PoC - #3 - Information Diet
Information diet and sabotaging
Another week draws close and I retrospect on broad themes of the week.
Thank you for reading my newsletter, sharing, commenting and participating.
This week I talk about a topic I care about lot and an interesting find on the web
Information diet for product managers ( but generally applicable in life too )
An old CIA manual talking about sabotaging productivty
Information Diet for Product Managers
In my day job as a product guy, I spend my time juggling slack, email, jira, confluence and at least 30 browser tabs to try and make coherent sense of it all. Some topics demand deep dives, others don’t deserve a second glance. Outside of my day job I consume content from newsletters, twitter threads, books and articles on the web. Not to mention YouTube, Netflix, Disney, Prime . You get the idea.
But the volume of information out there is always overwhelming and you end up feeling jaded and not making progress. At work I am very conscious about my information diet, I am slowly beginning to apply the same principles outside work now.
I have 2 simple filters for going deep on any information
Schedule Consumption
Do not consume content the moment you find it. Add a bit of distance between the act of discovery of a content and the act of consumption. At work this means going through your mailbox but not diving deep into any email. If you need to go deep then track it and block your time. Outside of work if you find an interesting article while browsing, bookmark it. If you find an interesting thread on twitter, favourite it. Then come back later to consume it. You can also use a ton of read it later apps like instapaper and pocket make it easier. This delayed gratification changes the game on consumption.
Consume to Produce.
As a Product person, there is no shortage of information awaiting consumption. The simple heuristic I use to guide my filter one what to consume, is to only consume to produce. It is a very simple concept, you only consume stuff in a way that you are able to produce something as a result. You could produce new content, training manuals, podcast questions, videos etc. The medium of production doesn't matter as much as the intention to produce while consumption. Hold the bar for consumption very high.
If you have ever felt that you vaguely have an idea about the subject because you read about it somewhere but can‘t remember enough to contribute. You can still watching interesting videos on YouTube and documentaries on Netflix but don’t confuse it with learning.
Sabotaging : CIA Manual
After the second World War, US intelligence agencies have come up with innovative ways to Influence regimes not in their interest. In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) ( CIA’s precursor), created the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. This document was intended for the lay person whose interests were not aligned with the regime.
Beyond the obvious acts of sabotage what caught my interest was it goes in great detail on how to ferment trouble and create annoyances in the lives of ordinary citizens. As I read further, I saw patterns of actors and behaviours I have seen in so many occasions.
I want to highlight a few of these and remind you that malice comes in many forms. The ones listed below come from the section titled General Interference with Organizations and Production. Have you seen any of them in your life ?
Managers and Supervisors:
To lower morale and production, be pleasant to inefficient workers
Give them undeserved promotions.
Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work
Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products
Organizations and Conferences
When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration."
Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible.
Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible
Haggle over precise wordings of com- munications, minutes, resolutions.
Employees
Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job
Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can
When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary
Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker
However in conclusion I am reminded by Hanlon’s Razor which states
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
Until next week ..
Ram Rao