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- Issue #4
Prompt: illustration of a man and a woman executive looking at whiteboard with a business plan written on it, bright and cheery. Tool: DiffusionBee
We’re back at it with Issue #4! A warm welcome to all our new subscribers. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions, just hit reply - we read and respond every time :).
Last week, we started using AI-generated cover art in our newsletter. There has been a lot of buzz lately about companies like Midjourney and Craiyon that let you convert text into amazing rendered images. We’ve found this to be a handy tool for our newsletter, so we’ve started using AI to create art that fits the theme of the week. The tech is still not perfect (did you notice the interesting fashion choice of the woman above? 😂) — but we think that’s part of the charm!
WHAT'S INSIDE
📊 If you’re in the middle of running your organization’s Q4 or annual planning process, we’ve assembled some tips that should help ensure success
🙃 Mike Tyson once said “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Consider applying inversion thinking to your next business or life problem so you can better roll with the punches
🏈 Check out the roles at Tonal, Ripple, and the NFL
A DEEPER DIVE: PLANNING SEASON
As we embrace the start of fall 🍁 and the impending pumpkin spice beverages, planning season is now upon us. We’re sure many of you are dealing with the pressure of motivating your teams to hit end of year objectives and build momentum for 2023.
If you’re responsible for running or contributing to planning meetings, check out these articles below!
What it's about: Don’t expect all the senior leaders at your org to ‘just know’ how to pull together a quarterly or annual plan. The former Head of Consumer Supply Growth at Airbnb Lenny Rachitsky shares tips for building an effective planning process.
TLDR / Key Takeaways:
If your teams can stay ahead of planning and be fully prepared on day one of the quarter, they are able to deliver impact more quickly and with less stress (thus higher morale)
“The root cause of nearly all bad planning processes is very simple: a basic lack of understanding of roles — who is responsible for what, when”
Four steps drive Lenny’s “W Framework”: Context (high-level strategy set by leadership), Plans (team-level tactical plans), Integration (consolidated view of each team’s plan that’s then shared with all teams), and Buy-in (final tweaks by team and alignment at all levels of org)
At the outset, leadership is responsible for providing context. “Teams need context. They need to know what the company absolutely needs to nail over the next year”
“The key to effective planning? Debate vigorously, but unite.”
What it's about: This HBR article details lessons two consultants have from advising company budgeting processes in times of economic uncertainty. This article is specifically for P&L owners.
TLDR / Key Takeaways:
BU-level budgets should take into account more than just the line items on the income statement. The cash flow statement and balance sheet (together with the income statement) help P&L owners understand the entire story of their company’s financial status. This creates a more proactive approach to navigating risks in the business
Building better working capital management practices (such as reducing invoice-to-payment times, reducing inventory, and speeding up distribution) helps maximize cash generation and stave off low-cash emergency scenarios
Model out various scenarios of economic outcomes (rise in interest rates, drops in demand, supply chain cost increases) to understand where your business is most vulnerable — as well as your competitors’. Decide what needs to be done in the case of these scenarios, and which indicators will cause these levers to be enacted. “Prepare these scenarios now, when you don’t need them. That way, if business goes south the question becomes when to act, not what to do.”
MENTAL MODEL OF THE WEEK: STARTING FROM THE END WITH INVERSION THINKING
Did you know that, according to a Statista survey, only 4% of people keep their New Years’ Resolutions every year? The problem is likely not due to a lack of motivation. Most people just get busy and ‘life gets in the way’.
One of the reasons why we’re so quick to stray off-course is because most of us aren’t naturally accustomed to do what’s called “inversion thinking”. Inversion thinking, or subtractive avoidance, is a process of considering all the ways in which an outcome might be unsuccessful in the future, so you can proactively avoid that fate.
For: Planning and problem solving
What is it: A mental model for problem solving by starting at the opposite end of a problem and working backwards
When it’s used: Product launches, career/life planning, investment decisions
When it’s NOT used: Customer interviews, experiments, or any other activity where working backwards would introduce bias
Take for instance the process of preparing for a marathon. If you were thinking about the project linearly, you would mark your calendar and do all the necessary things to prepare for race day like starting a training regimen and making sure you have the proper equipment
If you applied inversion thinking, you’d consider what sorts of things might cause you not to show up on race day or to not be able to finish the race. You can then build in systems or incentives to help avoid these pitfalls way before they ever become an issue
Just as in the example above, we don’t suggest there’s one “right” way — in fact, it’s often most helpful to think through a problem both forward and backward. The point to drive home is that by taking a ‘pessimistic’ view and evaluating the ways in which a project is likely to fail, you’re able to fortify your approach and increase your odds of success 🏆.
Additional resources: Amazon’s Future Press Release; 3 Reasons Why Your Product Launch Should Include a Pre-Mortem
YOUR NEXT STRIDE
For a full list of open roles, click here. We refresh this list every week and only add the best high-profile roles suitable for senior (e.g. 10+ years of experience) operators.
If you want to share an open role, please use this form.
This week's featured roles
LIFESTYLE
Wellness 🏅
How to make restaurant quality quinoa - Quinoa has loads of health benefits, but every time we make it at home, it turns into mushy lumps - nowhere near the fluffy quality of the $20 brunch plates at hipster restaurants. This video will show you how to make restaurant quality quinoa.
Watch 🍿
Is this the death of VFX? We’re truly at the frontier of innovation when it comes AI’s use in art & design. This interesting video shows how it’s now even possible to use photos of real people as training data for fully rendered digital artwork. At the end of the video, they also raise some of the important ethical quandaries involved in this new method of creating art.
Read 📚
11 Google Docs Tricks - If you work a lot in Docs, here’s a Tweet thread with a few of the cool features you might have otherwise missed
Listen 🎧
Gigaverse - In this Radiolab podcast, the hosts explore the fascinating nuances of the gig economy and its real-life impact on everyday people
RANDOM BUT INTERESTING
This is our random grab-bag section. You can think of it as coming down the rabbit hole of curiosity with us just because — or fodder for anecdotes for your next speech 🤷🏽♀️
Article
How McDonald's really makes money. 🍔 Burgers are the side business, the real money is in real estate
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