Becoming a Multiplier
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Keynote slides from Velocity NY 2014. Cloning yourself isn't an option, how to become a multiplier (not a manager)
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Becoming a Multiplier
- 1. Cloning Yourself Isn’t An Option { How to become a Multiplier (not a Manager) Camille Fournier, CTO, Rent the Runway @skamille
- 2. If you could clone yourself, what would you do?
- 6. Input Impact
- 7. Input Impact
- 8. Input Impact
- 10. Don’t be a jerk Other Stuff Tech Skills Tech Skills Are Foundational
- 13. 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Year 1 Year 3 Year 7 Year 10 Time Focus Skills Bottlenecks over Time…
- 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
- 16. Laziness
- 18. Impatience
- 19. Prune, Cut, Prioritize TICKET-X 2 TICKET-2 NOPE TICKET-3 X
- 20. Hubris
- 21. Be a Squeaky Wheel, and Bring Oil
- 23. Tech Skills People Skills What does success look like?
- 24. You Impact and Influence
- 29. Thanks! Questions and feedback: @skamille
Editor's Notes
- 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