Monday starts off with what may be the most relevant talk to my job, Lessons in Innovation from Silicon Valley Elite by Ann Hiatt, who served as the Chief of Staff for three tech giants–Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Based on her interactions with them, she identifies five qualities of effective leaders–Balanced, Curious, Fearless, Humble, and Influential–and shares some memorable anecdotes.
Schmidt asked Hiatt what to expect the first time he was going to fly on a private jet. He has a plaque on his desk that says, “If at all possible, say yes.”
Bezos follows the regret minimization principle, “If I don’t take this chance, at the end of my life will I regret it?”
The free food at Google is intended to cross-pollinate ideas and avoid silos.
Jobs that seem invisible may change your life. Hiatt viewed herself as these executives’ brain double or shadow, someone to represent them at all times, be involved in strategy, and help them pivot when something new hits. An international studies major, she read the same papers that they read to familiarize herself with the the tech industry, and tailored her communication to each executive’s style. She talked about her growth in the job:
She arrived at Google when the team was understaffed and began focusing on the backlog of work until Mayer gave her feedback that she had neglected to develop the relationships in the company–the friendship currency–needed to get hard things done at the pace and scale required.
When all 700 people on the design team listed Hiatt in a workforce survey as one of the top 5 people they communicated with, she realized she was a bottleneck and needed to delegate more in order to be more accessible.
The next talk also seems like a no-brainer: How 5 months on the PCT Made Me Better at My Job. I loved Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail solo and took extended leave in 2014 to travel and recharge, so I was keen to hear Elizabeth Schwartz’s perspective.
This talk lacked the vulnerability, humor, and warmth of Strayed’s book; it seemed more of a how-to guide aimed at tightly wound people who want to take a sabbatical–e.g., how Schwartz weighed every item in her pack, how she trained, and how she rationed two wet wipes per day to shower. I would have rather heard how she felt when her younger brother told her he preferred to hike the last month of the trail solo, rather than with her.
Schwartz makes a decent business case for supporting sabbaticals. As the COO and most senior person in Square Root, she dispels the notion that senior leaders are too indispensable to take a chunk of time off; every company has to deal with personnel transitions, regardless of the reason. And I agree with her observation that there never is a right time to go if you are in an intense job.
You can do your job better by not doing it for a while. As Schwartz catalogued her 57 job responsibilities in order to hand them off to others, she identified some drift in her portfolio. She also realized that she had been operating in startup mode, trying to be the hero and do everything, even though the company was no longer a startup. when she returned to the office, she was able to hit reset on her job and negotiate more impactful responsibilities.
Work Your Own Work. Her soft skills improved; she adapted and adopted the trail mantra, Hike Your Own Hike, to become less of a micromanager.
The afternoon Keynote Speaker, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, has a few protesters but their street-level signs are hard to read from the fourth floor of the Austin Convention Center. Khan gives a long, political speech about how the technical revolution is giving rise to an unease about globalization, growing income inequality, polarization, and disillusionment about our shared way of life.
One part of Khan’s speech stands out: when he reads a half-dozen mean tweets that he received that day. For example, “Sadiq Khan is just a gay Muslim terrorist,” “I wish Sadiq Khan would blow himself up like they all do,” and “I’d pay for someone to execute Sadiq Khan.” The hate-filled messages are shocking, but he doesn’t want to talk about the personal impact on him or his family. Instead his concern is that this hate speech exacerbates, deepens, and fuels societal differences. He also is concerned about the impact on minorities and aspiring politicians.
Khan argues that we need a stronger duty of care and that we must do more to protect people online, but other than noting that tech companies need to take more responsibility for their impact, he doesn’t offer a lot of concrete ideas.
The last talk of the day is one of the most inspiring of the entire week, Changing the World Through Food with chefs Jose Andres and Andrew Zimmern. Both chefs see food as a way to communicate with other cultures and share a distaste for waste. Dignity, respect, and empathy help us be inclusive.
A defining moment for Andres was visiting the Ivory Coast as a member of the Spanish Navy–it was the first time he saw people who didn’t have enough food.
The turning point for Zimmern, who became an addict and homeless after living a life of privilege, was the care and respect he was given in the kitchen.
They offered lessons from their travels:
People don’t want charity, they want respect, and they way to do that is to listen. Andres found himself in Haiti about two weeks after its deadly earthquake, serving up rice and beans “his” way. Imagine his surprise when a couple of old ladies told him the beans were no good. Remember Ann Hiatt’s observation that great leaders are humble? Andres responded by asking how they liked their beans cooked and adjusted.
Sometimes it is more important to be a good guest. Zimmern told a story about visiting indigenous tribes for his show Bizarre Foods. The crew did not want him to eat fish that had been prepared with feces-contaminated water but he did anyway–and didn’t get sick. Later he encountered some US Special Forces personnel who said they use his show to teach cultural sensitivity in the military.
Hunger cannot wait. The discussion turned to Puerto Rico, where Andres explained how his team went from serving 1,000 meals a day to 375,000 meals a day. The wrong decision is the one you don’t make.
Interested in being a part of the solution? Donate to World Central Kitchen. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Touch a person.
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