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July 27, 2020

Measure What Matters

Measure What Matters by John Doerr is the management book around goal setting as a company. From legendary investor John Doerr and influenced by Bill Campell (executive coach), and full of examples from Google and the like.

The core of the book should also be possible to be applied to oneself. So let’s dive in.

Too much to read? Watch John Doerr’s TED Talk about OKRs (11min)

OKRs

“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”

Objective: what is to be achieved

  • significant, concrete, action-oriented, and (ideally) inspirational
  • e.g. organize the world’s information
  • e.g. make psychedelics more accessible

Key Results: how we get to the objective

  • specific and time-bound (month/quarter), aggressive yet realistic
  • measurable and verifiable
  • e.g. grow revenue of Youtube by 30% this quarter
  • e.g. make an overview of all psychedelics companies this quarter

Goals can be harmful, people can only work towards them and ignore opportunities and ‘goal-hack’. But don’t be mistaken, goals are necessary (insert Yogi Berra quote 😉 ).

Goals create alignment, clarity, and job satisfaction.

The rest of the book dives deeper into the ‘superpowers’ of OKRs:

  • Focus and Commitment to Priorities
  • Align and Connect for Teamwork
  • Track for Accountability
  • Stretch for Amazing

and the applications and implications

  • Conversation, Feedback, Recognition
  • Continuous Improvement
  • The Importance of Culture

OKR Hygiene

  • Less is more
    • it signals what to say yes to and no to
    • three to five OKRs per cycle
  • Set goals from the bottom up
  • No dictating
  • Stay flexible
    • modify or abandon mid-cycle if needed
  • Dare to fail
    • aim higher than where you are now
    • ‘train harder than last time’
  • A tool, not a weapon
    • OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate
  • Be patient; be resolute
    • it takes some time to get used to them

Focus and Commitment to Priorities

chapters 4, 5, and 6

“What is most important for the next three (or six, or twelve) months?”

Many people can’t name the priorities of their companies (or themselves for that matter).

  • You will need to repeat the OKRs until you (leadership) become tired of repeating it, then people will know them

“… nothing moves us forward like a deadline.”

Quarterly OKRs are advised.

You need to pair OKRs to measure both effect and counter-effect. This means quality and quantity. Or speed and robustness. Only measuring one can lead to goal-hacking.

OKRs also mean that you don’t work on other things. These are the projects that need to get done, you can only work on another project if you update your OKRs.

“The art of management lies in the capacity to select from the many activities of seemingly comparable significance the one or two or three that provide leverage well beyond the others and concentrate on them.”

“Put more wood behind fewer arrows.”

Chapters 5 and 6 are examples from two companies that implemented OKRs.

“Instead of reacting to external events on the fly, we’re acting purposefully on our plans for each quarter.”

Align and Connect for Teamwork

chapters 7, 8, and 9

OKRs lead to alignment because you know what everyone/the company is working on (and only 7 percent of employees fully understand the goal of a company).

Chapter 7 has an example of OKRs for a football team, some good, some bad.

OKRs should work towards the greater goal, but also can/should come from bottom-up. At that level, people know best what to do to achieve the goals. Doerr says 50-50 is a good mix.

OKRs may be internal (do X) or external (get Y revenue). Depending on the phase of a company and how much you know of the environment, you can finetune this.

One good (alignment) question to ask is: Will this thing work towards our North Star?

Track for Accountability

chapters 10 and 11

OKRs can be tracked, and revised or adapted as circumstances dictate.

Cloud-based software could help with:

  • Making goals visible to everyone
  • Drive engagement
  • Promote internal networking
  • Save time, money, frustration

Track the goals for yourself (weekly, monthly, or whatever frequency works best). Preference of Doerr is weekly.

Then you can choose the following:

  • continue
  • update
  • start (new one)
  • stop (do let everyone who is dependent on this OKR know)

Scoring (at Google) is done as follows. A bit objective with subjective ‘did I put in the effort’ mixed in:

  • 0.7 to 1.0 = green
  • 0.4 to 0.6 = yellow (progress, but not there)
  • 0.0 to 0.3 = red (fail)

Always reflect on the progress made, as also to inform making new OKRs.

Possible questions:

  • Did I accomplish all of my objectives?
    • If so, what contributed to my success?
    • If not, what obstacles did I encounter?
  • If I were to rewrite a goal achieved in full, what would I change?
  • What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next cycle’s OKRs?

After this feedback, take a breath to savour your progress.

Stretch for Amazing

chapters 12, 13, and 14

“If companies don’t continue to innovate, they’re going to die – and I didn’t say iterate, I said innovate.” – Bill Campbell

Google divides their OKRs into two buckets

  1. Committed goals: related to metrics, aim is to get a 1.0
  2. Stretch/aspirational goals: bigger-picture, aim to get 0.7
    1. Google fails 40% of these

Stretch goals should be fine-tuned to an organisation. You should have some, but not all. And they shouldn’t be ‘fly to Mars next year’, but ‘build a working rocket next year’ (difficult, but remotely possible).

(fun fact: it was Susan Wojciki’s garage where Google started, she was employee nr 16 and YouTube’s 10x’er)

OKRs can also be seen as the ‘big rocks’ (Stephen Covey). Do those first, then add smaller and smaller pebbles and sand (to fill a jar).

Conversation, Feedback, Recognition

chapters 15 and 16

“A manager’s first role is the personal one. It’s the relationship with people, the development of mutual confidence … the creation of a community.” – Peter Drucker

This is in response to not everything being able to be captured by numbers, by OKRs.

The idea is that OKRs get coupled to continuous performance management in the form of:

  • Conversations: manager and contributor
  • Feedback: bidirectional and between peers
  • Recognition: expression of appreciation

What is noted again is to decouple OKRs from compensation (otherwise the goals will be too low/high/goal-hacked). Feedback from the team and context is more important for compensation. (see graph p182)

Conversations

The conversations are driven by the subordinate. It’s about goal setting/adjusting, update on progress (what works/doesn’t work), coaching both ways, career growth, mini-performance review.

Feedback

Specific feedback to gauge if you’re doing well, what others need from you, etc. Also, feedback on the company.

Recognition

Continuous, peer-based, objective, sharing stories, tied to company goals and strategies.

Continuous Improvement

chapter 17

Story about Zume, but alas OKRs didn’t help them in the end.

The Importance of Culture

chapters 18, 19, and 20

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – saying/John Doerr.

Culture is the parts that include someone that champions the goals (OKRs) and others that help others and motivate (CFRs).

This part is a bit more vague, but it comes down to having a culture where people are going in the same direction, OKRs can help with getting that so.

“If you want to cut a man’s hair, is it better if he is in the room?” – Senegalese saying

“Ideas are easy; execution is everything.” – John Doerr

OKRs checklist

Objective

  • Concrete
  • Significant
  • Action-oriented
  • Inspirational
  • 3-5 Objectives

Key Results

  • Specific
  • Time-bound
  • Aggressive but attainable
    • Either aim for complete (1.0)
    • Or aim out there with 10x projects (0.7)
  • Qualitative and quantitative (prevent goal-hacking)
  • 2-5 Key Results per Objective

Review

  • Weekly or per month
  • Change goals if ‘ladder is on the wrong building’
  • Rate (at end) from 1.0 (complete/full effort), <0.7 (progress), <0.4 (fail)
  • What contributed to the success?
  • What obstacles were there?
    • How should it be rewritten?
  • What changes for the next cycle?
  • Take a break

July 23, 2020

Broken Stars

Broken Stars is an anthology of short stories by different Chinese writers. They are collected by Ken Liu (an awesome writer in his own right). I can’t say that I enjoyed every story as much, but there are some really innovative ones in there.

I don’t have the best mental map of Chinese history (but do know some things), so a lot of the subtle hints when using historic rulers/periods do get lost on me.

And I think I like sci-fi that plays with concepts (e.g. time) more than those that incorporate too much historic or today’s concepts.

The stories are:

  • Goodnight, Melancholy (Turing is featured heavily, makes me think of Machines Like Me)
  • Moonlight
  • Broken Stars
  • Submarines
  • Salinger and the Koreans
  • Under a Dangling Sky
  • What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear (heavy, good)
  • The New Year Train (good moral/end-note)*
  • The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales (interesting, very good sci-fi and medieval mix)
  • The Snow of Jingyang
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge
  • The First Emperor’s Games
  • Reflection (good idea about seeing time flow backward)
  • The Brain Box
  • Coming of the Light
  • A History of Future Illnesses

*”I’ts simple when you put it like that right? What doesn’t make sense to me is this: lots of times, when the starting point and the destination are fixed – say, birth and death – why do most people rush towards the end?“

July 1, 2020

Network Effect

Network Effect by Martha Wells is the fifth installment in the Murderbot Diaries series. It was a bit longer than probably necessary and I wasn’t totally focussed, so it wasn’t as engaging as with the earlier editions.

See a fuller review here.

June 29, 2020

Public Commitment 2020 – Update 2

This year my theme is Upgrade. The goal is to use the things I already know, and apply/improve/renew it to build more new things.

Besides the goals listed below, the biggest thing I’ve done is to start a Zettelkasten. This is a method of making (atomic) notes that are heavily interlinked. The program I’m using for this is Obsidian.

The main feature is the idea that you can link, well, ideas, between different topics. So instead of containing everything to one book review (where I already did some linking to other concepts too), its main function is interlinking.

Another tool I might use is Anki, which is a flashcard program. I think this is for slightly different knowledge, things you want to remember (separately). So individual concepts, but also facts (e.g. when Rome was built, or when someone’s birthday was).

The division of different types of knowledge (notation) would then be as follows:

  • Notion: keeping track of work projects and ideas
  • Google Calendar/Notion: weekly planning
  • Notebook/Notion: daily planning
  • Toggl: keeping track of time
  • Todoist: (semi) daily checklists
  • Checklists: cataloging daily and irregular checklists (e.g. pre-vacation)
    • now in a single file, could also be on this website
  • Obsidian: connected ideas
    • add to it daily, also review random note daily
  • Anki: remember ideas/things
    • add to it daily, review daily
  • This website: book summaries, notes from media, bigger essays

For instance, reading a book would mean the following:

  • Keeping tracking of my time in Toggl
  • Checkmark in Todoist every day (gentle reminder to read)
  • Checklist: one for what to do after finishing a book
  • During reading make notes in Obsidian if I have new insights (5-20 per book I think, less over time as some are already in the system by then)
  • Make a short summary on this website
  • And possibly put some more factoid knowledge pieces in Anki

Alright, that was a lot about how I keep track of things. Over the next few months I think the system will keep evolving and I hope to settle on something that helps me stay productive, focussed, and fulfilled.

Now onto the goals.

Goal 1: Write Nova (and possibly other short stories)

Still on hold, maybe something to do during a small ‘vacation’.

Goal 2: Improve this website

Already done in the first quarter. I do plan to add a dark mode, for which I have made the basics, but need to further finetune it.

Goal 3: Do something crazy for love

Not yet, but have planned a fun day for Lotte’s birthday.

Goal 4: Write essays about 6 topics

After the first two, I haven’t really progressed much. I started with music production but found I didn’t like it at this time. Then I worked on my stretching routine and have added a lot to the fitness page, but still need to write up one article about stretching itself.

I plan to do that this week.

The next one after that is probably plant-based or Effective Altruism.

Goal 5: Start a new and successful venture

You can check out the progress/projects under this venture at Blossom Act.

The last three months have still been an exploration. But things are starting to become more clear. I haven’t made any revenue, but see a way forward towards that soon.

With COVID, the in-person practice hasn’t started, but let’s see if this quarter (especially with not going on vacation), that could be done sooner than later.

Alright, that brings this update to an end. I’m still really satisfied with how life is going. And really happy that I can spend my time as I please. Things with Queal are still going well and this quarter we will celebrate its 6th birthday.

June 28, 2020

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas by Dan Kennedy is one of the marketing books that one supposedly should have read. I found it somewhat informative, but mostly because I projected my own experience and ideas on what is being said.

It does a good job of presenting different ideas, but a lot of them are of that time (mail order business). That doesn’t mean that some of the lessons or inspiration isn’t valid.

One good nugget from the book is the lesson that starting with an idea, and making that come to fruition, may be harder than selling something (in a specific area) that is already successful somewhere else.

I’ve made some more notes in Obsidian.

June 22, 2020

To Fathom Hell or Soar Angelic

This review was first published on Blossom Analysis.

To Fathom Hell or Soar Angelic is a fictional book about starting a psychedelics research project/revolution, written by Ben Sessa.

Is there hope in psychedelic medicine? Can we dream bigger than just numbing patients (and doctors)? That is the underlying question in this fictional book by Dr. Ben Sessa. After reading the book you may take home some hope, some tingling of the possibility that MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and other psychedelics could help people become whole again. But if nothing else, you will get to know two, somewhat broken, men (the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) who start a psychedelic revolution.

Review

“To fathom hell or soar angelic just take a pinch of psychedelic” – Humphry Osmond

Using a fictional book to describe a brave new world where psychedelics make a new introduction is an unique way of exploring this possibility. The book hovers between the esoteric and science-driven, between dream catchers and psychotherapy.

The world that is sketched could be best positioned at around the turn of the century, a moment in time where very little research had been done on psychedelics (since shutting it all down at the end of the 60’s). The way it’s revived, in a barn and with plenty of reference to The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary et al., was quite interesting.

The book, and the research mentioned, may best be seen as a proof of concept, an introduction to psychedelic therapy (it features several sessions with MDMA, LSD, psilocybin). The double-blind, placebo-controlled experiments are left for a future moment to transpire.

The critique of the ‘normal’ system is evident in Sessa’s description of current psychotherapy. He paints it as a system in which patients come back for years, don’t solve their underlying problems, and get dosed with SSRIs that don’t do much if anything. Oh, and the protagonist is fantasizing about killing his patients (don’t worry, it doesn’t turn into Hannibal). The alternative, psychedelic (psycho)therapy, is offered as a way out of this loop.

From my perspective, the alternative is presented without enough evidence and rigor (the double-blind studies that are left for the reader to imagine happening sometime in the future). After seeing positive results, the two psychiatrists are heralded as heroes in a presentation for their colleagues. It’s a fantasy that many in the psychedelics field may have, but unfortunately many have been burned too much before to have that level of hope (although it is likely to be justified in this case).

At the end of the book, things get turned up to 11. The second psychiatrist (Joseph Langley) is dying and in a flurry of science-y sounding words, they run tests and strange things happen. One is left to ponder what this means or why it’s related to psychedelic science, but I was none the wiser.

Other Works by Ben Sessa

Ben Sessa has also written The Psychedelics Renaissance, summarizing where we stand with research and sticking much more to facts this time.

June 16, 2020

Ginger Drink

To start the ginger drink (with a ginger bug), and to keep it alive, do this:

  1. Add a cup of water (230g) into a medium-sized jar (1,5x cup of water at least)
  2. Add 3 tsp grated (in food processor) ginger
  3. Add 2 tsp sugar
  4. Stir (multiple times per day)
  5. Repeat 2-4 daily, until it starts to fizz (close jar if needed)
    • Total ginger ~250g, total sugar ~150g

To make a ginger drink:

  1. Juice 30g ginger (or blend really-really well, can juice with garlic press too, but 30g is a lot) into a large jar (2 litres+)
  2. Add 1-2 juiced lemons
  3. Add 1.6 litres of water
  4. Add 150g sugar
  5. Add 15g of ginger bug (restock your ginger bug if needed)
  6. Taste-test!
  7. Let it ferment (1-7 days) until fizzy enough
    • Put it in the fridge when (almost) fizzy enough, so it ferments slower

Inspiration/tips:

June 16, 2020

Hummus

This is the basic recipe, see possible changes below:

  1. Soak 150g raw (dried) chickpeas for at least 8 hours (e.g. overnight)
  2. Cook for at least 30 minutes (replenish water if needed) (add baking soda TO TEST)
  3. When done, drain and run cold water over them
  4. Put them (XXX grams?) into a food processor, together with
  5. 5 tbsp tahini
  6. 2 tsp lemon juice
  7. 10g salt
  8. 1 tsp garlic
  9. 1 tsp chili flakes (Ottolenghi)
  10. Add cold! water to the same height as ingredients
  11. Blend for at least 10 minutes!

Orange version:

  1. Add rass el hanout (and/or kurkuma)

Fresher version:

  1. Bake garlic & paprika (bell peppers) in oven before, with royal amount of olive oil over them (don’t add garlic powder)

Bean alternatives:

  • Mix chick peas with lentils, black beans, white beans, etc
  • (haven’t tested if any of them taste better, but variation doesn’t hurt)

Recipes to try:

  • https://cookieandkate.com/best-hummus-recipe/
    • Hmm, add a little baking soda to water when cooking chickpeas (so they become softer)
    • Hmm, cold water
    • Possibly add a bit of olive oil (good tasting one?)
    • Ground cumin
    • Variation: fresh leafy herbs
    • Variation: kalamata olives
    • Variation: sun-dried tomatoes
    • Garnish: olive oil, sesame seeds, chopped fresh parsley
June 16, 2020

Whole Wheat Bread

1. Mix together in a bowl, make blob:

  • 300 grams – whole wheat oat flour (volkoren tarwemeel)
  • 100 grams – oat flakes (haver vlokken)
  • 40 grams – crushed flaxseeds (buy in bulk packaging)
  • 40 grams – seeds and/or nuts
  • 10 grams – yeast (also buy in bulk)
  • 10 grams – salt (with iodine, not sea salt)
  • 250 grams – lukewarm water
    • dough should be soft but not too sticky, add more whole wheat if needed

2. Let it stand for 20 minutes

3. Spread it out on baking tray (powdered with oat flour), fold two sides together (left-right), then roll from another side (top or bottom)

  • Make about 3 cuts on the top so it can rise without breaking
  • Cover with hand towel

4. Let it stand for 40 minutes

  • Start oven (220 degrees) at 30 minutes into waiting time

5. Put in oven for 30 minutes

  • Let it cool under a hand towel afterward

Variations/tips:

  • Make two blobs (so you can freeze one of them, about 30 min after the end)
  • Add some raisins to the mix (or other dried berries-type things)
  • Make with (partly) white flour for more fluffy (less fibre-rich) bread
June 11, 2020

Manifesting Minds

Originally published on Blossom Analysis

Manifesting Minds is an anthology of articles from the MAPS Bulletin and is edited by Rick Doblin and Brad Burge. It contains the highlights of articles written until 2014, which are grouped per theme. The book does a great job of offering different perspectives, but for specific information one can best search on their website itself.

Quick Take

The essays are divided into eight categories. They are the following:

  1. Arts and Creativity
  2. Coming of Age
  3. Science and Medicine
  4. Therapy
  5. Sexuality
  6. Spirituality
  7. Ecology
  8. Technology

The essays range from articles written about the topic, to interviews and recollections of experiences. One learns about doing 2C-B with your children, doing (macro) doses of psychedelics and their relationship to extreme sports, and the connection between meditation and psychedelics.

Amongst the many authors are the luminaries like Ann Shulgin, Ram Dass, Aldous Huxley, but also lesser-known voices and perspectives like that of one of the MDMA trial participants.

As mentioned in the intro, the book provides some insights, but one could also find these by searching the MAPS Bulletin website.

One quote that stood out to me is the following in the interview with Aldous Huxley, speaking about a psychedelic experience:

“You remember something extraordinary having happened. And to some extent you can relive the experience, particularly the transformation of the outside world. You get hints of this, you see the world in this transfigured way now and then-not to the same pitch of intensity, but something of the kind. It does help you look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually introduced into the kind of world that Van Goh lived in, or the kind of world that Blake lived in.”

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