Slack time is good time

Slack time leads to productivity and innovation

I write this a few hours into landing in India. The only saving grace to my stubborn jet lag is the ton of notes and memories from the dozens of conversations across the USA.  That I am enjoying the dead of the night with a steady Mumbai rain for company tells me I have missed home! (So if you find this edition below par, you know what to blame it on ).

This break from routine was good. It was good for the mind, for the soul and for the body too. Completely coincidental, I have a piece that extols the virtues of slacking.  Call me devious, but don’t miss this : “Science is increasingly finding that there’s enormous value in working much less each day“.  Give it a read. Perhaps will come in handy, for one thing, if not another 😉

OWL; Our Work is learning is a fortnightly curation of the best thoughts on learning , work and the changing nature of work
OWL

Amongst other pieces in this edition, the piece on Stanford’s Zimbardo experiment is a must read. As an impressionable young man in business school, I read the experiment with great interest. To read that the experiment was set on shaky grounds points me to the need for refreshing my understanding. From the ground up. I wonder where to start!

The other thing that I hear often is “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter”. It sure is not the full picture. Hank Barnes argues that metrics provide clues and not answers. Performance measure morphing into all important goals are part of management folklore. Perhaps this piece will cause you to pause and reflect. 

Speaking of measures and goals, the article on “Collaboration Conundrum” weaves it in rather nicely. If you are big on collaboration, this article is a must read. I loved the simple principles it puts forth. 

Plus of course, one piece on possibilities with blockchain. There is a bunch of conversations that I have been having with a number of people across the spectrum. This post attempts to draw a frame to go deeper over the next few weeks. Hopefully, the deeper conversations will help explain it better. 

That’s that for this fortnight. I hope to distil my conversations into meaningful posts over the next few weeks. Many thanks for staying tuned and spreading the word.

Image credits Pixabay

Write a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.