It's been a few weeks since I wrote to you. I expected summer to be a little more relaxed, but it's been a blur! Couldn't find much time to read (or write).
But I did manage to take two weeks off, to travel around Mongolia (It's breath-takingly beautiful!).
This week, let's talk about Questions. As a leader and manager, questions are the most powerful asset in your toolbox. Ask the right question, and you can instantly shift frames. You can bend reality.
As I like to say:
1. The right question is a force multiplier.
The first stone is decisive because it is the most difficult to throw... Because it is the only one without a model.
—René Girard
I read a great thread from Patrick Campbell earlier this week:
Sigh, tweets are still not rendering properly on substack, thanks to Mr. Musk. Click on the image to see the thread.
The entire thread is great, but I love question 2️⃣:
"This person you're complaining about - have you tried talking to them?"
A variation of this is the best managerial question of all (and a question I LOVE to ask):
Why does this work?
It works because you're giving your team the responsibility to manage their own experience. You're empowering them (in fact, reminding them) that they can solve their own problems.
It does an immediate frame-shift from complaining to action.
The right question is a force multiplier. It creates immense leverage for you as a manager. Ask the right question at the right moment, and you can move mountains.
Ten seconds is all it takes.
Way back in July 2020, I had written about the incredible power of asking the right question:
Questions are far more powerful than answers.
They frame the conversation. You can only answer questions that are asked.
The right question takes you right to the essence of a problem, and helps you solve it.
For example, asking a startup what their defensibility is, is far more useful than asking them about the addressable market size.
And the wrong question can waste years.
“What cool feature should we build next?” is the wrong question, when your onboarding funnel itself is leaky.
You can only answer questions that are asked. Therefore, ask the right questions.
A few other questions that I've found to be surprisingly powerful:
"What's my real objective here?"
As we go through our days, it's very easy to get into reactive mode.
You start by shooting the 8-ball where you want it to go. But soon, you're frantic and agitated, chasing it as it bounces around.
This is a high-leverage moment. Step back, and remind yourself of the end-goal:
What am I really trying to achieve?
What would I do if I really wanted to achieve this?
"What did we do well?"
We fixate too much on things we fail at. Weaknesses, or in corporate-speak, "areas of improvement".
In Paddy's view, 80% of the focus in planning should be on things that we did successfully.
The question to ask is: "What did we do well?"
Why does this work?
It works because most of our jobs are not rocket science. Yes, skill or aptitude do matter. But attitude matters far, far more.
And celebrating successes, however small, boosts self-esteem and motivation.
Now, what if there's nothing to celebrate? What if we lost the deal? What if this month's P&L was a loss?
Well, then, celebrate the process - the tiny things you did well. Celebrate the inputs, if the outputs didn't go your way.
For example, in cricket team meetings, Paddy would appreciate players for comforting their teammates after a drop-catch. Or for backing up to prevent overthrows even on inconsequential runs.
Celebrate the process of preparing for the goal, rather than just the goal itself.
But there's a deeper reason too. When you focus on strengths over weaknesses, you have a much greater impact on performance.
Paddy gave an example of his work with a marathoner to illustrate this.
Let's call this runner A.
A always used to come second to another runner B, because B had the ability to get a "second wind" in the last lap of the race. Runner A would lead for most of the race, but then in the last mile, out of nowhere, B would sprint and come first.
So A's coach trained him for a full season, on getting that kick at the end. Result - he did manage to get the last-minute surge. But because he didn't focus on the first 25 miles in training, he came far behind anyway.
When Paddy started working with runner A, he doubled down on his strength. He focused on making what he was already good at - the first 25 miles of the race - 10% better.
The result:
A was able to put so much distance between him and B in the first 25 miles, that B couldn't catch up even with a second wind at the end.
Use difficulty as a guide not just in selecting the overall aim of your company, but also at decision points along the way. At Viaweb one of our rules of thumb was "run upstairs".
Suppose you are a little, nimble guy being chased by a big, fat, bully. You open a door and find yourself in a staircase. Do you go up or down? I say up. The bully can probably run downstairs as fast as you can. Going upstairs his bulk will be more of a disadvantage. Running upstairs is hard for you but even harder for him.
What this meant in practice was that we deliberately sought hard problems. If there were two features we could add to our software, both equally valuable in proportion to their difficulty, we'd always take the harder one. Not just because it was more valuable, but because it was harder. We delighted in forcing bigger, slower competitors to follow us over difficult ground.
Like guerillas, startups prefer the difficult terrain of the mountains, where the troops of the central government can't follow. I can remember times when we were just exhausted after wrestling all day with some horrible technical problem. And I'd be delighted, because something that was hard for us would be impossible for our competitors.
Everyone's favorite stock-picker Scott Galloway says something similar, in The Fourth Great Unlock:
Great strategy cuts a swath between market conditions and a firm’s assets. Put more simply, strategy is a firm’s answer to the following question:
What can we do that is really hard?
As I said in that article:
If you're split between two equally attractive strategic choices and don't know which one to pick: pick the one that's harder.
Very often, we let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
In fact, very often this quest for perfection is just procrastination in disguise. It's far more comfortable to plan to do the work, than to do the work itself.
But why do we procrastinate? Because we're anxious. Because we're scared of failure. Because the endeavor seems hopelessly complex, and we don't know where to start.
So, it's helpful to ask: What can I do that's easy? What's one simple step I can take? What's an MVP I can create tomorrow?
Some things are scary, but actually not dangerous at all. And some very dangerous things are not scary at all.
For example:
Rappelling down a cliff is scary, but not dangerous (I've done it a few times).
Walking down a snow-capped mountain feels pretty OK, but is dangerous as hell (done this a few times too, and almost broke my leg once!)
Same thing in life:
Quitting your job and starting up can feel scary. Very scary. But is it dangerous? Not at all.
Putting yourself out there can feel scary too. But again, what's the worst that can happen?
These are scary. But they aren’t dangerous. Driving your car around the block might be more dangerous.
Or, as Guy Raz says,
Failing is scary. Wasting your life is dangerous.
"Is this a crisis or an event?"
Got this one from Shaan Puri.
Questions are a great way to manage your mental state. The right question is like a password to get into the innards of your brain, and tweak your feelings directly.
And this question is an excellent addition to your toolbox. It frees you from the grip of your fight-flight-or-freeze panic, and brings you back to reality.
"It's OK! There's no lion in the bushes, waiting to spring on me."
TL:DR
Listing down my force multiplier questions here for easy reference:
"This person you're complaining about - what did they say when you told them this?"
"What's my real objective here? What would I do if i really wanted to achieve this?"
This is an amazing list of questions you can ask people to get them to take action. Questions that take 10 seconds to ask, but produce insanely outsized effects.
Before we continue, a quick note:
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2. Chart of the Week: Amazon's dominance. Or lack thereof.
Wow! Surprising that despite its gigantic scale (and mindshare), Amazon still accounts for less than 50% of US ecommerce. And a much smaller share of retail.
A reminder of just how large US retail is.
As I was telling a friend running a consumer brand the other day: When you expand globally, you only need to win one market: The US.
Nothing else even comes close.
3. This made me proud!
In an achievement that warmed the hearts of a billion Indians, India's Chandrayaan-3 mission soft-landed at the South Pole of the moon earlier this week.
The total cost of the mission was USD 75 million, a fraction of other similar missions.
For instance, Russia's failed mission to the same destination, which crashed just 3 days before, cost USD 200 million. NASA's planned VIPER rover is expected to cost double that, at USD 433 million.
And don't forget NASA's Perseverance rover to Mars, which cost USD 2.7 billion!
This is not the first time India’s done this.
Remember India's Mars orbiter, Mangalyaan? It reached Mars in 2014. The cost of that mission too was USD 75 million. Less than 11% of the cost of NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter, which had a total mission cost of nearly USD 700 million!
How much really is USD 75 million?
Not much at all!
As the denizens of Twitter X were quick to point out, the budget for the movie Interstellar was USD 165M. More than 2x! Kinda bonkers, if you think about it.
Even a video game can cost a LOT more. The development of Grand Theft Auto V cost USD 265M, nearly 4x as much as India’s moon (and Mars) mission.
But if you want a real contrast, check this:
The New York MTA is spending USD 100 million to install platform barriers in 3 New York subway stations. Platform barriers! In three subway stations!
We keep talking about India's jugaad entrepreneurs, who push every rupee to its limit.
But the true jugaad story coming out of India might be out of this world. A lonely little rover at a desolate corner of the moon.
4. This made me laugh!
Inflation has solved at least one problem.
That’s it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it.
As always, stay safe, healthy and sane, wherever you are.
I’ll see you next week.
Jitha
[A quick request - if you liked today’s newsletter, I’d appreciate it very much if you could forward it to one other person who might find it useful 🙏].
