When Your Team Loses Quotes

You guide your team when they lose the path, you pick them up when they fall, and you give them motivation when they have none.

The center snaps the ball to the quarterback!" "No he doesn't!" "He doesn't?" "NO! Secretly, he's the quarterback for the other team! He keeps the ball!" "A traitor!" "Calvin breaks for the goal." "Wheeee! He's at the 30... the 20... the 10! Nobody can catch him!" "Nobody wants to! Your running toward your own goal!" "Huh?!" "When I learned that you were a spy, I switched goals. This is your goal and mine's hidden!" "Hidden?!" "You'll never find it in a million years!" "I don't need to find it as a traitor to your team, crossing my goal counts as crossing your goal!" "Ah, so you might think so..." "In fact, I know so!" "But the place I hid my goal is right on top of your goal, so the points will go to me!" "But the fact is, I'm really a double agent! I'm on your team after all, which means you'll lose points if I cross your goal! Ha ha!" "But I'm a traitor too, so I'm really on your team! I want you to cross my goal! The points will go to your team, which is really my team!" "That would be true... if I were a football player!" "You mean...?" "I'm actually a badminton player disguised as a double-agent football player!!" "And I'm actually a volleyball-croquet-polo player!" "Sooner or later, all our games turn into CalvinBall." "No cheating!

When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing

When bosses are too invested in everyone getting along they also fail to encourage the people on their team to criticize one another other for fear of sowing discord. They create the kind of work environment where being "nice" is prioritized at the expense of critiquing and therefore improving actual performance.

It’s brutally hard to tell people when they are screwing up. You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings; that’s because you’re not a sadist. You don’t want that person or the rest of the team to think you’re a jerk. Plus, you’ve been told since you learned to talk, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Now all of a sudden it’s your job to say it. You’ve got to undo a lifetime of training. Management is hard.

Protect and preserve your core customers," he [Jim Sinegal, cofounder and CEO of Costco] told our marketing team when I invited him to speak to us. "The cost of losing your core customers and trying to get them back during a down economy will be much greater than the cost of investing in them and trying to keep them.

You didn’t stop loving someone you’d been attached to for so much of your life, even when you’d had a falling out. You always grieved the friendship lost. And now that she had him in her life again, she didn’t want to lose that connection.

You lose the respect of the best when you don’t deal properly with the worst.

We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life. What I'm grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I'm scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after Commencement and leave this place. “It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four A.M. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went , we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.

Did you ever get fed up?" I said. "I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something? I mean do you like school and all that stuff?" "It's a terrific bore." "I mean do you hate it? I know it's a terrific bore, but do you hate it, is what I mean." "Well, I don't exactly hate it. You always have to--" "Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it," I said. "But it isn't just that. It's everything. I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always--" "Don't shout, please," old Sally said. Which was very funny, because I wasn't even shouting. "Take cars," I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. "Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake. A horse you can at least--" "I don't know what you're even talking about," old Sally said. "You jump from one--" "You know something?" I said. You're probably the only reason I'm in New York right now, or anywhere. If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You're the only reason I'm around, practically." "You're sweet," she said. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn subject. "You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime," I said. "It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stuck together, the Catholics stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little intelligent--" "Now, listen," old Sally said. "Lots of boys get more out of school that that." "I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that's all I get out of it. See? That's my point. That's exactly my goddamn point," I said. "I don't get hardly anything out of anything. I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape." "You certainly are.

Steve would later say that when a team debated, both the ideas and the people came out more beautiful—results well worth all the friction and noise.5 Your job as a boss is to turn on that “rock tumbler.

The key insight behind Radical Candor is that command and control can hinder innovation and harm a team’s ability to improve the efficiency of routine work. Bosses and companies get better results when they voluntarily lay down unilateral power and encourage their teams and peers to hold them accountable, when they quit trying to control employees and focus instead on encouraging agency. The idea is that collaboration and innovation flourish when human relationships replace bullying and bureaucracy.

Is it my turn yet?” Lassiter asked over the earpiece. “I was born ready for this.” “Of all the people who could be immortal,” V muttered, “why are you one of them?” “Because I’m awwwwwesome,” the fallen angel sang. “And I’m part of your team—” “No, you’re not—” “—living your dream!” Butch’s head started thumping even worse. “Shut up, Lass. I can’t do singing right now.” “It’s from Despicable Me,” the angel commented. Like he was being helpful. “Shut up,” V cut in. “Shut up.” Butch fought to keep his voice low. “We’ve got another four minutes in the gym. I’ll let you know when you can—” “I’m losing air over here, you know,” Lassiter bitched. “My inflatable is deflating.” V cursed. “That’s because it doesn’t want to be around you any more than we do.” “You keep this up and I’m going to start thinking my enmity is mutual.” “About fucking time.” Right, Butch didn’t get off on dragging soaking-wet, panicked idiots out of a pool—but, man, he was really frickin’ glad he wasn’t on the back side of the house with those two fighting. “Sit tight, Lass,” he said. “I’ll be in touch—and, V, for the love of God, will you turn off his fucking mic—” “Ow! Hey! What the fuck, V—

But when you do things that continue to belittle and even disrespect the efforts of those in your corner, eventually you’re going to lose your team.

Seeing someone you used to date is a lot like watching highlights of your favorite team losing in the Super Bowl: just the sight of it hits you like a punch in the gut and makes you remember how upset you were when it all went down in flames.

Why three days? Because that’s the minim amount of time to reset a metabolic hormone. When you disrupt these seven hormones in three-day bursts, it takes you a total of twenty-one days to recreate a collaborative team of your metabolic hormones.

Mallory.' He stops me. His expression is solemn. 'It's lonely, chess. You may have a team around you, but when it really comes down to it, you're on your own. You play on your own. You lose and win on your own. You go home, and you're on your own.

Autonomy, the ability to have control over some part of your work, is an important element of motivation. This is why micromanagers find it so difficult to retain great teams. When you strip creative and talented people of their autonomy, they lose motivation very quickly. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you can’t make a single decision on your own, or feeling like every single piece of work you do has to be double- and triple-checked by your manager.

you may not have noticed, but i'm not what you'd call conventionally beautiful. in fact, you might say that i'm the opposite of that. say, you know - to vocalize, sometimes ad nauseam? do you think that there's any minute in a day when i'm not aware of how big i am? do you think there's a single minute that goes by when i'm not thinking about how other people see me? even though i have no control whatsoever over that? don't get me wrong - i love my body. but i'm not so much of an idiot to think that everybody else loves it. what really gets to me - what really bothers me - is that it's all people see. ever since i was a not-so-little kid. hey, tiny, want to play football? hey, tiny, how many burgers did you eat today? hey, tiny, do you ever lose your dick down there? hey, tiny, you're going to join the basketball team whether you like it or not. just don't try to look at us in the locker room! does that sound easy to you will?

Once you know your WHY, you have a choice to live it every day. Living it means consistently taking actions that are in alignment with the things you say. If you say one thing and do another too frequently, you will lose the trust of others. Our actions either add to or take away from the trust and loyalty others feel toward us. When the things we say and the things we do are aligned with what we believe, we are fully living our WHY. Will you choose to take a stand?

Today the intellectual leaders of the Republican Party are the paranoids, kooks, know-nothings, and bigots who once could be heard only on late-night talk shows, the stations you listened to on long drives because it was hard to fall asleep while laughing. When any political movement loses all sense of self and has no unifying theory of government, it ceases to function as a collective rooted in thought and becomes more like fans of a sports team. Asking the Republican Party today to agree on a definition of conservatism is like asking New York Giants fans to have a consensus opinion on the Law of the Sea Treaty. It’s not just that no one knows anything about the subject; they don’t remotely care. All Republicans want to do is beat the team playing the Giants. They aren’t voters using active intelligence or participants in a civil democracy; they are fans. Their role is to cheer and fund their team and trash-talk whatever team is on the other side. This removes any of the seeming contradiction of having spent years supporting principles like free trade and personal responsibility to suddenly stop and support the opposite. Think of those principles like players on a team. You cheered for them when they were on your team, but then management fired them or traded them to another team, so of course you aren’t for them anymore. If your team suddenly decides to focus on running instead of passing, no fan cares—as long as the team wins. Stripped of any pretense of governing philosophy, a political party will default to being controlled by those who shout the loudest and are unhindered by any semblance of normalcy. It isn’t the quiet fans in the stands who get on television but the lunatics who paint their bodies with the team colors and go shirtless on frigid days. It’s the crazy person who lunges at the ref and jumps over seats to fight the other team’s fans who is cheered by his fellow fans as he is led away on the jumbotron. What is the forum in which the key issues of the day are discussed? Talk radio and the television shows sponsored by the team, like Fox & Friends, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity.

I learned many lessons from my first race with my heroes. I learned it was easier to breathe when I cried, so I cried often and without shame. I learned that a teammate’s faith in you can propel you up any mountain. I learned that winning requires an entirely different mind-set than not losing. I learned that the best teams in the world share not only their strengths but also their weaknesses. I learned that you don’t inspire your teammates by showing them how amazing you are. You inspire them by showing them how amazing they are.

In order to build a great team, you need to understand how each person’s job fits into their life goals. You need to get to know each person who reports directly to you, to have real, human relationships—relationships that change as people change. When putting the right people in the right roles on your team, you’ll also have to challenge people even more directly than you did with guidance—and in a way that will impact not just their feelings but also their income, their career growth, and their ability to get what they want out of life. Building a team is hard.

Invest in a promising company you don’t care about, and you might enjoy it when everything’s going well. But when the tide inevitably turns you’re suddenly losing money on something you’re not interested in. It’s a double burden, and the path of least resistance is to move onto something else. If you’re passionate about the company to begin with—you love the mission, the product, the team, the science, whatever—the inevitable down times when you’re losing money or the company needs help are blunted by the fact that at least you feel like you’re part of something meaningful.

She rented the place from some whacko, fanatic, leftist, commie, pinko so-called Columbia professor named Sidney Bowman.” “You’re so tolerant, Rolly.” “Yeah, well, I lose touch when I keep missing those ACLU meetings. Anyway, this pinko won’t talk. He says she just rented from him and paid in cash. We all know he’s lying. The feds grilled him, but he got a team of faggot, liberal lawyers down here to spring him. Called us a bunch of Nazi pigs and stuff.” “That’s not a compliment, Rolly. In case you don’t know.” “Thanks for clueing me in. I got Krinsky tailing him right now, but he’s got nothing. I mean, this Bowman’s not a retard. He’s got to know we’re watching.

When Steve Jobs was a kid, his neighbor showed him a rock tumbler—a can that spun on a motor. The neighbor asked Steve to gather up some ordinary rocks from the yard. He took the stones, threw them into the can, added some grit, turned on the motor, and, over the racket, asked Steve to come back two days later. When Steve returned to the noisy clatter of the garage, the neighbor turned off the contraption and Steve was astounded to see how the ordinary rocks had become beautiful polished stones. Steve would later say that when a team debated, both the ideas and the people came out more beautiful—results well worth all the friction and noise.5 Your job as a boss is to turn on that “rock tumbler.

Sean started the engine and putted through the marina waters, and Adam had the nerve to plop onto the seat across the aisle from me. Sean reached the edge of the idle zone and cranked the boat into top speed. Adam called to me so softly I could barely catch his words over the motor, “Close your legs.” “What for? I waxed!” I looked down to make sure. This was okay now, because Sean was facing the other way and couldn’t hear me in the din. Indeed, I was clean. I spread my legs even wider, put my arms on the back of the seat, and generally took up as much room as possible, like a boy. I glanced back over at Adam. “Does it make you uncomfortable for me to sit this way?” He watched me warily. “Yes.” “May I suggest that this is your problem and not mine?” He licked his lips and bent toward me. “If it keeps Sean from asking you out, it’s going to be your problem, and you’re going to make it my problem.” “Speaking of which,” I said, crossing my legs like a girl. “Thanks for staying out of my way. How the hell am I supposed to get Sean to ask me out when he’s all pissy?” “You wanted me to lose to him at team calisthenics? That was too sweet to miss.” “You didn’t have to win by quite so much, Adam. You knew I needed him in a good mood. You didn’t have to rub it in.” Adam grinned. “And you wanted me to stop growing?” “Do not make a joke about your size. If you can’t think of anything to talk about except your large size, please say nothing at all.

All A players have six common denominators. They have a scoreboard that tells them if they are winning or losing and what needs to be done to change their performance. They will not play if they can’t see the scoreboard. They have a high internal, emotional need to succeed. They do not need to be externally motivated or begged to do their job. They want to succeed because it is who they are . . . winners. People often ask me how I motivate my employees. My response is, “I hire them.” Motivation is for amateurs. Pros never need motivating. (Inspiration is another story.) Instead of trying to design a pep talk to motivate your people, why not create a challenge for them? A players love being tested and challenged. They love to be measured and held accountable for their results. Like the straight-A classmate in your high school geometry class, an A player can hardly wait for report card day. C players dread report card day because they are reminded of how average or deficient they are. To an A player, a report card with a B or a C is devastating and a call for renewed commitment and remedial actions. They have the technical chops to do the job. This is not their first rodeo. They have been there, done that, and they are technically very good at what they do. They are humble enough to ask for coaching. The three most important questions an employee can ask are: What else can I do? Where can I get better? What do I need to do or learn so that I continue to grow? If you have someone on your team asking all three of these questions, you have an A player in the making. If you agree these three questions would fundamentally change the game for your team, why not enroll them in asking these questions? They see opportunities. C players see only problems. Every situation is asking a very simple question: Do you want me to be a problem or an opportunity? Your choice. You know the job has outgrown the person when all you hear are problems. The cost of a bad employee is never the salary. My rules for hiring and retaining A players are: Interview rigorously. (Who by Geoff Smart is a spectacular resource on this subject.) Compensate generously. Onboard effectively. Measure consistently. Coach continuously.

Circuitry for self-confidence depends on a child’s ability to locate identity over observable behavior; this comes from growing up in a family that focuses more on what’s “inside” a child (enduring qualities, feelings, ideas) than what is “outside” (accomplishments, outcomes, labels). In regard to your child’s sports team, for example, inside stuff might be her effort in practice, her attitude when winning and losing, and her willingness to try new things; outside stuff might be her number of goals or home runs, or labels like “most valuable player.” When it comes to academics, inside stuff might be willingness to try a bonus math problem, spending time on studying, and showing enthusiasm about a subject; outside stuff might be a grade, a test score, or a label like “smartest kid in class.

As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.

One of the people in charge of props told me: “It’s not my job necessarily to make things look exactly as they were in real life. But I want [the movie] to look so authentic that when you see it, you’ll think it’s part of your own personal history. It will be your life to hold onto.” That attention to detail--and that care and dedication--moved me, and I did everything I could to help them. Still, I didn’t want to just put my memories in the mail or FedEx. To put me at ease, the studio offered to use a team of couriers so that the material would be in someone’s hands each step of the way. They sent a driver out one day. He was a big, hulking fellow who filled Chris’s office the way Chris would have. “I just have a few more things to pack up,” I told him. “If you could just wait a second.” “Sure.” Bubba came in, still wearing his jammies. “Hey,” he said to the guy. “You play darts?” “Uh--“ By now Bubba was so used to people dropping by and playing with him that he didn’t even need to ask who they were. He’d also become pretty good at darts. I wrapped up quickly, sparing the poor fellow the humiliation of losing to a kid whose voice wouldn’t change for several more years.

Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it,” I said. “But it isn’t just that. It’s everything. I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always—” “Don’t shout, please,” old Sally said. Which was very funny, because I wasn’t even shouting. “Take cars,” I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. “Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake. A horse you can at least—” “I don’t know what you’re even talking about,” old Sally said. “You jump from one—” “You know something?” I said. “You’re probably the only reason I’m in New York right now, or anywhere. If you weren’t around, I’d probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You’re the only reason I’m around, practically.” “You’re sweet,” she said. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn subject. “You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime,” I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little intelligent—” “Now, listen,” old Sally said. “Lots of boys get more out of school than that.” “I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that’s all I get out of it. See? That’s my point. That’s exactly my goddam point,” I said. “I don’t get hardly anything out of anything. I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape.” “You certainly are.

When Joe and I went to meet Goldman’s real estate team, though, we found they had a different view of the risks of this deal. Goldman wanted to bid as low as possible to avoid overpaying. For me, the biggest risk was not offering enough and missing out on a tremendous opportunity. I wanted to make sure we beat Bankers Trust’s expected bid. You often find this difference between different types of investors. Some will tell you that all the value is in driving down the price you pay as low as possible. These investors revel in the transaction itself, in playing with the deal terms, in beating up their opponent at the negotiating table. That has always seemed short term to me. What that thinking ignores is all the value you can realize once you own an asset: the improvements you can make, the refinancing you can do to improve your returns, the timing of your sale to make the most of a rising market. If you waste all your energy and goodwill in pursuit of the lowest possible purchase price and end up losing the asset to a higher bidder, all that future value goes away. Sometimes it’s best to pay what you have to pay and focus on what you can then do as an owner. The returns to successful ownership will often be much higher than the returns on winning a one-off battle over price.

They were all joking about the party at my place when they walked away. As I uncapped my drink, I noticed Michael was hanging back a bit. “Got something on your mind?” I called out, gesturing at him with my chin. He was a good player, he worked hard on the field, and I respected him. I got the feeling, though, that I wasn’t going to like what he wanted to say. I could tell by the hesitation in his face and body language. He probably disagreed with some of the plays I wanted to try tonight and didn’t want to piss me off in fear I would freeze him out on the field. But I wasn’t like that. I left personal shit in the locker room. There was no room for drama in the game. He walked back over in front of me as he adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “I’m not sure I should say anything.” “Just say it, man. It’s cool.” “I saw your girl this morning.” He started, and everything in me went cold. This wasn’t about football. This was personal. “You looking at Rimmel?” I asked, my voice calm and low. His eyes widened a little, but he shook his head. “No, man. I probably wouldn’t have known it was her, but she was wearing your hoodie.” I nodded for him to continue. “She was in the hall, outside her class,” he said, glancing at me. He needed to get to the fucking point already. I was losing patience. “That guy Zach was with her. It looked pretty intense.” I jerked upright. “What?” I growled. What the fuck was Rimmel doing with Zach? Why was he talking to her? “He was grabbing her arm. Jerking her around pretty good.” Red tinged my vision and adrenaline started pumping in my veins. “What did you just say?” Michael nodded grimly. “It’s why I noticed them. He grabbed her and she cried out. She told him to let go, but he just jerked her more. She almost fell.” A noise rumbled out of my chest and anger so swift and hot that it hurt filled me. “Tell me you pulled him off her,” I intoned. “I was going to. I called out to them and started forward, but that’s when he let her go and walked away.” I was going to kill him. Dead. “I asked her if she was okay. I don’t think she knew I’m on the team with you.” “Probably not,” I muttered, still trying to control the anger spiraling out of control inside me. “She said she was.” He continued, but I heard the doubt in his voice. “But?” The word came out harsher than I intended, but he didn’t seem to notice. “But her wrist was pretty red. Looked like it was going to bruise.” Thought ceased in my head. Rationality evaporated. “Thanks for telling me,” I said and rushed away in the opposite direction of my next class.

You never talk to the pitcher when…” He shook his head. “You just never talk to the pitcher when--” “I just wanted to congratulate him on a good game--” “It’s not over ’til it’s over,” Chase said. “You jinxed me,” Jason said, crouching down in the corner, pressing his palms against his forehead, like he’d been struck with a migraine headache. “You don’t really believe that superstitious--” His head came up so fast, and his stare was so hard that I stopped. He did believe. He really did believe. And judging by the way the other guys were looking at me, they all believed. I backed away, not knowing what to say. I’d just felt sorry for him because he was being ignored. The guy at bat struck out, and Brandon was next. Bird had her fingers crossed while clutching the wire of the fence. “I think I just made a big mistake,” I said, my voice low. “Yeah, I heard you. According to Brandon, you’re never supposed to use the term no-hitter in the dugout.” “Well, I wasn’t technically in the dugout.” “But your words traveled into the dugout. Close enough.” “Great. You don’t really think I jinxed them, do you?” Brandon struck out, the first time he’d struck out since playing for the Rattlers. When he walked by and glared at me, I found myself wishing Harry Potter was real, sitting in the stands, and could turn me into a rabbit’s foot. I didn’t really believe in bad luck. I believed we made our own luck, but I also understood the power of positive or negative thinking. If you think you’ll lose, you’ll lose. The next inning, when six batters in a row got base hits off Jason, the coach put in a relief pitcher. By that time, even people in the stands were looking at me like it was my fault. Someone suggested I sit behind the dugout of the visiting team.

Here’s the second way a conversation with an MS employee ends. (MS—oh, God, they’ve got me doing it now!) Let’s say I’m at the playground with my daughter. I’m bleary-eyed, pushing her on the swings, and one swing over there’s an outdoorsy father—because fathers only come in one style here, and that’s outdoorsy. He has seen a diaper bag I’m carrying which isn’t a diaper bag at all, but one of the endless “ship gifts” with the Microsoft logo Elgie brings home. OUTDOORSY DAD: You work at Microsoft? ME: Oh, no, my husband does. (Heading off his next question at the pass) He’s in robotics. OUTDOORSY DAD: I’m at Microsoft, too. ME: (Feigning interest, because really, I could give a shit, but wow, is this guy chatty) Oh? What do you do? OUTDOORSY DAD: I work for Messenger. ME: What’s that? OUTDOORSY DAD: You know Windows Live? ME: Ummm… OUTDOORSY DAD: You know the MSN home page? ME: Kind of… OUTDOORSY DAD: (Losing patience) When you turn on your computer, what comes up? ME: The New York Times. OUTDOORSY DAD: Well, there’s a Windows home page that usually comes up. ME: You mean the thing that’s preloaded when you buy a PC? I’m sorry, I have a Mac. OUTDOORSY DAD: (Getting defensive because everyone there is lusting for an iPhone, but there’s a rumor that if Ballmer sees you with one, you’ll get shitcanned. Even though this hasn’t been proven, it hasn’t been disproven either.) I’m talking about Windows Live. It’s the most-visited home page in the world. ME: I believe you. OUTDOORSY DAD: What’s your search engine? ME: Google. OUTDOORSY DAD: Bing’s better. ME: No one said it wasn’t. OUTDOORSY DAD: If you ever, once, went to Hotmail, Windows Live, Bing, or MSN, you’d see a tab at the top of the page that says “Messenger.” That’s my team. ME: Cool! What do you do for Messenger? OUTDOORSY DAD: My team is working on an end-user, C Sharp interface for HTML5…

Having been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, it should just be an old routine to survive. But I haven’t anticipated the emotional ordeal that awaits me. At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them. Combine that with the fact that by losing me they’ll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable. The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I’m the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying. It’s interesting, though, when I think of what Peeta said about the attendant on the train being unhappy about the victors having to fight again. About people in the Capitol not liking it. I still think all of that will be forgotten once the gong sounds, but it’s something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don’t have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who’ve been celebrities for ages, to forget we’re human beings. It’s more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts. By the time Cinna shows up, I am irritable and exhausted from comforting the prep team, especially because their constant tears are reminding me of the ones undoubtedly being shed at home. Standing there in my thin robe with my stinging skin and heart, I know I can’t bear even one more look of regret. So the moment he walks in the door I snap, “I swear if you cry, I’ll kill you here and now.” Cinna just smiles. “Had a damp morning?” “You could wring me out,” I reply.

Taking control of the situation There are a great many parents—as I’ve learned by attending endless parent support group meetings— who had the same high hopes for their families as I. If you’re such a parent, then you probably know that it isn’t just the child who can be out of control, but also the parent. Possibly you are also aware that continuous reacting on your part is useless as well as extremely hazardous to your health and well-being. The most ruinous thing you can do is to allow the situation to continue on its present destructive course. Here are some simple steps you can take to deactivate the negativity so rampant in your family dynamics. Please note that it takes courage and determination to carry this off successfully. Cut off all funds to the addict. Holding onto the purse strings with an iron fist will have immediate results, as well as repercussions. (Keep an eye on family valuables. In fact, lock them away.) Cut off all privileges accorded to your addicts— such as use of the family car or having their friends in your house. Carry out all threats you make. The fastest way to lose credibility with addicted children is to become a “softie” at the last minute. Refuse to rescue your addicts when they get into legal jams. Don’t pay their fines or their bail. Get yourself into a support group such as Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, Parents Anonymous, or Tough Love as fast as you can. Attempt to get your addicted kids into rehabs. If they’re underage you can sign them in. Adult admission is done on a voluntary basis, so you may be out of luck. Drugs erase any trace of conscience. Be aware that many of today’s drugged youths will think nothing of injuring or even murdering their parents for money. If you suspect that your child could resort to this level of violence, get in touch with the police. If you’re a single parent there will be one voice, but if you’re married there’ll be two. It’s important to merge those two voices so that a single, clear message reaches the addict. If you can work with your partner as a team to institute these simple steps when dealing with the addict, you’ll have done yourself and your family a great service. If, however, you entertain the notion that you were responsible for your child’s addictions in the first place, chances are you won’t be effective in enforcing these guidelines. That’s what the next chapter is all about. Note 1. Drug abuse and alcoholism are officially listed in The International Classification of Diseases, 4th edition, 9th revision, the World Health Organization’s directory on diseases.

Then I heard it--the voice over the CB radio. “You’re on fire! You’re on fire!” The voice repeated, this time with more urgency, “Charlie! Get out! You’re on fire!” I sat there, frozen, unable to process the reality of what I’d just heard. “Oh, shit!” sweet little Charlie yelled, grabbing his door handle. “We’ve got to get out, darlin’--get outta here!” He opened his door, swung his feeble knees around, and let gravity pull him out of the pickup; I, in turn, did the same. Covering my head instinctively as I ditched, I darted away from the vehicle, running smack-dab into Marlboro Man’s brother, Tim, in the process. He was spraying the side of Charlie’s pickup, which, by now, was engulfed in flames. I kept running until I was sure I was out of the path of danger. “Ree! Where’d you come from?!?” Tim yelled, barely taking his eyes off the fire on the truck, which, by then, was almost extinguished. Tim hadn’t known I was on the scene. “You okay?” he yelled, glancing over to make sure I wasn’t on fire, too. A cowboy rushed to Charlie’s aid on the other side of the truck. He was fine, too, bless his heart. By now Marlboro Man had become aware of the commotion, not because he’d seen it happen through the smoke, but because his hose had reached the end of its slack and Charlie’s truck was no longer following behind. Another spray truck had already rushed over to Marlboro Man’s spot and resumed chasing the fire--the same fire that might have gobbled up a rickety, old spray truck, an equally rickety man named Charlie, and me. Luckily Tim had been nearby when a wind gust blew the flames over Charlie’s truck, and had acted quickly. The fire on the truck was out by now, and Marlboro Man rushed over, grabbed my shoulders, and looked me over--trying, in all the confusion, to make sure I was in one piece. And I was. Physically, I was perfectly fine. My nervous system, on the other hand, was a shambles. “You okay?” he shouted over the crackling sounds of the fire. All I could do was nod and bite my lip to keep from losing it. Can I go home now? was the only thing going through my mind. That, and I want my mommy. The fire was farther away by now, but it seemed to be growing in intensity. Even I could tell the wind had picked up. Marlboro Man and Tim looked at each other…and burst out in nervous laughter--the kind of laugh you laugh when you almost fall but don’t; when your car almost goes off a cliff but comes to a stop right at the edge; when your winning team almost misses the winning pass but doesn’t; or when your fiancée and a local cowboy are almost burned alive…but aren’t. I might have laughed, too, if I could muster any breath.

WHY ADDICTION IS NOT A DISEASE In its present-day form, the disease model of addiction asserts that addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease. This disease is evidenced by changes in the brain, especially alterations in the striatum, brought about by the repeated uptake of dopamine in response to drugs and other substances. But it’s also shown by changes in the prefrontal cortex, where regions responsible for cognitive control become partially disconnected from the striatum and sometimes lose a portion of their synapses as the addiction progresses. These are big changes. They can’t be brushed aside. And the disease model is the only coherent model of addiction that actually pays attention to the brain changes reported by hundreds of labs in thousands of scientific articles. It certainly explains the neurobiology of addiction better than the “choice” model and other contenders. It may also have some real clinical utility. It makes sense of the helplessness addicts feel and encourages them to expiate their guilt and shame, by validating their belief that they are unable to get better by themselves. And it seems to account for the incredible persistence of addiction, its proneness to relapse. It even demonstrates why “choice” cannot be the whole answer, because choice is governed by motivation, which is governed by dopamine, and the dopamine system is presumably diseased. Then why should we reject the disease model? The main reason is this: Every experience that is repeated enough times because of its motivational appeal will change the wiring of the striatum (and related regions) while adjusting the flow and uptake of dopamine. Yet we wouldn’t want to call the excitement we feel when visiting Paris, meeting a lover, or cheering for our favourite team a disease. Each rewarding experience builds its own network of synapses in and around the striatum (and OFC), and those networks continue to draw dopamine from its reservoir in the midbrain. That’s true of Paris, romance, football, and heroin. As we anticipate and live through these experiences, each network of synapses is strengthened and refined, so the uptake of dopamine gets more selective as rewards are identified and habits established. Prefrontal control is not usually studied when it comes to travel arrangements and football, but we know from the laboratory and from real life that attractive goals frequently override self-restraint. We know that ego fatigue and now appeal, both natural processes, reduce coordination between prefrontal control systems and the motivational core of the brain (as I’ve called it). So even though addictive habits can be more deeply entrenched than many other habits, there is no clear dividing line between addiction and the repeated pursuit of other attractive goals, either in experience or in brain function. London just doesn’t do it for you anymore. It’s got to be Paris. Good food, sex, music . . . they no longer turn your crank. But cocaine sure does.

But there isn’t much else most club managers can do to push their teams up the table. After all, players matter much more. As Johan Cruijff said when he was coaching Barcelona, “If your players are better than your opponents, 90 percent of the time you will win.” There cannot be many businesses where a manager would make such an extravagant claim. The chairman of General Motors does not say that the art of good management is simply hiring the best designers or the best production managers.

I’ll never forget talking to Marissa Mayer when she was at Google about a whale-watching trip that her boss had organized to help the team bond. Marissa gets seasick. She knew she’d wind up blowing chunder over the side of the boat if she went. But her boss pressured her, saying she should go anyway, to be a good team player. You shouldn’t have to barf over the side of a boat to demonstrate you’re a good team player.

When I tell him, he looks disgusted. “We spend more money watering the lawns at the manufacturing plants every week! Dick is going to hear from me about this. If he’s not willing to spend money, we may lose orders—even if your project is just insurance so we can collect on all the hard work my sales team does—it’s a no-brainer!

Joiner’s article “On Buckeyes, Gators, Super Bowl Sunday, and the Miracle on Ice” makes a strong case that it’s not the winning that counts but the taking part—the shared experience. It is true that he found fewer suicides in Columbus, Ohio, and Gainesville, Florida, in the years when the local college football teams did well. But Joiner argues that this is because fans of winning teams “pull together” more: they wear the team shirt more often, watch games together in bars, talk about the team, and so on, much as happens in a European country while the national team is playing in a World Cup. The “pulling together” saves people from suicide, not the winning. Proof of this is that Joiner found fewer suicides in the US on Super Bowl Sundays than on other Sundays at that time of year, even though few of the Americans who watch the Super Bowl are passionate supporters of either team. What they get from the day’s parties is a sense of belonging. That is the lifesaver. In Europe today, there may be nothing that brings a society together like a World Cup with your team in it. For once, almost everyone in the country is watching the same TV programs and talking about them at work the next day, just as Europeans used to do thirty years ago before they got cable TV. Part of the point of watching a World Cup is that almost everyone else is watching, too. Isolated people—the types at most risk of suicide—are suddenly welcomed into the national conversation. They

Jim Valvano and North Carolina State actually came close to beating Dean Smith and North Carolina both times the two teams faced each other during the regular season in 1980–81. Carolina won a pair of three-point games, but—naturally—that wasn’t the way Valvano told the story in the years that followed. The way Valvano told it, Carolina won both games in blowouts. He counted on the fact that most of his listeners wouldn’t remember the two games. “So, the second time we get blown out, an old State alumnus comes up to me and he says, ‘Coach, I know you’re a Yankee and you don’t understand about tradition down here, but we cannot be losing to the Tar Heels this way.’ “I say to him, ‘No, I do get it. I know all about the tradition down here and I promise you, next season we’re going to do a lot better against them.’ “He shakes his head and says, ‘Coach, you just don’t get it. If you lose to the Tar Heels here in Reynolds [Coliseum] next season, we’re going to kill your dog.’ “Okay, I’m just a little nervous now because the guy isn’t smiling even a little bit. But I say to him, ‘Look, I have to tell you, I don’t have a dog, but I hear you loud and clear.’ “He just nods and walks away. Next morning I go to the front door to get my newspaper, and when I open the door there’s a basket on my front step. I look under the blanket and there’s the cutest little puppy you’ve ever seen in your life. There’s a note attached to the puppy’s collar. It says, ‘Don’t get too attached.’ ” The story illustrated the intensity of the Triangle rivalries among N.C. State, North Carolina, and Duke.

NBA 2K18 Wishlist - Good Badges To Deal Problems In 2K17 The NBA 2K18 release date has basketball fans hyped. The new game in the series will be the definitive way for fans to take control of their favorite franchises and players on the Xbox One and PS4. As of the features player wish to be added into NBA 2K18, we can compare it with NBA 2K17. Today, we'll list the best badges players would like to see in the latest NBA franchise. Flashy Dunker 2K Sports has spent a large amount of time recording flashy dunk animations that look great when they trigger. Unfortunately players do not equip any of these because they get blocked at a higher rate than the basic one and two hand dunk packages. NBA 2K17 has posterizer to help with contact dunks but Flashy Dunker would be for non-contact animations. The badge would allow you to use these flashy dunk packages in traffic while getting blocked at a lower rate in NBA 2K18. Bullet Passer Badge Even with a high passer rating and Hall of Fame dimer you can still find yourself throwing slow lob passes inexplicably. These passes are easy to intercept and give the defense too much time to recover. Bullet Passer would be an increase in the speed of passes that you throw, allowing you to create open looks for teammates in 2K18 that were not possible in NBA 2K17. A strong passing game is more important than ISO ball and this badge would help with that style of play. 3 And D Badge The 3 and D badge would be an archetype in NBA 2K18 ideally but a badge version would be an acceptable substitute. This badge would once again reward players for playing good defense. The badge would trigger after a block, steal, or good shot defense and would lead to an increase in shooting percentage on the next possession from behind the 3 point arc. Dominant Post Presence Badge It's a travesty that post scorer is one of the more under-utilized archetypes in NBA 2K17. Many players that have created a post scorer can immediately tell you why they do not play it as much as their other MyPlayers, it is incredibly easy to lose the ball in the post. Whether it is a double team or your matchup, getting the ball poked loose is a constant problem. Dominant Post Presence would trigger when you attempt to post up and would be an increase in your ability to maintain possession of the ball as long as NBA 2K18 add this badge. In addition the badge would be an increase in the shooting percentage of your teammate when you pass out of the post to an open man. The Glove NBA 2K17 has too many contested shots. The shot contest rating on most archetypes is not enough to outweigh the contested midrange or 3 point rating and consistently force misses. It's obviously that height helps you contest shots in a major way but it also slows you down. However, the Glove would solve this problem in NBA 2K18. This badge would increase your ability to contest shots effectively, forcing more misses and allowing you to play better defense. Of course, there should be more other tips and tricks for NBA 2K18. If you have better advices, tell us on the official media. The NBA 2K18 Early Tip-Off Weekend starts September 15th. That's a total of four days for dedicated fans to get in the game and try its new features before other buyers. The game is completely unlocked for Early Tip-Off Weekend. Be sure to make enough preparation for the upcoming event.

It seems no one is guaranteed a job anywhere anymore. These are troubled times for workers. The creeping sense that no one’s job is safe, even as the companies they work for are thriving, means the spread of fear, apprehension, and confusion. One sign of this growing unease: An American headhunting firm reported that more than half of callers making inquiries about jobs were still employed—but were so fearful of losing those jobs that they had already started to look for another.5 The day that AT&T began notifying the first of forty thousand workers to be laid off—in a year when its profits were a record $4.7 billion—a poll reported that a third of Americans feared that someone in their household would soon lose a job. Such fears persist at a time when the American economy is creating more jobs than it is losing. The churning of jobs—what economists euphemistically call “labor market flexibility”—is now a troubling fact of work life. And it is part of a global tidal wave sweeping through all the leading economies of the developed world, whether in Europe, Asia, or the Americas. Prosperity is no guarantee of jobs; layoffs continue even amidst a booming economy. This paradox, as Paul Krugman, an MIT economist, puts it, is “the unfortunate price we have to pay for having as dynamic an economy as we do.”6 There is now a palpable bleakness about the new landscape of work. “We work in what amounts to a quiet war zone” is the way one midlevel executive at a multinational firm put it to me. “There’s no way to give your loyalty to a company and expect it to be returned anymore. So each person is becoming their own little shop within the company—you have to be able to be part of a team, but also ready to move on and be self-sufficient.” For many older workers—children of the meritocracy, who were taught that education and technical skills were a permanent ticket to success—this new way of thinking may come as a shock. People are beginning to realize that success takes more than intellectual excellence or technical prowess, and that we need another sort of skill just to survive—and certainly to thrive—in the increasingly turbulent job market of the future. Internal qualities such as resilience, initiative, optimism, and adaptability are taking on a new valuation. A

It’s fun to win, sure, but if you only have fun when you win, you completely lose the joy of just playing a game, and being part of a team that works together. You’re not going to win every game you play, so if winning is the only way you have fun, you’re going to have a bad time pretty often.

If a fan’s team wins, the fan gets an additional boost of about 3.9 points of happiness. Not bad! So far, so good for being a sports fan. If your sports team wins, being a sports fan is fun. But what happens when your sports team loses? If a fan’s sports team loses, they can expect to lose 7.8 points of happiness. (A draw gives the average fan 3.2 points of pain.) In other words, losses hurt the average sports fan far more than wins please them.

MacKerron and Dolton sliced the data further. They found that the sports fan’s brain adjusts to how good their team is, limiting how much pleasure they can get from the wins of a great team. In particular, the researchers found that a sports fan, when his team is expected to win the game, will get only 3.1 points of pleasure from a win and will lose 10 points of happiness from a loss. In other words, the better the team you support is, the more the team has to win to give you any pleasure.

Full Disclosure: when Dan DiDio approached me about doing one, I was wary to say the least. Nowadays events often mean character deaths or reboots or company-wide publishing initiatives and so on. But the run Greg Capullo and I had on BATMAN was, for better or for worse, idiosyncratic - about our own hopes, our fears, our interests. It was just... very much ours. Even so, I told Dan that I *did* have a story, one I'd been working on for a few years, a big one, in the back of my brain. It was about a detective case that stretched back to the beginnings of humanity, a mystery about the nature of the DC Universe that Batman would try to uncover, and which would lead him and the Justice League to discover that their own cosmology was much larger, scarier and more wondrous than they'd known. But I wasn't sure it would make a good "event". Dan, to his credit, said, "Work it up and let's see." So I did. But in the course of working it up, I reread all the events I could think of. Just for reference. Not only recent ones, but events from years ago, from when I was a kid. And what I discovered, or rediscovered, was that at their core, events are joyous things. They're these great big stories, ridiculous tales about alien invasions or cosmic gems or zombie-space-cop attacks that have the highest stakes possible - stories where the whole universe hangs in the balance and nothing will ever be the same again! They were *about* things, and - what I also realized while doing my homework - when I was a kid, they were THE stories that brought me and my friends together. We'd split our money and buy different parts of an event, just to be able to argue about it. We'd meet after school and go on for hours about who should win, who should lose... Because even the grimmest events are celebratory. They're about pushing the limits of an already ludicrous form to a breaking point. So that's what I came back with. I remember standing in my kitchen and getting ready to pitch DARK NIGHTS: METAL to Greg, having prepared a whole presentation, a whole argument as to why, crazy as it was, it was us, it was *our* event. I said "It's called METAL," and Greg said, "I'm in," before I could even tell him the story. And even though Dan thought it was crazy, he went with it, and for that I'm very grateful. In the end, METAL is a lot of things - it's about those moments when you find yourself face to face with the worst versions of yourself, moments when all looks like doom - but at it's heart it's a love letter to comic storytelling at its most lunatic, and a tribute to the kinds of stories, events that got me thought hard times as a kid and as an adult. It's about using friendship as a foundation to go further than you thought you could go, and that means it's about me and Greg, and you as well. Because we tried something different with it, something ours, hoping you'd show up, and you did. So thank you, sincerely, from all of us on the team. Because when they work, events are about coming together and rocking out over our love of this crazy art form. And you're all in the band, now and always.

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Before I could give it too much thought, my attention snagged on Darius as he charged across the pitch like a stampeding rhino, tackling a member of the other team so hard that I heard something crack. My breath caught in my throat as the Starlight player groaned on the ground while Darius snatched the ball from him and launched it across the pitch with the force of a torpedo. A timer was counting down as the Starlight player failed to get up and Darius raced away from him without a backwards glance. I knew it was part of the game but it was insanely brutal. Although if I was being totally honest, watching all of them brawl like that and seeing the power they exuded even while they were losing, was totally hot too. Darius’s muscles pumped fiercely as he sprinted away from me and I found myself staring at his legs which were splattered with mud and somehow looked even better because of it. “Olef you’re Out!” Prestos yelled but the Starlight player still didn’t move. A pair of medics jogged onto the pitch and gave him a quick inspection. “Broken back!” one of them yelled. “This is a long heal, call in a sub once his time out is up.” My lips parted, I stared on in shock and I couldn’t quite believe what I’d heard. “Did he just say that Darius broke that guy’s back?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s the risk you take when you play,” Orion said darkly as he walked past me to regain his seat. Darcy raised her eyebrows at me and I returned my gaze to the match just as Geraldine tore up the pitch with a rumble of writhing earth magic, knocking the Starlight Waterguard off of her feet and forcing her to drop the ball. A huge -5 flashed into place on the Starlight scoreboard and I leapt from my seat in excitement to applaud my friend. “Go Geraldine!” I screamed and she flashed me a smile as she somehow managed to hear me. Seth almost missed the ball as it was thrown to him next while he was distracted by scratching his head. He managed to wrangle it with a gust of air magic and started sprinting for the Pit as the timer above us ticked down to ten seconds. The crowd started counting down, “Nine! Eight! Seven-” Seth leapt into the air, propelling himself forward with his magic but the two air Elementals on the opposing team threw their own magic up to counter him. “Three! Two-” Seth gritted his teeth as he threw even more power into his propulsion but he was out of time. The ball in his arms exploded in a blast of pure air which snapped his head back and sent him tumbling out of the sky. He hit the ground hard as the crowd oooohed in disappointment. For three whole seconds my heart didn’t beat at all as I stared at his prone body in the mud, wondering if he was dead. Seth coughed, pushing himself into a sitting position just as Darius appeared to offer him a hand up. He shook his head to clear it and my eyebrows rose all the way into my hairline. “This game is crazy,” Darcy breathed, her eyes wide with the thrill of it. “I think I love it,” I agreed. (tory)

But with a lot of brilliant people running around, you run a risk. Sometimes really talented people have heard for so long how great they are, they begin to feel they really are better than everybody else. They might smirk at ideas they find unintelligent, roll their eyes when people are inarticulate, and insult those they feel are less gifted than they are. In other words, these people are jerks. If you are promoting a culture of candor on your team, you have to get rid of the jerks. Many may think, “This guy is so brilliant, we can’t afford to lose him.” But it doesn’t matter how brilliant your jerk is, if you keep him on the team you can’t benefit from candor.

In traditional performance management models, working teams present to leadership in performative, high-stakes monthly or quarterly reviews. By keeping these reviews on such an infrequent cadence, both sides can lose sight of what the real purpose of the review is: to support and sustain the work, and to ensure that everyone is moving together toward the desired results. Such an approach is ill-suited to the ecosystem economy. When you have agile tribes, chapters, and squads working on dynamic, cross-sectoral value propositions, you need to push your performance management process toward a much more frequent operating cadence.

One of the most difficult aspects of jumping to a new curve is setting aside your ego. In her essay, "Shedding My Skin," Rebecca Jackson writes, "Have you ever let go of something that simultaneously protects and strangles you; something that both defines you, but also suffocates your evolution? just like a snake shedding its skin, you have to lose something critical to grow, leaving you vulnerable and exposed in the process."7 When we take a step down to gain momentum for an upward surge, for a time we will know less than those around us. This can deal a blow to the ego. In achievement-oriented cultures, it is very difficult to look dumb even temporarily, asking questions like, "Am I doing this correctly?" especially to lower-status team members. MIT professor emeritus Edgar Schein describes a willingness to acknowledge that "in the here-and-now my status is inferior to yours because you know something or can do something that I need in order to accomplish a task or goal" as the art of humble inquiry. For many, this can feel very painful. In fact, in some cultures, says Schein, "task failure is preferable to humiliation and loss of face."8

I will invite myself to luncheon, and afterward, we can play whist or another game, if you’re wanting company.” Her lips tightened. “No one could ever accuse you of subtlety, Lord Ashton.” “I don’t know the meaning of the word.” She laughed at that, and he directed the team in the direction of her family’s townhouse. “You seem overly confident that I would want you to stay.” “Why wouldn’t you be wanting me to stay? It is preferable to staring at the wall, I hope.” “I would welcome your company,” she said. “But again, I worry that others will believe you are courting me.” “Don’t be so concerned about what others think.” He drew the horses to a stop when they reached her townhouse. “Is there any harm in spending an afternoon playing cards with me? Your sister can join us, along with your mother.” Her spirits lifted for a moment. “My mother would like that, I think. Grandmother has been keeping her behind closed doors as much as possible. I think she is becoming more melancholy each day.” Before the footman could come to help her disembark, Rose turned back to him. “Thank you for taking me for a drive.” With a soft smile, she added, “And you may stay for luncheon, before you suffer the indignity of losing to me in cards.” He only shook his head. “Nay, a chara. We’re to be partners in the game. It is your mother and sister who must prepare to lose.

IV. Real techies don’t worry about forced eugenics. I learned this from a real techie in the cafeteria of a software company. The project team is having lunch and discussing how long it would take to wipe out a disease inherited recessively on the X chromosome. First come calculations of inheritance probabilities. Given a population of a given size, one of the engineers arrives at a wipe-out date. Immediately another suggests that the date could be moved forward by various manipulations of the inheritance patterns. For example, he says, there could be an education campaign. The six team members then fall over one another with further suggestions. They start with rewards to discourage carriers from breeding. Immediately they move to fines for those who reproduce the disease. Then they go for what they call “more effective” measures: Jail for breeding. Induced abortion. Forced sterilization. Now they’re hot. The calculations are flying. Years and years fall from the final doom-date of the disease. Finally, they get to the ultimate solution. “It’s straightforward,” someone says. “Just kill every carrier.” Everyone responds to this last suggestion with great enthusiasm. One generation and—bang—the disease is gone. Quietly, I say, “You know, that’s what the Nazis did.” They all look at me in disgust. It’s the look boys give a girl who has interrupted a burping contest. One says, “This is something my wife would say.” When he says “wife,” there is no love, warmth, or goodness in it. In this engineer’s mouth, “wife” means wet diapers and dirty dishes. It means someone angry with you for losing track of time and missing dinner. Someone sentimental. In his mind (for the moment), “wife” signifies all programming-party-pooping, illogical things in the universe. Still, I persist. “It started as just an idea for the Nazis, too, you know.” The engineer makes a reply that sounds like a retch. “This is how I know you’re not a real techie,” he says.

into art or music, how about that exhilarating moment when, during the 1982 Winter Olympics, the U.S. hockey team pulverized the Russians? Whether in front of the television, in the stands, or on the ice, we all became “one” in the euphoria of victory. My strong, he-man father once told me about a time he was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking Yellowstone Falls—with tears in his eyes, he described how he became one with the deafening roar of the water. If you have experienced any of this, it’s an inkling of the joy that will overtake us when we take just one glance at the Lord of joy. We will lose ourselves in Him. We will become one with Him. We will be “in Christ,” we will have “put on Christ” at the deepest, most profound and exhilarating level. The Lord’s wedding gift to us will be the joy of sharing totally in His nature without us losing our identity; no, we shall receive our identity. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Someone who can’t have a cool heart is viewed as immature and impulsive. When you lose your cool, people lose respect for you. The more you shout, the less likely people are to listen.

Being a true leader, as opposed to a competent manager, requires a willingness to get your hands dirty. I have said before that I do not expect anyone to do a job I cannot do myself. While this is clearly unrealistic as a company grows and expands, the perception of being willing to step in and assist must remain. The weight of leadership includes staying calm while others panic and coming up with solutions rather than joining the chorus of complaints. The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly helped distinguish the leaders from the managers. Leaders are prepared to take responsibility when things go wrong, even if the true responsibility lies with someone else. Leaders are visible. Leaders have a vision, even if it is only short term. I don’t really believe in long-term planning. I make up the rules of the game based on one-year plans. This means I always retain visibility and control. Five years is too long a time to have any certainty that the objectives will be met. Leadership is not a popularity contest, but it also should not inspire fear. Leaders earn respect and loyalty, recognising that these take a long time to earn and a second to lose. A leader is not scared of collaboration and listening to the opinions of others, as well as accepting help when it’s needed. Leadership is not a quality that you are born with, it is something that you learn over time. I was not a leader in my Coronation days, and I am the first to admit that I made a lot of mistakes. Even at African Harvest, as much as I achieved financial success and tried different techniques to earn respect, I never truly managed to deal with the unruly investment team. But, having built on years of experience, by the time I hit my stride at Sygnia, I was a leader. Within any organisation of substantial size, there is space for more than one leader, whether they head up divisions or the organisation itself. There are several leaders across Sygnia weaving the fabric of our success. I am no longer the sole leader, having passed the baton on to others in pursuit of my own dreams. To quote the Harvard Business Review, ‘The competencies most frequently required for success at the top of any sizable business include strategic orientation, market insight, results orientation, customer impact, collaboration and influence, organisational development, team leadership, and change leadership.’ That is what I looked for in my successor, and that is what I found in David. I am confident that all the leaders I have groomed are more than capable of taking the company forwards.

In contrast, when you embrace Curiosity to the exclusion of Clarity, you’ll experience a different set of challenges. Your customers’ experience of your brand fluctuates wildly. You can’t scale and it can take forever to implement change or best practices. Once again, you lose top talent—this time because they get frustrated at your organization’s inability to follow through and achieve results. You’ll often see teams full of “lone rangers” who invent their own, often different, ways to do the work.

When it comes to demonstrating results, there are two common problems leaders experience: blind trust and lost trust. Leaders who trust blindly assume that because everyone has understood and agreed, everything will happen as it should. They neglect to follow up because they get busy, they worry that inspecting conveys mistrust, or they don’t think they should have to follow up. Leaders who lose trust as they follow up typically focus exclusively on the numbers and neglect to lead the human beings on their team. A healthy Show will help your leaders avoid either of these problems and Galvanize the Genius you’ve worked so hard to build.

Keep them challenged (and figure out who’ll replace them when they move on) The best way to keep superstars happy is to challenge them and make sure they are constantly learning. Give them new opportunities, even when it is sometimes more work than seems feasible for one person to do. Figure out what the next job for them will be. Build an intellectual partnership with them. Find them mentors from outside your team or organization—people who have even more to offer than you do. But make sure you don’t get too dependent on them; ask them to teach others on the team to do their job, because they won’t stay in their existing role for long. I often thought of these people as shooting stars—my team and I were lucky to have them in our orbit for a little while, but trying to hold them there was futile.

When you are listening to people on your team, take on the responsibility to understand—to actually listen—rather than putting the burden to communicate onto them. But when you are helping them prepare to explain their ideas to others—whether they are peers or cross-functional colleagues or executives—it’s your job to push your direct reports, and yourself, to do a better job than Keynes did. You need to push them to communicate with such precision and clarity that it’s impossible not to grasp their argument.

Moments of doubt are unavoidable when we take on any strenuous task. I've used the One-Second Decision to regain my composure and win hundreds of small battles during ultra races, on the pull-up bar, and in stressful work situations. And the first step is to mentally take a knee. The best person in any combat scenario is the one who is composed enough to take a knee when the bullets are flying at them. They know they need to evaluate the situation and the landscape to find a way forward and that it's impossible to make a conscious decision if they or their team is running around like fire ants. Taking a knee in battle is not as easy as it sounds, but it's the only way to give yourself time to breathe through the panic and rein in your spinning mind so you are able to operate. The battle hasn't stopped. Gunfire is still lighting up the night, and you dont have any time to waste. In that one second, you must take a breath and decide to bring the fight. When you are in the grip of life and in danger of losing your shit, just think, It's time to take a knee. Get a couple of breaths and flash to your future. If you fold, what will happen next? What's your plan B? This is not some deep contemplation. There is no time to order a pizza and hash it out with your people. This must happen in seconds! p90

Weaning Your Baby Off Breast Milk The paediatrician in Sector 62 Mohali recommends the following tips for weaning your baby off breast milk: Recognize the Signs Your baby starts giving signs showing that they are ready for weaning. The signs include: Sitting with support. Holding their head in an upright position. Expressing interest in what you are eating. Losing their active tongue-thrust reflex. Acting cranky during feeding sessions. Apart from your child showing signs, you can also be the one to stop breastfeeding. You can check with your best paediatrician in Mohali to see if you are ready to start weaning. Set a Schedule Once you prepare yourself to start weaning, give yourself at least a month to move through the process. Giving some time to yourself and the baby gives you time for obstacles. If, however, your child is going through teething, you can wait for some time before weaning. Start Slowly Easing into weaning gives you and your baby some time to adjust to the change. You may start it slowly by dropping one breastfeeding session per week. Once you notice that both you and your baby are comfortable with the change, you can start dropping more sessions until your baby is having solids. Provide Physical Comfort Breastfed babies are used to skin contact with their mothers. Hence, when you are into weaning, you must give them the physical connection in other ways. For instance, you can cuddle them while singing a song reading a book or give them a massage. Let Your Baby Decide Some babies wean on their own when they are given the control. If you are comfortable with your child taking the lead, rely on one rule “Don’t offer, don’t refuse”. You nurse them when they show interest and do not initiate it when they don’t want it. Resistance is Normal If you are the one to start weaning, it will be normal for your babies to resist weaning. Once they become normal with it, they will start showing interest in solid foods and drinking liquids from a bottle. Take Care of Yourself Your baby is not only the one who will be adjusting to weaning. As a mother, you must also deal with a whole range of emotions. Some mothers may even feel rejected when their baby does not show interest in feeding. You may also feel nostalgia about your baby getting older. Accustom yourself to the routine and know that this is necessary. At Motherhood Hospitals, we have a team of experienced super specialists backed by the latest in infrastructure and facilities. We have the best Paediatricians in Mohali that consists of a team of paediatric specialists that cater to all the needs of children, across age groups, and provide the best care for your child’s development.

I guess she must have been right; I seemed to fit in. But the thing is, I never felt that I belonged. And now, looking back, I see that the reason was that I was never myself. I was an extreme chameleon. In psychology, we call this self-monitoring, which is the ability to read social situations and fit in no matter what. But when you are always acting to fit in, it is easy to lose your sense of who you are. And really, we don't need to fit in, we just need to find a way to fit together.

I’m not suggesting that you juggle a dozen different guys and put your heart on the line, emotionally attaching yourself to every single one of them—far from it. You can play the field without trying to date the whole team! All I’m suggesting is that you try a bit to ease off the frantic search for happily ever after and start being happy right now. Allow yourself to date some “wrong” people. Spend time with people whose company you happen to enjoy, even if you don’t see yourself marching down the aisle with them tomorrow. Maintain a healthy perspective on dating and stop setting your heart, your soul, your emotions, and especially your self-worth out on the line with every single person you encounter. When the time is right, you will know, and the safeguards you’ve put in place will fall away naturally. But until then—relax! Have fun! Be yourself in an outfit you didn’t go out and buy specifically for the date. I have found, oddly enough, that most men tend to think women look a lot cuter in sweats and a ponytail than in a little black dress and Louboutins, anyway. (But ultimately, you should always dress for you and not for someone who may or may not end up becoming a significant part of your life.) Most of all, no more letting the swipe rule your life. Stop looking for any dating app or anyone you might meet on a dating app to bring you the happiness and completeness you should be giving yourself. Engage, converse, get out of your safe little comfort zone, and just get to know people with no other agenda than getting to know people. Approach dating from a place of, Do I like him? instead of always obsessing over, Does he like me? Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to make a good impression on someone we don’t even stop to ask ourselves if we are impressed with them. Finally, stop looking to every person to be the great love of your life, and allow dating to be a great adventure in your life. You’ll likely make some amazing friends out of it, you’ll definitely get some great stories out of it, and, who knows . . . having the time of your life just might lead you to the love of your life.

So when breakpoints come for you, remember how you’ve been reassuring the team and take your own advice: know they’re coming and get ready. Talk to your mentor. Understand what your job should look like well before every transition and plan for it. And always remember that change is growth and growth is opportunity. Your company is an organism; its cells need to divide to multiply, they need to differentiate to become something new. Don’t worry about what you’re going to lose—think about what you’re going to become.

Dear Miss Know-It-All, I worked really hard to make the eighth-grade cheerleading team this year, but the other cheerleaders treat me like I don’t belong. I never get to do much cheering or dancing like they do. The only time the team captain needs me is when we do the human pyramid, and she always puts me at the bottom! I have to hold the most people on my back, which is totally excruciating, and if I lose my balance, the whole pyramid collapses and everyone bullies me about it! I’m tired of those girls walking all over me. Literally! I don’t know what I did to deserve this kind of treatment, but it’s pretty obvious they all hate my guts. ! I’m majorly frustrated! I don’t know if I should quit the team, confront my teammates, or just keep quiet so I don’t make things worse. I really don’t want to give up my dream of making varsity! What would you do?? —Cheerless Cheerleader * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dear Cheerless Cheerleader, Hon . . . I think you’re kidding yourself if you think you made the cheerleading team based on your awesome moves. My reliable source on the team told me your tryout routine was HOR-REN-DOUS. She said she couldn’t tell if you were trying to dance or going into convulsions! Your backflips were BACKFLOPS, your cartwheels were FLAT TIRES, and your dismount was totally DISGUSTING! Get the picture? You were chosen for one reason, and one reason alone—you look like a sturdy ogre who can carry a lot of weight! It’s been a long tradition for cheerleading captains to hand-pick strong, ugly girls for the bottom of the pyramid. Didn’t you know that?? Quit taking everything so personally! Just accept that the bottom is where you belong, sweetie! You should hold your green, Shrek-looking head high that someone actually wants you for something. Bet that doesn’t happen often! Yay you! Sincerely, Miss Know-It-All P.S. My source wants you to stop dancing. She says you’re giving the squad NIGHT TERRORS!

Radical Candor” is what happens when you put “Care Personally” and “Challenge Directly” together. Radical Candor builds trust and opens the door for the kind of communication that helps you achieve the results you’re aiming for. And it directly addresses the fears that people express to me when asking questions about the management dilemmas they face. It turns out that when people trust you and believe you care about them, they are much more likely to 1) accept and act on your praise and criticism; 2) tell you what they really think about what you are doing well and, more importantly, not doing so well; 3) engage in this same behavior with one another, meaning less pushing the rock up the hill again and again; 4) embrace their role on the team; and 5) focus on getting results.

Life is so much better when people are great at their work and love it. The idea of climbing a corporate ladder is not inspiring to plenty of people. And yet those on a gradual growth trajectory are often referred to pejoratively as “B-players,” or as having “capped out.” To manage these people well, it’s obviously important to reject these derogatory characterizations. Those who find work they can continue to love for five or ten or thirty years, even if it doesn’t lead to some sort of advancement, are damn lucky. And their teams and their bosses are lucky to have them. Kick-ass bosses never judge people doing great work as having “capped out.” Instead, they treat them with the honor that they are due and retain the individuals who will keep their team stable, cohesive, and productive.

Apple’s Chief Design Officer Jony Ive told a story about a time when he pulled his punches when criticizing his team’s work. When Steve Jobs asked Jony why he hadn’t been more clear about what was wrong, Jony replied, “Because I care about the team.” To which Steve replied, “No, Jony, you’re just really vain. You just want people to like you.” Recounting the story, Jony said, “I was terribly cross because I knew he was right.

That’s why Colin Powell said leadership is sometimes about being willing to piss people off. When you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you’re less willing to say what needs to be said. Like Jony, you may feel it’s because you care about the team, but really, in those all-too-human moments you may care too much about how they feel about you—in other words, about yourself.

Google didn’t get everything right, though. There was a crazy-strict rule in Product Management that you had to have a computer science degree to join the team. Many people wanted to transfer to Product because they had ideas they wanted to pursue, but they were prevented because they didn’t have the right degree. One was Biz Stone who, stymied by the rule, left Google to cofound Twitter. Another was Ben Silbermann, who, similarly blocked, left Google to found Pinterest. Kevin Systrom also left Google to cofound Instagram when he couldn’t join the PM team because of his college degree.

It turns out that when people trust you and believe you care about them, they are much more likely to 1) accept and act on your praise and criticism; 2) tell you what they really think about what you are doing well and, more importantly, not doing so well; 3) engage in this same behavior with one another, meaning less pushing the rock up the hill again and again; 4) embrace their role on the team; and 5) focus on getting results.

Nobody steals the puck from me on a turnover. As strange as it sounds, this sort of turn over, I’ve learned, has nothing to do with the golden-brown pastries from Hannah’s Bakery. A turnover in hockey is when you lose the puck to the other team or rather when a red shirt manages to steal it right off your stick while you keep skating, looking like a fool.

You can’t expect him to move a 1500 pound animal if you don’t even inhabit your own 150 pound body When you lose connection with yourself, you lose connection to others and miss out on the impact you can have on them.

When I was at business school, I was taught that my job as a manager was to “maximize shareholder value.” In life, I learned that too much emphasis on shareholder value actually destroys value, as well as morale. Instead, I learned to focus first on staying centered myself, so that I could build real relationships with each of the people who worked for me. Only when I was centered and my relationships were strong could I fulfill my responsibilities as a manager to guide my team to achieve the best results. Shareholder value is the result. It’s not at the core, though.

most bosses fear being jerks but employees fear their bosses are not shooting straight. When a boss sees clearly that the employee wants to hear it straight, it’s much easier to say it straight. Four, if you ask them to do this but they don’t, or if they submit ratings anonymously in the app, you’ve got a good signal that they don’t trust you to react well. You’ll need to start proving to your team that you won’t punish them if they criticize you.

A son goes off to live with his wife, and a daughter goes off to live with her husband. All your children finally leave you, and then you're all alone again, and no matter whether he's good or bad, you're left with nobody else but your husband, because he's yours, he belongs to you alone, and no matter whether you lose him when you're forty or when you're eighty, it's still your greatest loss. His children lose their father, his daughter-in-law loses her father-in-law, his grandchildren lose their grandfather, but you lose yourself, because nobody needs one ox of a team of oxen. Because you and he were pulling the same yoke all your lives. And two oxen that have always been pulling together become used to each other. They understand each other, and they try to help each other.

When people feel trapped or disadvantaged, it can change their perspective. They’re no longer just fighting for what they believe in; they’re fighting for their right to exist. When people believe they’re acting in self-defense, they’re often willing to go to lengths they wouldn’t normally go to. They get scared and angry. They lose their willingness to compromise or see other people’s points of view, because they’re afraid of being taken advantage of or losing what’s important to them. They shift into a mindset of “I need to protect myself and my people,” and they aren’t typically very receptive to hearing about how bad someone else has it. Caring about other people feels like a luxury when you’re worried about your own team’s survival.

The best way to keep superstars happy is to challenge them and make sure they are constantly learning. Give them new opportunities, even when it is sometimes more work than seems feasible for one person to do. Figure out what the next job for them will be. Build an intellectual partnership with them. Find them mentors from outside your team or organization—people who have even more to offer than you do. But make sure you don’t get too dependent on them; ask them to teach others on the team to do their job, because they won’t stay in their existing role for long. I often thought of these people as shooting stars—my team and I were lucky to have them in our orbit for a little while, but trying to hold them there was futile.

Don’t get sucked into Ruinous Empathy when managing people who are doing OK but not great! Everybody can excel somewhere. And to build a great team that achieves exceptional results, everybody needs to be doing great work. Accepting mediocrity isn’t good for anybody.

we ask one question (borrowed from Karen Sipprell, Kim’s colleague at Apple): “How much time do you spend making sure you have the facts straight before giving a team member praise?” The answer, typically, is none at all. When you’re vague with praise, it is just as likely to leave a person feeling patronized. And either way, vague positivity has very little impact in the long term. An empty “great job!” can sound condescending and be demoralizing, exactly the opposite effect than you may have intended. Specific praise helps the person and the team understand what success looks like. It gives ambitious team members a model to follow.

ENGINEERING ORGANIZATIONS OFTEN do the equivalent of spring cleaning. Everyone will stop working on new features for a week and fix bugs in the current product. Engineering teams are constantly tracking and evaluating bugs, so that they have a prioritized list to tackle when the so-called “fix-it” week comes around. A bug fix-it week is sort of the opposite of a Hack Week; instead of a chance to work on new and exciting ideas people usually don’t have time to get to, it’s a chance to fix old and annoying problems that have been bothering people for months. It’s like cleaning out the utensil drawer into which you spilled a little honey three months ago but somehow never found the moment to take all the knives and forks out to scrub the bottom of the drawer properly.

If you are playing tennis, you have a partner, you are a team, and you never go against each other — never. Even if you both play tennis differently, you have the same goal: to have fun together, to play together, to be playmates. If you have a partner who wants to control your game, and she says, “No, don’t play like that; play like this. No, you are doing it wrong,” you are not going to have any fun. Eventually, you won’t want to play with that partner anymore. Instead of being a team, your partner wants to control how you play. And without the concept of a team, you are always going to have conflict. If you see your partnership, your romantic relationship, as a team, everything will start to improve. In a relationship, as in a game, it’s not about winning or losing. You are playing because you want to have fun. In the track of love, you are giving more than taking. And of course, you love yourself so much that you don’t allow selfish people to take advantage of you. You are not going for revenge, but you are clear in your communication. You can say, “I don’t like it when you try to take advantage of me, when you disrespect me, when you are unkind to me. I don’t need someone to abuse me verbally, emotionally, physically. I don’t need to hear you cursing all the time. It’s not that I am better than you; it’s because I love beauty. I love to laugh; I love to have fun; I love to love. It’s not that I am selfish, I just don’t need a big victim near me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, but I cannot take responsibility for your dream. If you are in a relationship with me, it will be so hard for your Parasite, because I will not react to your garbage at all.” This is not selfishness; this is self-love. Selfishness, control, and fear will break almost any relationship. Generosity, freedom, and love will create the most beautiful relationship: an ongoing romance.

You want excitement? Get excited about your career. Get excited about your family, your community, place of worship, favorite causes, sports teams, hobbies, or anything else you want to feel passionate about. Get excited about earning and saving money, but be very dispassionate when it comes to investing. Once you have enough money, you can spend your time being excited and passionate about any blessed thing you want. If you want to enjoy the thrills and spills of trying to pick winning investments or time the market, take a maximum of 5 percent of your portfolio and create a casino account. You’re free to trade and try to time the market with this money as you see fit. However, there’s one overriding rule: If you lose it all, it’s gone forever. No more casino accounts. That way you can enjoy the excitement of chasing the action without jeopardizing your financial future.

Given the ubiquity of the Judge’s conditional love game, I have embarked on a very different kind of game with my son to prevent a strong version of his Judge from taking hold. I start tickling him and tell him that I will only stop if he keeps giving me the right answers, which he has learned to give over the years. Here’s how the game goes, as I tickle him and stop only to hear his answers through his laughter: Me: Kian, do you know why I love you so much? Kian: No, Daddy, I don’t know. Me: Is it because you are so handsome? (Trust me, he is very handsome!) Kian: No, Daddy, it isn’t because I’m handsome. Me: Is it because you are so smart? Kian: No, Daddy, it isn’t because I am smart. Me: Is it because you do so well on your homework and get good grades? Kian: No, Daddy, it isn’t … I keep going down the list that includes his kindness and generosity, his talent in sports, his sensitivity and thoughtfulness, and so on. At some point, I feign great frustration: Me: So why is it, Kian? Why do I love you so much? By now Kian has learned to say (and he says it with firmness and certainty): “Daddy, it’s because I am me.” Occasionally I ask Kian to remind me what this answer means. He says it means that my love for him is not conditional on anything he does. It is for his essence, for the being looking back at me when I first held him the day he was born. He knows that in his essence he is worthy of love, always. He is to never worry that he might lose it, regardless of his successes or failures and the ups and downs of life.

I felt like I had no more stories, no more speeches, and no more “rah-rah” in me. I decided to level with the team and see what happened. I called an all engineering meeting and gave the following speech: “I have some bad news. We are getting our asses kicked by BladeLogic and it’s a product problem. If this continues, I am going to have to sell the company for cheap. There is no way for us to survive if we don’t have the winning product. So, I am going to need every one of you to do something. I need you to go home tonight and have a serious conversation with your wife, husband, significant other, or whoever cares most about you and tell them, ‘Ben needs me for the next six months.’ I need you to come in early and stay late. I will buy you dinner, and I will stay here with you. Make no mistake, we have one bullet left in the gun and we must hit the target.” At the time, I felt horrible asking the team to make yet another big sacrifice. Amazingly, I found out while writing this book that I probably should have felt good about it. Here’s what Ted Crossman, one of my best engineers, said about that time and the launch of the aptly named Darwin Project many years later: Of all the times I think of at Loudcloud and Opsware, the Darwin Project was the most fun and the most hard. I worked seven days a week 8 a.m.–10 p.m. for six months straight. It was full on. Once a week I had a date night with my wife where I gave her my undivided attention from 6 p.m. until midnight. And the next day, even if it was Saturday, I’d be back in the office at 8 a.m. and stay through dinner. I would come home between 10–11 p.m. Every night. And it wasn’t just me. It was everybody in the office. The technical things asked of us were great. We had to brainstorm how to do things and translate those things into an actual product. It was hard, but fun. I don’t remember losing anyone during that time. It was like, “Hey, we gotta get this done, or we will not be here, we’ll have to get another job.” It was a tight-knit group of people. A lot of the really junior people really stepped up. It was a great growing experience for them to be thrown into the middle of the ocean and told, “Okay, swim.” Six months later we suddenly started winning proofs of concepts we hadn’t before. Ben did a great job, he’d give us feedback, and pat people on the back when we were done.

I support Dolly Sisters, sir. Always have done." "And are they any good?" "Having a poor patch at the moment, sir." "Ah, then I expect you will want to support our team, which will be very good indeed!" "Can't do that, sir. You've got to support your team, sir." "but you just said that they weren't doing well." "That's when you support your team, sir. Otherwise you're a numper." "A numper being...?" said Ridcully. "He's someone who's all cheering when things are going well, and then runs off to another team when there's a losing streak. They always shouts the loudest.

Performance Coaching Performance coaching suggests a new approach to management based on hands-on experience. You, the authority figure, are focusing on the objectives for the team, meaning that the results matter. Focusing too much on the end result, however, can have a detrimental effect. It’s all about the development of the full potential of your team, learning to identify and nurture each personality and strength. This involves staying receptive, aware, and innovative. When you are coaching from a perspective of the ultimate goal, you lose sight of the experience of the journey. You stop seeing individuals, and you start seeing tasks. This disconnects you from the essence of the team and the people within it. Performance coaching requires that you pay attention to what is happening here and now and adjust your style and techniques accordingly. Coaching Is About Unlocking Potential For many managers, providing training is just another list item on their busy schedules, and they see team-member development as less important than the tasks they must achieve. What they fail to realize is that they should employ personalized coaching that focuses on unlocking the unique potential in the person. This will create team members who are ambitious and self-assured, resulting in positive results and a huge pay-off for all time invested. Not only will team goals be more easily accomplished, but it will be a smoother and happier experience for all parties involved and reduce friction and tension. A great leader knows how to create a positive and exciting environment while making sure that his team members stay on track and focused. He is the perfect balance between fun and business and understands that fun is often an important aspect of successful business or tasks of any kind.

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