This morning I made a slide for extra credit in my Operations Management class. The prompt was to “summarize an interesting example of the challenge of trying to run an operation at scale”. As a recent investor in Shopify and also a growing fan of the CEO Tobi Lütke, I went with Shopify and how they scaled by enabling others to scale. All of this was inspired by listening to Tobi’s episode on Masters of Scale (I’d recommend by the way) with Reid Hoffman.
After building the slide, I realized that I was eager to share in class not because I thought I did a good job, even though I did, but that I was eager to share the existence of the podcast and Shopify, both things I believe in and support. Not to mention the ideology, which to me seems kind of trite because in the tech world and reading things regarding tech & management, you see it a lot. But each background in my class is unique which means many of my classmates may never have been exposed to some of this material or have come across it. However, their desire for an MBA leads me to believe that they would be interested, if only they knew about it.
Of course I’m operating off of how I think. A major reason for my decision to be here was to be inspired, to learn from others, and get exposed to things I wouldn’t normally see. As far as I can tell, everyone loves to share things their passionate about, even if they’re shy. You just have to get them to volunteer that knowledge.
How do you do that?
One way, is to signal that you’re interested in learning from them and open to new ideas and challenges to your existing belief system. People don’t like to share if they don’t think you’ll use it. Unless of course, they’re they evangelist type and enjoy shoving ideas down people’s throats. Luckily that’s not a trend I’ve noticed among my peers.
Share openly, widely, and often. I especially try to give personalized suggestions when I notice people’s interest. I truly want them to get to learn more about things they’re curious about. If that’s not enough for you, from a selfish perspective, we’re all invested in the success of our peers for life. Being affiliated with people who succeed make your brand stronger and also your abilities better. In addition, in a seemingly disconnected era, it can help make unsuspecting friendships or at least a network of people with common interests.
So I guess this morning thought exercise has reaffirmed by desire for learning and seeking out inspiration and redoubled my desire to share and spread ideas.
As a closing side note: while writing this, my morning alarm went of playing Hans Zimmer. Let me tell you, when epic music starts playing while you’re in the middle of an idea, it feels like you’re saying profound, even if you’re just screaming into the void like yours truly.
Hope to be writing on here a bit more, but we’ll see.