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Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

tomcritchlow.com

61–70 of 113 posts

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#61
Sincere plea to everyone who does frontend: please knock it off with the on-select rich media shit. I am a compulsive selecter (and I know there are others like me). I like to select text as I read and it's jarring to have annotations pop up on the side as I do it.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#63
post #8

Very interesting to see this at the top of HN literally just after reading "Human Capital: a Horror Story" https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/27/human-capital-a-horror-st...

This is hilarious. Very good satire of common day office culture.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#64
post #40

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment. What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I do…

Nonsense. At least 30% of the chat I do on Slack is "water cooler talk" of one sort or another. Music, games, city happenings, a smattering of politics, random Internet cuteness, the all-important channel devoted to mechanical keyboards, etc. etc. Haven't started up a channel on D&D podcasts yet but it's probably not far behind. ;-)

[deleted]

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#65

Sincere plea to everyone who does frontend: please knock it off with the on-select rich media shit. I am a compulsive selecter (and I know there are others like me). I like to select text as I read and it's jarring to have annotations pop up on the side as I do it.

(not to disagree...) It's hypothes.is integration.

https://web.hypothes.is

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#66
The "Yes, And" technique is best when presenting as a team, e.g. for sales meeting or investment pitch. It supports what your colleague is saying even while you may need to make a correction. I've been automatically using this technique for years, since I have a performance and improv background.

The rest of improv may not be as applicable, but performance sure does! The show must go on (despite unexpected setbacks or illness or personal feelings), how to speak in front of crowds (even while being ridiculed or ignored), being fully prepared through scripts and rehearsals until you embody the story you are trying to tell... Is an integral part of leading startups and I credit much of my success to that experience.

If everyone on your team is fully embedded in the purpose and ethos of your story, than you can fill in for each other if someone drops a line or needs a stand-in. In a startup everyone is selling! And it will be much more authentic with this level of camaraderie and committment.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#67
post #40

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment. What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I do…

> I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics.

Can confirm. Switching to a fully remote company was eye-opening. The politics are much worse than my office jobs.

Everything is back-channeled. So many secret private Slack channels and exclusive in-person meetups where actual decisions are made.

At least in the office you could get a sense of the political landscape after a few weeks of meetings — I was unaware of how my remote organization actually worked for over a year until I raised some concerns and a co-worker clued me in.

The shocking thing wasn’t that a remote company has politics, but that the entire company ethos was based on how much more transparent and less political fully remote organizations are.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#68
post #24

In my opinion just look around and see what the successful people are doing. Putting your head down and working is what I’d do for developing my own technical or something else skills. I.e. studying. Nobody I’ve met who gets high success in an office job does that. I wonder if there’s not something to read into this a bit beyond my current abilities. Many people work on things that they consider somewhat boring, or a…

Imho, if you're successful without working hard, you have "hacked" the system, and like any form of hacking this should be punishable, in this case e.g. by degradation. If only we had a system where (special) judges were able to determine who works hard and who doesn't and from there decide who gets what amount of pay, and who deserves a promotion. We could actually have a fair society.

Remove value and determine pay based on effort? Overtime people would take on unsuitable roles and productivity would go down.

We would be better off paying people more for easy work. People would target what they exceled at. Productivity increases. Our quality of life would increase but some jobs wouldn't get filled.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#69
post #8

Very interesting to see this at the top of HN literally just after reading "Human Capital: a Horror Story" https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/27/human-capital-a-horror-st...

Before reading that article, I was intrigued by the hyperbolic title of the platform: American Greatness. My alt-right BS alarm was immediately triggered. So, I opened another article to get a feel for what it was about. A wave of unsubstantiated lies and storytelling that rivals anything published under Political Fiction.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#70
post #40

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment. What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I do…

I think the "resistance" is partially based on the fact [1] we all did see an introvert, quiet, bright engineer promoted to an influential and senior (s.a "principal engineer" or "system architect", and less often CTO) position - solely based on her technical expertise.
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