manage my time and my energy, the structure of my days, and any adjustments I might make to keep myself more grounded while still getting everything that I need to get done done.

And, for our company, I’ll use this as a conversation-starter across multiple teams and geographies, a chance for everyone to share what we need more of, less of, and the things that went really well in 2021 that we need to keep.

You might want to try it too.

Happy new year, and here’s to a great start to 2022.

I’ve always found First Round Review’s articles to be exceptionally useful. Lately, they are on a roll.

Our company, 60 Decibels, is going to be doing a bunch of hiring in the next six months, so I shared this article with our team:

First Round Review: 20 Underrated Qualities to Look for in Candidates — And 50+ Interview Questions to Suss Them Out

I particularly appreciate both the list of the 20 traits and the practical interview questions for each trait. As interviewers, we often do a poor job of assessing whether a person is right for a job (and whether the company is right for that person). This is because most of us interview infrequently, so we give little thought about how to do it well or we’ve gotten comfortable doing it the way we always have and stick with what’s familiar.

The reality is that there are few things more costly—in terms of money, time and culture—than bad hires, so it’s worth investing the time to try new ways to interview.

But wait…there’s more.

If you squint, you’ll see the other side of the coin: this list is also a helpful guide for what makes a great team member.

Here are the 20 traits of great hires / team members. They:

1. Embrace change and exhibit adaptability
2. Can get their team to open up (remotely)
3. Care about empathy
4. Tell true tales of failure — not humble brags
5. Keep DEI top of mind
6. Sell the team, not themselves
7. Look for ways to improve processes and reduce administrative burdens
8. Challenge the defaults
9. Can iterate and introduce change
10. Focus on outcomes, not (just) shipping
11. Will help you avoid bureaucracy
12. Apply a long-term lens
13. Are fueled by curiosity
14. Are clear on the things they don’t want to do.
15. Exhibit thoughtfulness
16. Can point to a pattern of taking initiative
17. Show a need for speed
18. Are good at spotting superpowers
19. Demonstrate a knack for finding the 10X — not 10% — improvements
20. Can tell you what you should be looking for.

As I spent time with these 20 traits, I found myself bucketing them into five categories:

• Flexible, moves fast, avoids bureaucracy: 1, 11, 17
• Takes initiative, is curious, is always trying to make things better: 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19
• Empathetic, values diversity, is humble, communicates & connects with others: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• Keeps an eye on the big picture: 10, 12, 20
• Is self-aware: 14, 15, 18

These five categories are an excellent jumping off point for what makes a great team member and, consequently, the building blocks for culture.

(Bonus: here’s a google doc with my cut-and-paste of the 50+ interview questions from the article. I hope you use it.)

The more people I’ve gotten to reconnect with this summer—our respite, in the US, between wave after horrible COVID-19 wave—the more I’ve seen a pattern.

Each of us, no matter our circumstance, background, and personal situation, has found our resilience shaken. Our reserves are low. At some point in the past 18 months, we’ve gotten cut too close to the bone.

We carry the accumulated toll of month after month of fear, uncertainty, new responsibilities and isolation.

And while we had a brief window when it felt like the worst was behind us, now we’re entering yet another season with a rising caseload and rising uncertainty; the prospect of putting COVID-19 behind us might be replaced with the prospect that this is the new world we all live in.

Most of this change in us is invisible. From the outside, we look OK. But when we dig a bit deeper and ask more questions, we can see the cracks in the foundation, a shift in our emotional structural underpinning that places us on less stable ground.

I, for one, don’t have a quick answer for how to address this in ourselves. Surely part of the answer is to go easy on ourselves, make time in our days to be in nature, to quiet our minds, to put down our devices and to break a good sweat.

I would also suggest that we can help one another by remembering that no one will come out of this unscathed: while we may emerge stronger in the end, we have some deep valleys to get through from here to there.

Since we don’t need a special occasion to do so, let’s choose to act towards each other with more forgiveness, kindness and generosity of spirit.

Let’s commit to being more open-hearted with each other.

Let’s commit, starting today, to ask each other real questions, and to stay fully present for the answers.

Most of the time, and especially now, accompaniment is the greatest gift we can give to one another.

A lot of my work days are about efficiency.

Tearing through my Inbox.

Having as few meetings as possible and making them as short as they need to be.

An overall feeling and attitude of moving fast and keeping an eye on the clock.

I’ve been in an overdrive version of this mode for the past few months, with an intensive focus on external sales and fundraising.

Then the other day, working on an important document, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.

I started on it, made a terrible first draft, played around with the document, trying to make it resemble the original bolt of inspiration.

And then I had a paralyzing thought, “What if this is a waste of time? What if I work on this for the full two hours, give it my best shot, and then discover that it’s no good?”

And, if that’s a possibility, should I stop before I start—would that be the efficient thing to do?

Of course it would, and it would be a terrible idea.

The only way to create something truly worthwhile, something that only you can create, is if you walk along the This Might Not Work edge.

That means that you are actively aware that what you’re doing might not be good enough, that you’re dancing with that fear. You’re aware that even if it doesn’t work this time, the only way, in the long run, that you produce anything worth anything is if you consistently spend time doing things that might not work.

Which means that the point of all that efficiency is to create space that plays by a different set of rules.

It’s a space where you get to dance and make a fool of yourself and try daring things, many of which may end up in the trash, so that some of them can be amazing.

Entrepreneurs are famous for seeing the things others cannot. They believe in a truth that seems like fiction to everyone else.

For example, AirBnb founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia failed to raise any outside money from late 2007 until early 2009. Maybe it makes sense: a business where strangers stay in each other’s homes doesn’t seem like a winner. In fact, they famously had to sell Obama O’s and Cap’n McCains Cereal to fund their startup, raising $30,000 in the process.

The big challenge, when we are attempting something new and difficult, is to know what to do with outside feedback:

Does what I’m hearing tell me a fundamental truth about the validity of my idea?

OR

Do I have so much conviction in my idea that I’m sure it’s right, despite not having found a customer for what I’m selling…yet.

Our level of conviction determines how we interpret outside feedback.

For example, consider the widespread phenomenon of “kitchen blindness:” the inability to find an item of food that is sitting right in front of you – milk, OJ, the salt or, famously, butter.

While “kitchen blindness” is often be the byproduct of laziness, it’s also true that there are two ways that we look for things:

1. When we look without prior knowledge, we use the data that’s coming in (“I’m not finding the baking soda where it’s supposed to be”) as information to confirm or refute our hypothesis that we have baking soda.
2. Whereas if we are sure we bought baking soda, and we simply are not finding it in the freezer, we take that to mean that we’ve got to look in the pantry, in the shopping bags, and in the trunk of the car.

One of the hardest lines to walk as an entrepreneur or creator is the daily choice between using outside feedback to adjust / refute our hypothesis vs. sticking to our guns. (for more on learning when to quit, there’s no better book than The Dip by Seth Godin.)

Are they telling me something true that they know and I need to learn?

Or is this my “naysayers be damned” moment, and do I believe, like Steve Jobs did in 2007, that I can design and sell a smartphone that doesn’t have a keypad?

Deep down, it’s a question of conviction:

How sure am I that what I’m looking for is there?

Because if I’m really, really sure, then it really is there, and all I have to do is find it.