13. 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Year 1 Year 3 Year 7 Year 10
Time
Focus
Skills
Bottlenecks over Time…
14.
15. {
"We will encourage you to
develop the three great
virtues of a programmer:
laziness,
impatience,
and hubris.”
– Larry Wall,
Programming Perl (1st
edition), Oreilly And
Associates
The Three Virtues
Learn Haskell?
Play with Cassandra?
Try out a new side project?
OK but what if you can only clone yourself with the intention of getting more done…
With the intent on getting more done…
Get another feature out the door?
Improve the performance of that page you haven’t had a chance to look at?
Actually write up that runbook you’ve been meaning to do?
Get another feature out the door?
Improve the performance of that page you haven’t had a chance to look at?
Actually write up that runbook you’ve been meaning to do?
Technical skills, getting more done. These are the areas we focus on when thinking about what we need to do.
You’re know you’re not done with them, there’s always more to learn.
Even I do it.
But even with a clone, we’re only getting 2X better.\
Getting twice as good, especially when you’re focused on your own output, is still only additive. You get 2 times the impact for input, not bad
But when I think of a multiplier, I think of a graph that looks like this. X^2
Compare this to the additive growth in impact. Let’s zoom out.
Both lines start out relatively the same, but at some point the multiplier pulls away in a manner that the adder can’t keep up with
If you want to become a multiplier, it requires a different function than what you know how to do now. It requires more than tech skills.
It requires more than thinking about your own skills and your individual output.
Fortunately, we all posses the raw potential and inherent virtues we need to become multipliers, it just requires identifying the right opportunities and getting out of our comfort zone.
But before I go into how to become a multiplier, let’s talk about tech skills, because I see you all sharpening your pitchforks.
You’re here to learn skills to make your job, team, etc, better
Technical skills are important
Technology is awesome
Always learning is good
Foundational, build on a weak foundation and you are in trouble
Create the potential to be unlocked
However, over years of focusing on tech skills, we start to overvalue them.
Availability bias: leads to tendency to Overvalue what you know
We’ve been so steeped in learning for so long learning is our go-to
If I could just learn something new I could solve this problem
If I knew more I could work faster and get much more done
DIRE CONSEQUENCES FOR NOT BEING TECHY ENOUGH
Bottleneck is now focus and time, not skill
You can continue to learn new skills and move around doing different things
You’ll probably get better thanks to accumulated wisdom and experience, but most of us won’t get multiplicatively better
So if you want to grow beyond a great doer, what then?
Laziness, impatience, hubris
Laziness: means you automate things that you might do manually
Lazy
Put in work upfront to train those around you to do what you do
Closest thing to actually cloning yourself
Eliminate bottlenecks on your team, and reduce demands on your time which reduces one of your own bottlenecks
Eliminate other demands on your time, freeing you up to do new things, different things, explore areas for growth
Impatience. Write code that anticipates future needs
Understand what is important
10Xer that only works on the things they think are most important
10Xer that ensures that everyone on their team is only working on the most important things
Reduces the work that needs to be done, reduces the overall need for people
Hubris. Excessive pride. Write code they are proud of, that they want to show off to others
Hubris
An individual multiplier complains
A real 10Xer complains but also tries to help solve the problem, even if it’s just making sure that it is prioritized with the right people
Make the work take less time period
Make everyone happier and generally more productive
Other things that may also help to get you to multiplier, but these are things that most can do
No matter what other skills they have to start to create multiplier effects
No Graphite or WebPageTest for your effectiveness
Impact: But for this engineer, what wouldn’t exist?
But for this project, what wouldn’t people be able to do? But for this person, what projects wouldn’t happen, what growth wouldn’t exist? What team wouldn’t exist?
Per unit work you put in
Influence does not require a reporting structure up to you
Influence can be gained through a record of good judgment, a history of high impact, wisdom
Leadership requires active engagement with others
Beware Selection Bias
Culture of creating organizational structures that enable people to become multipliers.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Rumi
To take advantage of these structures, you need to experiment and stretch outside of your comfort zone
We focus on what we can do, without asking what we need to do
Cloning yourself is an additive act, that creates an additive impact
Instead of working on what you know, on only focusing on learning new technical skills or getting more done,
Get outside your comfort zone and Rely on your virtues
Proactive laziness
Thoughtful Impatience
And team-oriented hubris
These are the path to creating outsized impact, improving everyone around you, and becoming a multiplier