Austin Hay: evaluation

Transcript context

…No. Go on. Okay. So, Steven B. Sample is a professor at USC. He wrote a book called The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, really great book. It's one of his principles. There's actually a lot of great principles in the book, but this is the one that I think has stuck with me the most in my career. And the concept of thinking gray is so often in life and in our jobs, we are forced to make decisions very quickly. We have to think black or white about a problem set or a solution, and then decide. One of his tactics is this concept of thinking gray, which is actually to not decide for as long as you possibly can before you have to decide. It's really challenging because it involves this little thing called patience, which I do not have a lot of, most of the time, and I know most people don't as well. But it's particularly really relevant in systems thinking and product because so often we believe that we have to make a decision because our boss is telling us because there's an OPR, because we feel the pain because somebody's complaining to me. But actually in reality, you don't have to make a decision at all. You can just let it sit for a while. And this also applies to, I think, how you move through the world and view people. A lot of times we will meet somebody in a company setting or in a business setting, and we are quick to make decisions about them. We even asked me questions about how I hire people very quickly. We're looking for shortcuts to make decisions about evaluating people. One of the best pieces of advice though about thinking gray is it gives you the grace to not decide about people until you have to decide. So, obviously for an interview decision, you have to decide. You have to decide yes or no. But so often you'll come across people and you'll meet them once or twice. And I feel like there's this tendency in the back of everybody's brain to be like, do I like this person? Do I want to work with them? And the question often is not that it's do you have to even make a decision right now? And by leaving yourself to have space to decide, you actually open up the possibility that in the future you'll make a better decision. So, I think that's a really good lesson for systems, and it's obviously a lesson that you can apply to the rest of your life too. Austin, that was awesome. And with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got six questions for you. Are you ready?…

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