Problems of process
Settling in the US, finding shared challenges, and embracing the power of storytelling in my journey.
Settling in and finding similar problems
I haven’t had time or energy to invest on things on the side. Hence, I am leaning towards point of view and pondering for this issue.
In the previous 2 weeks I have met an ex-employee of my startup who currently is pursuing his masters in New York. We spoke about what happened with our lives since our paths diverged. Slightly relieved that he still thinks he enjoyed his time with us even though it ended abruptly.
I visited Boston for the Bostodon event to meet fellow fediverse people and Adrianna Tan who has been an inspiration ever since I found her on Mastodon. We recently connected online as well via her Pennepals initiative where she is opening her calendar to mutuals on fediverse. Its an interesting idea that I think I could do monthly.
I travelled for work and made a pit-stop to meet Gunvant Patil, who was one of the main reasons why I ended up running an agri-startup back in India. We talked about agri, markets and India.
This culminated yesterday with Pizza tasting across multiple locations with my current colleague who was visiting New York.
One theme that came up in all these conversations was “how am I finding living in US”. And to all of them I replied with a version of it is different and taking longer than I expected.
Each of these conversations helped me make sense and process the migration. Help find a footing in this region both personally and professionally.
This week I was reminded why storytelling is an essential skill. One caveat is to not follow these principles with your loved ones, show them your multitudes.
Grade and trade which was an uncertainty we solved in produce markets with my startup in India would have no audience interested over here.
The work and society over here prefer a legible person over a dense person. You might have 100 different experiences and interests but be known to others in just one. The identity you project needs to be backed by a causal story of experience and expertise that resonates with folks over here.
On the work front a lot of challenges I am currently tackling are rhyming with my past. The upstream and downstream scope of problems when you map the workflows.
An example of it is captured when working in my previous job, where commodity transportation involved multiple stakeholders and at each stage the power dynamics between the stakeholder changed.
This was a crude attempt of mapping those relationships and dynamics.
I see a similar challenge repeat once again where the expectation of having all the stakeholders in one platform would solve the co-ordination challenge and changing power equation among stakeholders across the process flow.
Its ironic how universal this systemic problem is prevalent but the vocabulary describing the problem is completely different.
Round up
I took to LinkedIn to write about Upstream and downstream problems I have witnessed in my front line operation days. I prefer to fix the root cause of a sub-optimal process once we learn there is a better approach. But, there are many more self proclaimed operators who default to execution and analysis via excel.
I am re-reading the book Upstream by Dan Heath due to multiple recent conversations in logistics. It reminds me how operational teams in sector are focused on execution and daily firefighting instead of moving upstream(counter to the sub-title of the book) A perfect example of this are excel pushers who fire up a template to capture data and then do an ad-hoc analysis using the entered data.
Links that resonated
The Growth Unhinged wrote a guide to mastering LinkedIn which I plan to put to use.
Sign off
I listened to Vijay Lokapally who was a cricket journalist for 40 years at Hindu and Spotstar. One aspect which stood out to me was him writing a 800 word copy after every match he reported on.
It resonated with me because I want to do something similar every time I write . Amit Varma, whose podcast where Vijay was the guest wrote a while back about how we do small things is how we do the big things.
I want to write a 800 word copy that takes you 4 minutes to read and engages you with things that transpired in my life the previous week and in the process make sense of some big developments that unfurl over a long time.
Signing off till next time,
Vivek, finally settling down