Check-In Round
What has my attention?
This handsome new logo! Thank you to Halee for crafting it. If you have some freelance design needs, you should definitely talk to her.
Follow-Up
I probably should’ve held off on sending that last newsletter until I published my article recapping weeks two and three of my digital detox, since I published it thirty minutes after sending the newsletter, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I attended friend of the newsletter Sean Blanda’s third Pilcrow House event a couple weeks ago with Amazon Chronicles writer Tim Carmody. Pilcrow House is a Philadelphia-centric event series all about having conversations around important ideas. I’m excited to see what else Sean has up his sleeve for this thing and if you’re in or around Philadelphia this should be on your radar.
How to Use Systems Thinking in Your Career
I was recently asked to come to a university class and answer questions from the students in a Systems Thinking class. The idea was that these young folks were going to be graduating soon and would be entering systems (i.e. getting jobs) and the instructor (hi Jeff!) thought advice coming from someone closer to their own age and experience level might be more helpful. These students will presumably want to have influence within the systems they’re about to join but they will lack the currency (reputation, experience, expertise, etc.) to have much leverage. With that in mind, how can young folks use a basic understanding of systems and systems thinking early in their careers?
Systems have nodes, right? Generally, nodes that are extremely well connected to other nodes tend to be more “important” to a system than nodes that are off on the periphery without many connections. Becoming an important “node” in an organization could happen because you are an expert on a specific topic, process, problem, etc. Over time you become known as the person to talk to related to X. This is the realm of Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You and Deep Work books and the general idea that you build career capital by deliberately developing useful skills over time.
Young people should strive for this, but it can be daunting to think this is the only path available to you when you’re first starting out. That’s why I think it’s more interesting to think about being a different kind of “node” when you’re extremely junior in an organization: a super-connector. These aren’t nodes that people seek out because of some kind of deep and narrow expertise, but nodes that are sought out because they are extremely broadly connected to other parts of the system. To bring it back to the realm of specifics, I’m talking about being extremely good at seeing the connections between disparate parts — both within and outside — the organization. It’s about being creative in the sense of seeing connections (relationships, ideas, partnerships, collaborations) that other people don’t (or can’t because of years of intellectual/bureaucratic inertia).
The nice thing about becoming this type of connector is that it’s fundamentally about being insanely curious. Early in your career, that’s probably the most important characteristic to have, anyway. Nobody expects you to be an expert, yet. Nobody expects you to have the answers. You haven’t been indoctrinated by your field/industry so you’re more likely to see connections that are invisible to folks who have been thinking and operating the same way for years.
Anyway, I thought that had the makings of a neat idea. More to come on this topic, I think. I asked on Twitter how people would answer this question and got a couple great answers (see below). If you have something to add I hope you’ll consider hitting reply and letting me know!
Links
My digital detox made me realize how problematic and accurately named “feeds” are. They always somehow manage to make me feel gorged and simultaneously also pretty empty. Austin’s idea to spend more time searching and less time scrolling feeds really resonates. LINK
I’m a sucker for videos of craftspeople doing their thing. In the spirit of Jira Dreams of Sushi (free on YouTube apparently?!), check out a day in the life of this sushi master. LINK
I mean, the title of this article kinda encapsulates my whole thing, right? LINK
I am not a religious man but I’ve always been fascinated by monastic life. LINK
Apologies if I’ve linked to this before, but I really like David Sparks take on how he spends his birthday and the end result of this year’s ritual. More intentionality sums up my focus for this year, too. LINK
Closing Round
Eating: Too much delivery. Chinese food is great. Pho is great. Pizza is great.
Working: I went to SIOP this week. It was... not so good.
Listening: I listened to all the podcasts when I came out of my digital detox and now I have podcast flu.
Reading: Just finished Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey (3 stars). Just stopped reading The Excellence Dividend by Tom Peters, not because I don’t agree with him, but because I don’t think I can take several hundred more pages of what appear to be his loosely organized notes.
Playing: I’m teaching Emily how to play cribbage tomorrow night.
Writing: Not enough.
Until next time!
Your friend in intentionality,
Sam