AI and machine learning
Why AI Customer Journeys Need More Friction (via HBR)
Sometimes making the optimal choice via computer system removes too much friction, which can lead to mistrust or codifying learned biases. The article suggests working in “acts of inconvenience”, experimenting to prevent auto-pilot decisions, and looking out for “dark patterns.”
Business
Design Your Organization to Match Your Strategy (via HBR)
“An organization is nothing more than a living embodiment of a strategy. That means its “organizational hardware” (i.e., structures, processes, technologies, and governance) and its “organizational software” (i.e., values, norms, culture, leadership, and employee skills and aspirations) must be designed exclusively in the service of a specific strategy. Research suggests that only 10% of organizations are successful at aligning their strategy with their organization design. Some of the problem is a gross misunderstanding of what the word “alignment” actually means in this context. When it comes to executing strategy, alignment means configuring all of the organization’s assets in the service of your stated strategy and making sure there is no confusion about what each part of the organization does to bring it to life. If you’re embarking on executing your company’s strategy, here are six ways to make sure your organization is designed to do it successfully.”
The Telehealth Era Is Just Beginning (via HBR)
COVID-19’s necessitation of telehealth opened the door to many other opportunities — reducing unnecessary trips to the ER, impacting chronic disease management, addressing disparities in care, making access to specialists easier, and providing access to the best care providers.
Don’t Confuse Strategy with Lofty Goals (via HBR)
“Most companies communicate strategy as a set of aspirations and platitudes. But aspirations aren’t strategy, and that mode of communication leaves employees in the dark. Strategy is a set of hard-to-reverse choices and explaining what these choices are and why they were made is what strategy communication should be.”
Diversity and inclusion
How to Build an Anti-Racist Company (via HBR)
The author presents a playbook for the steps to follow with examples and counterexamples from real companies. Actively listen and learn, enlist and align senior leaders, audit the culture, document what you’re doing now, establish benchmarks, build action learning teams, and develop an action plan. (I’d argue that those seven steps are the play for implementing any org-level change.)
Job search
10 Red Flags to Watch Out for in a Job Interview (via HBR)
- Constant rescheduling and disorganization
- Disrespecting others
- Values conflict
- Lack of clarity or consistency in answers to your questions
- Bait and switch
- Inappropriate questions or comments
- Lack of connection
- Resistance to change (even if they say they want change)
- Excessive number of interviews or drawn-out interview process
- Exploding offers
Managing employees
How Can You Build Visibility into a Hybrid Workplace? (via HBR)
There are multiple types of flexibility, and different roles (senior leaders, mid-level managers, individual contributors) have different needs. Trust is the key to any kind of initiative to monitor and adjust behaviors based on this kind of monitoring.
Process
Cargo Culting Software Engineering Practices (via SWLW)
This article is mostly quotations from Kent Beck, who is a software process titan (e.g., Extreme Programming). He basically had to abandon most of what he had discovered once he joined Facebook. This quotation was resonant: “We can write useful stories about software development process, but they’re stories, they’re not recipes.”