Dividend vs. Deficit based thinking

When we judge new ideas, products, or people, we often find ourselves gravitating towards weaknesses.

• When we interview people, we find ourselves listing “weaknesses” for reasons why the candidate wouldn’t be a good fit.
• When we review a product (or for PMs & engineers, build a new product) we find ourselves tempted to point out why the product will suck because of “missing” features.
• When an employee discusses challenges with a manager, often the discussion centers around areas of “improvement”.

The common strand that runs through these examples is the focus on “weaknesses” that need to be “improved”. As people, we are possibly wired to see weaknesses.

However, if we look at successful people and products around us, we increasingly see examples where leveraging few key strengths creates exponential value (literally)

When it comes to people, silicon valley provides an excellent microcosm. Some of the most successful tech companies are run by teams that pair consummate managers with visionary tech leaders. At Google, it was Eric Schmidt & Larry Page. At Facebook, it is Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. At Intuit, it was Scott Cook and Bill Campbell.

Removed from leadership, at an employee level, there is recent focus on strengths based feedback, where employees are coached how they can leverage their strengths better (shoutout to FB where we did a round of strengths based assessment). There is tremendous value to be realized by composing teams of members where they compliment each other’s skill set.

When it comes to products, the last decade has seen very successful products that did a few things, exceedingly well.

Google nailed search, Gmail nailed email, Facebook nailed social, Apple nailed the iPod followed by the iPhone, etc. Looking at a few startups, Snapchat has nailed ephemeral sharing, Slack has nailed team communication, Trello is nailing one form of project management, etc. These examples are deliberately scale invariant. If you asked me to list weaknesses in these products, I could write a dozen. But that would be deficit based thinking. Dividend based thinking suggests that these products do few things exceedingly well, and reap rich rewards as a result. On the other hand, I think Outlook does everything but I can’t point out one thing that it does exceedingly well.

So when we find ourselves thinking about “what’s missing”, we should stop and think about “what’s good here”, and wonder how we can leverage that better.

Life lessons from attending a community college

Back in 2005, I had just graduated with my masters in engineering & applied math from UCLA, and I started working as a research tech at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. However, I learnt in late 2005 that my temporary work permit would not get converted into a full time visa. I had a few months before my temporary permit expired.

At this time, I decided to pursue a PhD. However, PhD programs didn’t start till the following fall, and I had a few months between the expiration of my work permit, & enrollment at University of Maryland. I could pack my bags and travel, but I simply couldn’t afford to do this. So my choice seemed to be to return to India. But, I wasn’t ready to go back. Instead, I decided to learn about America in a way that I never had the opportunity to. So I enrolled in Houston Community College on a student visa, and decided to take a classes in American government and history.

Before I describe my experience at community college, I sheepishly admit that getting good grades came easy to me. I could learn new things fairly quickly. At the same time, I was generally unmotivated, and was coasting through life. This was my mindset when I entered community college – enjoyed learning but generally apathetic about life.

At HCC, almost all my classes were in the evening. On the first day of class , the professor asked all of us to introduce ourselves. Among those who spoke, I remember two introductions even today, 10 years later.

One was a young black single mother of 2 kids. She mentioned that she had to drop out of college when her children were born. Now, she works two jobs to take care of her family, and is attending classes in the evening to pursue her college degree.

The second was a young hispanic immigrant. He said that he worked during the day as a car mechanic. However, to improve his career options, he was pursuing an associates degree in the evenings.

Most introductions had a distinct color of hardship, and a resolve to improve their lives. All students who introduced themselves sounded a little less confident than the students I was used to, which was ironic given their life stories.

When my turn came, I didn’t have the courage to tell the class that I had finished grad school and was going into a PhD program. I was afraid I’d be viewed differently, and I felt embarrassed that I never had to struggle like any of my classmates.

The 3 months at HCC left a deep impression on me.This was the first time I understood the privilege I’d enjoyed my entire life. I had witnessed the quiet resolve of those not as privileged as myself. Going forward, it changed my work ethic, and I’ve since been trying to make up for lost time. I say without hesitation that of all schools I attended, I learnt the most important life lessons at HCC during those 3 months.

When President Obama announced that community college would be free for responsible students for 2 years, I couldn’t help but imagine the joy of those well deserving classmates. Community college is one of the last remaining bastions of the American dream. Its the bridge that allows those with less privilege to make it in America, and I’m with the President on this decision.