The Future of Generalist Work

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

If consumer behavior is evolving as a result of technology, businesses either compete to get ahead of it, they perpetually react to it, or they belittle it. One of the most problematic aspects around digital maturity is that technology is both part of the solution and also part of the problem.

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

These passion job organizations are burnout factories. Every year, a new crop of eager recruits comes in, grateful to have landed a job doing work “they love” — and every year, a significant percentage of the existing workforce churns out. Some have been there that single year, others for five. They leave not because they’re not good “fits” for the... See more

Each drop is creative and rebellious, winking to the world that capitalism is a necessary joke. They do all of this with a team of 34 people, most of whom are generalists with no background in making physical goods.

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?

Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest...The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.

Management systems have been designed to provide reliability and efficiency, not adaptability and agility. Many of the tools and practices of modern management are geared towards solving problems and eliminating deviations in processes, behaviors, and practices. Because of this framework, management training and leadership development is often... 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