The Future of Generalist Work

It’s time we rebuild the rhythms of our organizations around the substantive bits instead of the knee-jerk ones. What happened to virtues like discipline, contemplation, care, and reflection in our work lives?

many of society’s most pressing challenges – such as climate change – require highly creative problem-solving that crosses multiple domains, and polymaths may be the best people to find those solutions.

Today, management is a skill that only a select few know because it is expensive to train managers: You need to give them a team of humans to practice on. But AI is cheap enough that tomorrow, everyone will have the chance to be a manager—and that will significantly increase the creative potential of every human being.

It will be on our society as a... See more

My aha moment of the value of first principles thinking was when I was at Dropbox. We would hire a ton of really smart people that had never done sales and had them do sales. There are a lot of disadvantages to that, but I do think it led to a ton of innovation. That's how we got our very innovative go-to market motions because a lot of those... See more

Managers should always be prepared to give away their people, and when the time comes for a high performer to leave, Shen argues that managers will actually be better off for it.

Pulling from the ethos of Molly Graham’s blockbuster Review article “Give Away Your Legos,” Shen has architected her own framework for how managers can avoid being caught... See more

You see, task management (what GTD teaches) is a meta-skill – a skill that enhances your ability to learn and apply other skills.

Meta-skills are not specific to any particular subject or field but are broadly applicable across various domains. For example, emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking, self-regulation, and... See more

Mastery is not only about getting better at your craft, but also about finding ways to eliminate the obstacles, distractions, and other annoyances that prevent you from working on your craft.

Top performers find ways to spend as much time as possible on what matters and as little time as possible on what doesn't. It is not someone else's... See more