The Coolness of Time

Rishad Tobaccowalla | Principles | Put Pen To Paper | Innovation Falling?

Photo by Harman Sandhu on Unsplash

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Principles: The point of principles is that they may cost us. Sometimes our job. Often money. Staying true to principles will cost a lot except we will keep something critical called “reputation”. Let us not build a personal brand. Stand for something. Build a reputation. It is like our shadow. It will follow us wherever we go. Long after the heat of the moment, the coolness of time will remember what we did when we were in the crucible of pressure.

| Rishad Tobaccowalla, Old School Cool

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Principles

‘Long after the heat of the moment’ — when we are stressed — ‘the coolness of time will remember what we did when we were in the crucible of pressure’.

Tobaccowala’s poetic concept is it is time itself that will do the remembering, as if time itself is an agent, an observer, or an angel looking over our shoulders. But that really translates to the colder fact that we will remember, a future we.

So the power of his aphorism isn’t that anyone can be weak, and make mistakes; it’s that we will judge ourselves, in the future, even when no one else knows. And the best course is to stand for your principles, for your own sake, for your own future you.

Tobaccowalla is talking about one meaning of ‘principle’, here, which I’ve highlighted below: the moral dimension.

The principles that I am accumulating bit by bit here at workfutures.io are the other, scientific sense:

Tobaccowala has others in the list that includes ‘principles’. But this principle about principles joins the list of workfutures.io principles.

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Put Pen To Paper

Olivia Grace is the Senior Director of Product Management at Slack. She has wrestled with the issue of decision paralysis, when you have a problem that stands between you and a goal, and you don’t know where to start. One of her tips to break the stoppage hit home for me: Put Pen to Paper.

The blank page can be intimidating, whether you're writing an article or starting a new project.

My solution? Just start writing — or in the case of project management, just start doing. Don't worry about perfection at first. Maybe you start with the conclusion and work backwards. Perhaps you jot down a series of disjointed ideas that you're 90% sure will be edited later. The important thing is to overcome inertia.

In project management, this might mean creating a rough outline of project phases, even if you're not sure of all the details. Or it could involve setting up a basic project structure in your management tool, knowing you'll refine it later. The key is to avoid putting things off for fear of making the wrong move.

I often encourage my team to embrace this draft mentality. We'll have sessions where we rapidly prototype ideas or create rough project plans, with the understanding that we're not aiming for perfection — we're aiming to start.

I often employ a similar trick that I first learned about back in 2014, twenty years ago. Matt Abrahams, who was teaching at the Stanford School of Business wrote a piece for Inc: 2 Secrets of Memorable Presentations. His most important point was that good presentations tell a memorable story, and memorable stories need a structure. He offers several:

Past-Present-Future, which is good for providing a history or leading people through a process
Comparison-Contrast, which is ideal for showing the relative advantages of your position.
Cause-Effect, which helps people understand the underlying logic of your position

Having a structure helps you remember what to say because even if you forget the specifics, you can use the general framework to stay on track. For example, when using the Problem-Solution-Benefit structure--which is good for persuading and motivating people--you first lay out a specific problem (or opportunity), then detail a solution to address the problem, defining its benefits. If you are in the middle of the Solution portion of your talk and blank out, recalling your structure will tell you that the Benefits portion comes next.

My favorite structure is What?-So What?-Now What?, which can help you not only in planned presentations but also in spontaneous speaking situations such as job interviews. When using this structure, you start with your central claim (“I am qualified for this position because of my experience”) and then explain its significance (“This experience means I can start contributing to your firm immediately”) before concluding with a call to action (“When can I start?”).

Over the years I have employed the last technique to structure presentations, but the most consistent use of the ‘three whats’ in my work has been trying to put pen to paper about some problem blocking my path to a goal.

Following his set-up, I consider the ‘three whats’ as if I am starting a conversation with some intelligent contact: often imaginary, but just as often an editor.

Here’s an example:

three whats of the 'booklets' project

Basically, the project is planned to reuse and extend existing writings and repurpose them into the form of quite short non-fiction publications. These will be used as inducements to paid subscriptions on workfutures.io. A booklet is to a book what a novella is to a novel.

• What: A project to reuse and extend existing writings and repurpose them into the form of short non-fiction publications.

• So What: Bring together disparate writings on specific and important themes for convenience of the readers, provided to paid subscribers of workfutures.io for free, and for a fee for anyone else.

• Now What: research what format, and how to publish materials, and then experiment with publishing tools, gather materials for experiments, like a ‘booklet for decision-making’, create initial ebook.

Each of the phrases in the ‘now what’ section are individual tasks I can undertake to push the project ahead, and maybe make it clearer where the root problem is. In this case, alas, I still haven’t figured out the format for the books. Coming soon, I hope, since I have amassed writing for at least booklets.

However, the three whats technique led me to pinpoint the bottleneck in a very short time. That’s where I need to put my shoulder to the wheel.

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Innovation Falling?

Yes, and who knows why?