Let's be Fwends #112:

Why not simply embrace uncertainty?

“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” ~ Douglas Adams

For some (probably rather obvious) reason I keep coming back to Douglas Adams for introductory quotes.

Besides weird one-liners, Adams also left us with this very concise mapping of the Gartner Hype-Cycle onto the human life experience:

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

So, regardless of how old you are, now is not the time to talk about AI, because it's either (1) boring because obvious, (2) trite, because you're already knee-deep into ChatGPT-Applications, or (3) frightening, and the last thing I want to do here is frighten my readers.

Instead, let's concern ourselves with a couple of general ideas. First, the idea that some activities simply are diffuse, unclear, and volatile and it's better to roll with that than to try to tie them down. Then, there's a critical survival kit of 40 really useful concepts, a framework for responding to injustice at work, and finally a graphic on the stages of burnout that might or might not be scary, depending on your own history.

Stop Planning the Unplannable

Have you ever tried to eliminate uncertainty by requiring "more" upfront? More details, more requirements, more process, more meetings?

While understanding what you're setting out to do is important, understanding how you want to react once the inevitable happens is even more important.

Stop planning for the unplannable, embrace uncertainty and prepare for how you're going to react.

40 Useful Concepts - a critical survival kit

Gurwinder composed an interesting list of 40 models, biases, fallacies, rhetorical figures, paradoxa and other fun things.

Worth a read!

Injustice at Work - and how to respond effectively

Kim Scott - Author of "Radical Candor" - has a great piece of advice how to react to injustice at work whether you're harmed, a bystander, a leader or the person who causes the harm

Stages of Burnout

I honestly forgot where I got this image from, but reading all the different stages you pass while sliding down into burnout really made my eyes twitch.

As someone who suffered from severe burnout twice in their career, I can tell you it's uncanny to see it spelled out so clearly, like you just played out a role someone wrote in a script.

That's it for this edition of Let's be Fwends, always remember: All models are wrong, but some models are useful! 🏭