Philip Soriano
@philip
Philip Soriano
Atman Chaser and
As you use family trips and family dinner nights to facilitate your son discovering himself and his purpose, he will learn how to take what he learned under your care and adjust it to those stages of his life when he is under his own care. What will be common to each stage, though, is your gift of encouraging him to be a human being first, and
... See moreJohn Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
We want him to be assertive, but not aggressive; to be empathetic, but not naive; to be “a doer,” but also introspective; to be perseverant, but not stubborn; to be prepared, but not obsessive; to help people, but not enable them . . .
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
Thats a lot to straddle!
They Architect the Way Work Gets Done
Bezos redesigned work to create a system of independent, decoupled teams who were guided by a set of hows dramatically different from prior practices at Amazon and other large tech companies. For example, most software companies require teams to utilize one another’s code to increase efficiency. To increase velocity and reduce dependency, Amazon does the opposite: Its software teams are mostly free to choose whether they use common services or create their own building blocks of code. This results in duplicative work and some inconsistencies in the user experience, but Bezos justifies it by saying he’d “rather have two than none.”
Some of Amazon’s managerial innovations have become celebrated. For example,
teams adhere to the “two-pizza rule,” limiting team size to only as many people as can be fed by two pizzas (typically eight or fewer).
PowerPoint presentations are forbidden because they lull participants into passivity; instead, Amazon requires every proposal to be written in a narrative memo of six pages or fewer, to deliver more detailed thinking than is typically found in slide presentations.
After all the meeting attendees read the memo closely, they have a nonhierarchical, no-holds-barred debate. The goal is to interrogate everything thoroughly, and vigorous dissent is encouraged. Before stepping down as CEO, Bezos participated in hundreds of these meetings himself. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the CEO to make the decision, everyone at Amazon is expected to speak up and disagree—even with Bezos or his successor, Andy Jassy. Once a determination is made, the CEO supports the path forward, knowing that most conclusions are provisional and can be revisited as new information comes in—what Amazon calls “two-way-door decisions.”
This is what we mean when we say leaders architect the way work gets done. It’s not about changing org charts. It’s about shifting decision rights closer to the front lines—and equipping those teams with the tools and frameworks that allow them to act. Those include customer-value metrics, structured memos, and experimentation protocols. It’s difficult work because it often requires leaders to give up control—to redistribute authority, remove approvals, and reduce the frictions that slow teams down. When done well, it promotes speed, clarity, and autonomy—which is why Amazon, a giant company, continues to launch innovative products and services quickly.
All four leaders we studied recognized that frontline teams are key to creating and delivering value for customers, whether they are internal or external. They made it their personal mission to design work processes so that employees are empowered with the tools and support they need and don’t hit obstacles that slow them
Raising a son is real work, but we have to get this right, because if we don’t teach our sons, the world will. If we don’t teach our sons about women, pornography will. If we don’t teach our sons about friendship, they’ll live a life of loneliness. If we don’t teach our sons about leadership, they’ll be followers all of their lives. Being a father
... See moreDavid Kinnaman • The Intentional Father
Midlife moment: looking back at choices made for survival and realizing they kept you alive but not living—and wondering what version of yourself might exist if you could get a second chance at those moments.
Ashley Kelschsubstack.comConsider what it takes for a child to develop into a grown-up. We enter our lives in a state of utter dependence on adults. Eventually, God willing, we become adults ourselves, capable of navigating daily life on our own. The journey from the former to the latter, Gill told me, ought to be one of gradually expanding independence. Parents shouldn’t... See more
The Atlantic • Cities Aren’t Built for Kids
dads’ greater tendency to take their children to parks or playgrounds, or teach them by doing, such as being a “sous-chef” with dad in the kitchen. They also missed the games dads tend to create to make otherwise boring activities fun—such as turning a shopping cart into a basketball hoop and toilet paper into a ball.