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We begin our Management Book Club article series with insights from Jordan Mechner’s The Making of the Prince of Persia (yes, there’s lots to learn from a video game). We also look at what search data can tell us about our teams, revisit some investor rejection emails for some lessons on failure, and revisit Dr Gebru’s case for some lessons on how not to apologise.
There’s a LOT of books out there about management. On the one hand this is great - lots of people to learn from. On the other hand, for many people, books are generally a terrible way to learn how to be a better manager. They’re time-consuming to read and you often forget the best bits by the time you need them. Oh and you need to actually find the good ones amidst a ‘range’ of options. Jesus CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership. Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun. Yes, these are both actually things.
So we’ve started a ‘Management Book Club’ series. Every so often, we’ll pick out a book which we think has some useful lessons in and give a quick summary of the most practical points for you to take away. First up, we’ve chosen The Making of the Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner.
To which you might say, ‘I’m a manager trying to organise a busy team. Why are you trying to make me read about a video game?’. Fair question.
The story of how Mechner created Prince of Persia, a game which sold millions of copies worldwide, is interesting, but it’s the format that’s really crucial.
The book comprises Mechner’s journals from when he was making the game, which he never intended to be published. They therefore represent an unusually candid record of someone doing creative work, and the technical, personal and professional pressures it creates. You don’t have to manage video game designers - for all managers, it’s full of great reminders of what creative work feels like, and how you can help people with it. We pull out some of the key insights in our article.
You can read the article here.
In his 2017 book ‘Everybody Lies’, US data scientist Seth Stephens‑Davidowitz argued that Google Search data contained a more revealing picture of what people really care about rather than what they told each other. The relative anonymity meant searches were free of the bias of worrying what other people thought about you.
In that respect, even though it’s a marketing exercise, Google’s 2020 Year in Search report contains some potential insights (note that some country-level insights are available but the main compilation is worldwide English-language only). Some of these may resonate with how you’ve managed your team over the past year.
For those who aren’t aware, Brian Chesky is the CEO of Airbnb and following the company’s incredibly successful IPO this week, is now worth over $10 billion.
This newsletter is usually proud not to focus on people like this as they’re generally not particularly relatable to our readers (except one reader, hi Elon). But it’s as good a time as any to revisit a post from Brian where he was candid in revealing 7 rejection emails he received from investors in 2008.
This was right back at the start of Airbnb when he was trying to raise just $150,000 for 10% of the company. They're worth a quick read:
They remind us of a couple of things:
We covered the initial dismissal of Dr Gebru in last week’s issue but, as predicted, there have been further developments in the story which are worth reflecting on - chiefly the response from Google.
Last week’s company-wide memo by CEO Sundar Pichai was readily characterised as an ‘apology’ in many headlines. However the memo itself stops short of admitting the company did anything wrong. Instead, it’s a classic ‘I’m sorry for how I made you feel’ to the company’s employees. We’ve all been told that at some point in our lives, and it’s always infuriating. Dr Gebru called it ‘dehumanising’. Pichai also promised to investigate; not to find accountability though, but to consider ‘de-escalation strategies’ and ‘new processes’. This evasive approach was continued elsewhere in the company as Jeff Dean, head of AI research and a key decision-maker in Gebru’s dismissal, reportedly cancelled an all-hands meeting this week. Again, the closest he reportedly got to an apology was, ‘I'm sorry for how challenging this has been’.
No doubt words are being chosen incredibly carefully within Google at the moment. And we don’t have the expertise to comment on whether the absence of an apology is linked to potential legal implications of making one. But what is clear is the deliberate choice not to apologize for a wrong, and instead communicate corporate talking points on progress in DEI initiatives, is a very bad look - both externally (see OpenAI’s Policy Director above) and to Google employees.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to make one, remember how you apologize really matters.
P.S. This post reflecting on Dr Gebru’s dismissal and on how stringent rules are used to enable discrimination is excellent, and food for thought about how not to run an organisation.
This week we continue to build out our 1:1s feature, with a focus on how we can help managers and team members set really constructive agendas for their meetings.
We know that some managers would like more guidance on how best to structure their 1:1s for a range of different scenarios. For other managers, they’re confident in how they run their meetings, but could do with suggested topics once in a while on important areas.
We think we’re on track to develop a great UI panel of ‘Meeting Suggestions’ where you can choose to introduce either full agenda templates, or pick and choose individual topics - even selecting from the team members’ goals and recent feedback they’ve received. Of course, both managers and team members can do this, to ensure all the relevant topics get covered. We’re excited to show you when it’s done.
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