Biweeklycast

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Dima is doing his best to explore a particular flavour of ambiguity and Slava keeps him in check by sticking to definitions and anchoring the discussion to reality.

• Ambiguity – the quality of being open to more than one interpretation
• Is ambiguity merely a lack of proper definitions?
• Approaches that help in dealing with ambiguity
• Explicit definition of how success looks like
• Clear definition of the problem to be solved
• Validate hypothesis with real-world inputs

• At times, dealing with ambiguity requires a leap of faith

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Dima and Slava explore Richard P. Rumelt’s book Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters and share insights they took away from the book.

• https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239
• https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Safari-Through-Strategic-Management/dp/0743270576
• The Kernel of Strategy: diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent actions
• What does coherence have to do with policy and strategy?
• Building on your strength is a great foundation of strategy
• Bad strategy is the result of a leader who’s unwilling or unable to say “No”
• Cut through that “strategic fluff” with focus on concrete and specific elements
• Don’t trust examples from business books. Do your own research
• 6 reflections after reading the book
• Rating the book: 3 and 5 out of 10

• The greatest closing quote ever by Dima Malenko: “Think for yourselves!”
• Check out other bookclub episodes of Biweekly

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Dima and Slave talk about what strategy is and what strategy isn’t.

• From Wikipedia: Strategy is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty.
• Dima’s characteristics of a strategy
1. Multi-step plan, a “pattern of decisions”
2. Built on a particular world view
3. Aims at global (long-term) maximum
4. Does not rely on competitors making favourable choices
5. Requires agency and ability to execute
• Different flavours of strategy: business strategy, product strategy, etc
• Not every entity needs a strategy

Vision without execution is a daydream. Execution without vision is a nightmare.

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Dima and Slava count priorities and discuss how having to count priorities is a problem in and of itself.

• Dilution of terminology: priorities, KPIs…
• “Focus” is a good alternative that is expressly singular
• Priority: importance vs ordering
• Does priority get most time or the best time?
• One with 10 priority tasks gets to choose what the true top priority is
• Priority management cultures: collective and individual
• Does need for prioritisation arise having a lot more work that one can do?
• Have a stack of priorities and be very explicit about them
• Limit number of top priority items that you have at any given time

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Dima and Slava discuss the end of the second season of Biweeklycast and talk about what to expect in the upcoming third season.

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Dima and Slava discuss the practice of Open Feedback Circle and challenges of providing specific and actionable corrective feedback.

• Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast
• The Hedgehog and the Fox
• Open Feedback Circle
• Four A’s Feedback of Framework
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Erin Mayer. Discussion in Biweekly #28
• What is the value that people get from Open Feedback Circles?
• “Assume positive intent”
• Talking to people does help a lot

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Dima and Slava have read the book “Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World” and discuss what it means to be a generalist and what it takes to triumph.

• Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World by David Epstein
• Biweekly 42: How Mind Change
• Wicked and kind learning environments
• Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO
• "Story telling with some examples"

• General statements cannot be proven with just an example
• Who do we call “generalists”, anyway?
• T-shaped skills
• Lateral thinking
• The Market for Lemons – a theory behind bad products succeeding on a marketplace
• Best sellers vs best readers
• All bookclub episodes of Biweekly
• Next bookclub episode is going to be an experiment: a book vs podcasts
• Book: The Art of Rest: How to Find Respite in the Modern Age by Claudia Hammond

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Dima and Slava start with discussing routines and dealing with them, and discover that there is a lot more than routines out there: habits, behavioural patterns, traditions, and rituals.

• Dima’s season of decoupling is… going
• So, basically your next step is “sit and wait” 🤔

• Routines are important for making changes in life. Or not?
• From Google AI Summary: “A routine is a set of actions regularly followed to create order and structure in daily life.”
• Routines vs habits vs behavioural patterns
• Is forming “an identity” around habit helpful?
• Episode #52 Needs analysis about chain of results
• Habit points and “well done” technique
• Doing things together also helps to build a habit
• Externally forced routines, which some call “rules”
• Desire for novelty does not necessarily go against building a routine
• One more flavour of “routine”: tradition
• Reactance theory
• One more flavour yet: ritual!

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Slava brings three stories from his recent professional practice and together with Dima they discuss using case studies in business training, designing a card game, and running strategic sessions for military units.

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Dima and Slava discuss a report from a foresight exercise by Aspen Digital about second and third order effect of AI, criticize the output, and agree with demise of practical skills driven by different kinds of automation.

• Second and Third Order Effects of A.I.
• AI or A.I.?
• What are foresight exercises?
• Wisdom of the crowd
• Biweekly 52: Needs Analysis – episode about chain of results
• Loss of practical skills is a real, but that is not necessarily related to AI
• Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson
• Remember "World Wide Web"?