56: Jason Fried - Motivation, forming habits and calendars
May 5, 2024
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Jason Fried and Leah discuss motivation, forming habits, and challenging traditions. They emphasize real-world experience, consistency in forming habits, and protecting one's time. Jason highlights the importance of hands-on learning for new employees and using intuition along with metrics for decision-making. They engage in a lively debate about calendars and time management, showcasing their unique perspectives.
Real-world experience is vital for skill development.
Consistency is key for forming habits tailored to you.
Calendars are helpful for time management, but protect your time.
Deep dives
Onboarding Approach and Real Work Experience
New hires at the organization are immediately put to work on real projects alongside more experienced colleagues. The focus is on practical learning by doing real tasks in a real environment, without overwhelming them with high expectations. This hands-on approach allows newcomers to gain valuable experience and skills by working on actual projects, be it in customer service, programming, or design.
Knowledge Acquisition and Skill Development
Knowledge and skills are acquired gradually over time, as individuals work on different projects within the company. Rather than overwhelming them with a wealth of information upfront, the focus is on practical experience and learning as they progress through various tasks and responsibilities. This gradual accumulation of knowledge ensures that employees understand specific aspects relevant to their current projects and responsibilities.
Evaluation Process and Importance of Experience
The organization has a one-year evaluation point where employees are assessed based on their work and growth during that period. This evaluation focuses on whether the company would hire the individual again, emphasizing the importance of continued growth and contribution. By providing a clear evaluation timeline and criteria, employees have a structured path to follow within the organization, ensuring a focus on continuous improvement and alignment with company goals.
Ideal Company Size and Scaling Strategy
The podcast delves into the ideal company size and scaling strategy, emphasizing the value in remaining small and focused. The discussion highlights how a company with fewer than 100 employees, catering to similar-sized customers, can resonate well with its target market. By staying lean, the company can achieve significant progress with smaller teams, avoiding complexities that come with rapid growth and unnecessary expansion.
Subjectivity in Measuring Success
The conversation shifts to measuring success and evaluating product effectiveness, advocating for a qualitative approach over rigid metrics. The importance of subjective indicators like team satisfaction and personal feelings towards the code base and product is underscored. Rather than relying solely on quantifiable data, creating pleasant experiences for customers and team members is prioritized. This approach contrasts popular metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and highlights the significance of intuitive assessments and personal engagement in product development.
Motivation, forming habits, managing time, and why it’s important to know how much you enjoy solving problems with Jason Fried.
Jason is really special to me and a 2nd time guest. Whenever we go at it, there are two worlds clashing in the best way possible. We are both never content with traditions and challenge the status quo; we just often disagree on how to challenge them while we agree on the first principles behind it all.
Our fight about calendars and time management is one of my favorite moments in the entire history of my podcast.
Takeaways
Real-world experience is the best way to learn and develop skills.
Consistency and finding what works for you individually are key to forming habits.
Calendars can be a useful tool for managing time, but it is important to protect one's time and not let others have too much control over it.
New employees at 37 Signals gain knowledge about the market and customers over time rather than being overwhelmed with information upfront.
Metrics should be used in conjunction with observation and intuition to make informed decisions.
Sound Bites "The best way to learn is to do the work."
"If I'm putting something off for a long time, it's probably because I'm not motivated to get it done."
"The people you hire are pretty much your most important decisions you're going to make in any business ever essentially."
"At the one year point, we have to basically hire you again. This is how we think about it internally."
Chapters 02:02 Understanding and Harnessing Motivation 04:18 The Importance of Making the Right Hiring Decisions 06:16 Forming Habits: Consistency and Finding What Works 16:31 Managing Time: The Role of Calendars and Protecting Your Time 35:15 The Right Size for a Company vs Scaling 55:09 Measuring Subjective Factors in Product Development 58:53 Using Metrics and Intuition to Make Informed Decisions
