October 13, 2023
Volume 1 - Issue 18
It is Friday the 13th, and the world has been having a week.
But I felt it was important to be in your inbox because that is my commitment to you.
I’m a strong believer that the challenges that lie ahead in the world require strong leadership, thoughtful collaboration, and above all - peace.
Among all the Nobel Prize announcements in the past week there has been some exciting fanfare, and one prize quietly awarded without much press. That Prize was the Nobel Peace Prize, and it was awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her actions promoting rights and freedoms for all and standing against the oppression of women in Iran. If you don’t know much about her work, read this.
At almost the same age my son is now, I remember anxiously watching CNN news as the first rocket attacks from the conflict that would become the first Gulf War rained down upon Israel. At the time my Jewish friend was visiting family in Tel Aviv, and in the minutes and hours that followed war would become real for my innocent little mind as we awaited news of their safety.
And what have we accomplished in the 32 years since that moment on a January evening a few days after my birthday?
There is a whole generation growing up in a world that knows nothing but division, violence, and strife in the Ukraine, in Israel, in Syria, in Afghanistan, and in many countries in Africa stricken by conflict.
My hope in the face of all that has happened this week is that all of us generalists can ask the question, what can we do now, now that we are wiser and now that we can see with clarity that there are no simple solutions to the journey ahead?
Now read in 15 countries around the world - maybe small actions like this newsletter, uniting people who share common views and the ability to see things others cannot, can reach great distances and make an impact.
And now, without further ado…
This week I’m loving
I have a small list of “companies to watch” when it comes to shining examples of strategic moves, execution excellence, and smart growth. This week I want to draw attention to one of these so that you may consider studying them as you hone and refine your big picture toolkit.
If you have lived in the project management world for much time at all, you will know of the company Atlassian. Founded in 2002 by a pair of Australian University grads, Atlassian is the ultimate company fairytale. Bootstrapped with only $10,000 in credit card debt, it is hard to believe that Jira celebrated it’s 20th anniversary last year.
Self-proclaimed as a company built on the resourcefulness and determination of generalists; Atlassian is to be admired for many things including their unwavering commitment to remote work, their passion for and belief in diverse teams, and their efficiency as a company of less than 9000 employees serving 10 million monthly recurring users and almost 250,000 customer accounts (that’s 27 customers and over 1000 users per employee BTW).
But what I love most about Atlassian is their acquisition strategy.
To date they have made 21 acquisitions at a cost of almost $900M. In 2017 they paid only $425 million for Trello. And this week they announced their 22nd purchase, a deal to acquire the video messaging tool Loom for an amount a little more than all their previous acquisitions combined ($975 million).
In 2017, as a fan of Trello from the moment it started, I remember being crushed, worried that the big machine would simply swallow up the first truly great Kanban tool on the market.
But, instead, not only has Trello improved, but it can be argued that it improved Jira as well.
Many don’t know but Atlassian launched Confluence in 2004, just 2 years after the company’s founding and release of Jira and 9 years before Notion would amaze the market with comparable features.
Atlassian sold their acquired chat products to Slack in 2018 and gained a small stake in Slack at an opportune moment just prior to their IPO.
It could be said that Atlassian’s key to success was riding the wave toward the future of work. But strategy experts know this could only have come about by having a clear vision of that future, long before many others could see it. And generalists should pay attention to the signals they send in their acquisitions, as to date, there’s an extensive track record of solid bets.
I’m excited to see what they can bring about with Loom, a tool I love almost as much as I loved Trello back in the day.
Tool of the week
As generalists, one of our most challenging and frustrating career obstacles is figuring out how to reveal our true capabilities, many of which lie outside the clarity of job titles and duties.
Research by O.C. Tanner found that 50% of us feel our contributions are overlooked at work; and 56% of us feel there is no clear career path ahead. 35% of generalists have felt excluded from promotions.
So today’s tool of the week focuses on an interesting approach to fixing this problem.
The Accomplishment Journal.
Shoutout to Luca Rossi, author of Refactoring on Substack, for highlighting the great work done by Matt Van Italie and the team at Sema Software creating the “how-to” bible on this important tool. As the Sema team writes:
Being able to reflect on and then explain what you have learned and what you have achieved at work or in school can be as important for career advancement and personal growth as carrying out the work itself– sometimes, even more than the work.
Words to live by in a generalist career.
The basics
An Accomplishment Journal creates a system for keeping track of the things you have done.
At a minimum this should include your Kudos, Journal Entries that tell stories about your moments of success, and if you like, Journal Entries that tell stories about moments that weren’t successful but where you instead had the opportunity to grow.
It could be thought of as a retrospective on your career. What went well, what needs improvement, and where you took action to improve for next time.
Why do it
Matt and team make a compelling case for this:
So you can read, not remember
Stories are more effective than straight data points or lists of responsibilities
So you can remind yourself of your real achievements when the going gets rough
Our memories are fickle. As your career progresses, it can be hard to remember every moment that got you where you are today. Imagine if you had a legacy to showcase this all written down as you celebrate your retirement!
Worse, as we forget the stories through the ages, we forget powerful experiences that speak to our learning along the way and the expertise we have cultivated as a result. In the more difficult job interviews as you progress up the corporate ladder, these stories make the difference between getting the role, and being overlooked.
Finally, every project manager has had a day where it can be hard to believe in yourself and your abilities. Your journal can be the real evidence that you should keep going when the mountain appears impossible to conquer.
How to do it
Matt & the Sema team have a couple of suggestions, but I think their Logic Model format will naturally appeal to project managers since it uses our love language.
Matt & team have a whole host of templates and additional advice available in their white paper.
I hope you check it out and give this a try. If you do, I’d love to hear how it goes!
An interesting read
Amidst the chatter on all my social media this week there was a moment of beautiful clarity that I wanted to share with you. It seems like an important topic for this week, but I also think understanding this fundamentally human behavior is a key to successfully managing teams and cultivating functional organizational chemistry across teams.
And this clarity came from Annie Duke, another Substack writer.
Annie interviewed, Jay Van Bavel, co-author of The Power of Us (on my reading list) and professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University.
The topic of the interview was: Tribalism
I doubt I can do the article’s beauty justice here - I suggest you just read it, but here are some highlights that resonated for me.
If you’ve seen the movie Air, you may recognize a background story contributing to perspectives Nike held about rivals Adidas and Puma that come up in the film.
Annie asks the great question: “what are the human needs being satisfied by being in a tribe?”
Belonging
Distinctiveness
Status
A revealing, and perhaps troubling statement/finding that Jay shares is:
Just being part of a group, even one formed for the most trivial reason (like a coin flip), leads people to prefer members of their own group.
Once we are in an “ingroup” (our tribe) then we view our tribemates as individuals but we view “outgroup” members (groups of individuals outside our tribe) as homogenous. This is the root cause of stereotyping.
And there’s a bunch of additional and valuable revelations about politics, worldviews, and misinformation.
But here’s where I was really interested in the article.
A challenge for generalists is that we often feel as though we “don’t belong” especially at work.
But what if that lack of belonging prevents our ingroup blindness? What if it gives us clarity to see things within our organization that are invisible to all those who do belong? What if it allows us to combat tribal forces in our companies because we can see them? What if we could scale that impact into the world in general?
And now you see why today’s newsletter started with the call to consider that you might be part of a solution, and not another problem.
As always, if you read it, I’d love to hear what you thought.
A tip
As you lead decision-making activities on your project(s) remind yourself of the type of decision you are aiming to achieve. Are you seeking Consent? Or Consensus?
A great visual illustrating the often overlooked difference between these is brought to you this week by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink:
Image credit: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink, LinkedIn
Achieving consensus can be exhausting, but when everyone agrees, everyone is also committed to the cause.
Consent-based decisions can be made more rapidly but at the risk that minority voices and perspectives are overlooked.
Consider these tradeoffs carefully and tailor your approach based on the situation at hand.
A lesson
This week we might have had enough lessons. But I saw this mug from InspireMugs.com and thought of you all. It might be our secret handshake - the mug that all generalist PMs should have.
Thanks so much for reading this newsletter and participating in the community. Chatting with each and every one of you brings great joy to my week and the concept of the generalist project manager archetype is gaining traction thanks to each of you.
I’m cooking up something that will help us grow and reward those of you interested in helping grow the movement - watch for some details coming in the next few weeks.
And if you are reading this newsletter for the first time this week, I hope you’ll subscribe.