Food For Thought - Tzedakah

Posted by BradRubenstein at 12:40 AM | TrackBack

Not Funny

All my well meaning friends and relatives who send me funny stories, how do I tell them they are, um, not funny? Now research shows it is because they are egocentric. Duh. From the - New York Times:

In an article to be published next year in the Academy of Management Review, Kristin Byron, an assistant professor of management at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management, finds that e-mail generally increases the likelihood of conflict and miscommunication.

One reason for this is that we tend to misinterpret positive e-mail messages as more neutral, and neutral ones as more negative, than the sender intended. Even jokes are rated as less funny by recipients than by senders.

We fail to realize this largely because of egocentricity, according to a 2005 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Sitting alone in a cubicle or basement writing e-mail, the sender internally "hears" emotional overtones, though none of these cues will be sensed by the recipient.

My take is only slightly different - The problem with e-mail is that it lacks a prefrontal cortex to censor inappropriate impulsive behavior. I've decided to turn off the immediate send feature of my e-mail. I stack up all the e-mail I want to send, and then I push it all when I'm through. That gives me time, after hit "send", to go back, re-read, edit, delete, etc. I notice I almost always do so. The effort needed to read my own e-mail as my reader will read it is daunting, but when I do, I communicate more effectively. I'm just judging by results.

Interestingly, Tim Ferris suggested the same thing.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 05:11 PM | TrackBack

Reading What You Know

My friend Marc recommended that I take a look at The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. It is actually a fun read, mostly because Tim is crazy about living a good life, and his enthusiasm is contagious.

The topic is retirement, in a manner of speaking. There's a lot in common between his and my points of view, even though we are pretty different (think extroverted cage fighter vs introverted nerd "with excellent coping skills"). There's also common ground in the decisions we've made, including trading in a work-a-day life for mini-retirements and exciting projects.

When I stopped working my 9-to-5 job, the most interesting challenge was responding to every "so what do you do?". Tim's answer, "I'm a drug dealer" is quite inspired. At first, I wanted to just say, "I'm retired", just for its shock value. But it is not very satisfying. Now I usually end up with, "cool projects." And if they are still interested, I'll tell them about shooting a movie or raising money for NYFOS.

Truth be told, my interest in getting project teams to be more productive and reliable (and have more fun) is turning into a day job. The Celerity approach works quickly and effectively, and I'm partial to it. It uses a coaching model that works far better than any "drop off the book" or "teach the class" approach to organizing project teams that I've ever seen. It also allows me to make a huge difference in a small amount of time, something Ferris would appreciate.

The other book I read recently that touches on retirement and "lifestyle design" (unfortunate phrase) is Lee Eisenberg's The Number. It was a gift from my mom, and I've since given it to others. It starts off as if it wanted to talk to you about financial planning for your retirement, and quickly jettisons that for the more interesting question, "how do you step off the treadmill and figure out what you want to do with your life".

Posted by BradRubenstein at 07:53 PM | TrackBack