The Podcast

The way today's companies are ran closely mimics the management methods of the industrial revolution era firms. But the realities of modern organizations — that rely mostly on knowledge and creative work — is very different. Just like the world has moved on from the industrial era, so should our management practices. This week, we discuss Under New Management by David Burkus.

Briefly reviewing Disrupted by Dan Lyons, and more generally discussing and criticizing the startup culture. A cautionary tale.

Personal Quarterly Offsite (or just "quarterly review") is your feedback loop for life. Every three months, you give a day to yourself to review your whole life, reflect deeply, learn from your mistakes, and make plans and decisions for the next quarter. Michael and Radek share why and how they do it, and some concrete conclusions from their Q3 reviews.

Continuing our discussion about morning routines, we talk about how we design our week to make productivity easy. Pro-Tip: Productivity becomes much simpler once you accept your weaknesses as a human being.

Radek shares some pro-tips and brain hacks he used to regain control over his morning routine. The first step is to wake up early and consistently, and that's hard. The second step is to get rid of the compulsive Twitter reading habit in the morning. And the third part is to actually remember to go to sleep early enough. All require the right system, not motivation or discipline.

​Live from this week's Nozbe Reunion, we review how the TGIF policy has been working for us in the past 10 weeks. Turns out, it's not so easy to make people work less. But we've learned a lot, we'll be tweaking the process a bit, and we'll keep doing it! Also, a teaser for the new Nozbe. HOW project we've been working on.

Continuing our conversation last week, we're discussing how sharing, cooperation, and remixing are slowly changing our lifes and businesses.

Discussing ideas from "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future".

We're continuing last week's discussion, and sharing ideas about how to thrive when your competition is bigger and stronger. As a small company, a tiny team, or an indie, you're a David, and to win with your Goliath, you ought to do things they don't, won't, or can't do. Instead of emulating a giant, play the game by your own rules. This, and a 86-second review of iPhone 7.

One does not win a war against a vastly stronger enemy by going head to head against it. No, to have a chance of winning, you need to play a different game altogether, and turn your opponent's strengths into weaknesses. Warfare metaphors aside, it's also true for any company or project. To thrive in spite of strong competition, you need to play asymmetrically and instead of emulating them, do thin...

At every company, communication overhead becomes a real sink for time and energy. And the larger you get, the greater the overhead. It's prudent to optimize how you communicate and collaborate, so you can get the biggest bang for your buck. Communicate only as much as you need to, not more, and get back to doing the work. That takes nuance, different tools for different jobs, and an appreciation o...

There's no speed limit to how fast you can learn. But you can't just upload information into your brain either. To learn faster, it's important to understand the nature of how we remember things. This week we discuss the spaced repetition learning technique, how to take good book notes, and a vision for a book of the future.

Discussing insights from How to Fly a Horse. Everybody can be creative, but creative thinking doesn't exist. Creation is not inspiration, but iteration. It takes time, and lots of work. And you have to become comfortable with this. Brainstorming doesn't work, but feedback loops do. Confidence gives you power, but certainty makes you stuck. Question everything, but not too early. Instead, "Show me"...

Continuing our conversation about ideas and insights from Smarter Faster Better: discussing how team norms shape the way we work together, empathy, changing your mind quickly and often, copying, and remixing ideas.

Book corner! This week, we discuss ideas we learned from Charles Duhigg's newest book, Smarter Faster Better. Among others, we discuss why employers should get out the way of your employees, give them trust and responsibility; how you should make plans so you can achieve ambitious goals without getting stuck; a reminder about cognitive biases; and why you should always take the blame.

Michael wants his employees to work less and still pay them the same. He might be crazy. We're implementing a new, experimental policy at Nozbe, where everyone works at full thrust from Monday through Thursday, and then on Friday, after a few meetings, and a mandatory Weekly Review, you can do whatever you want. We discuMichael wants his employees to work less and still pay them the same. He might...

Thoughts on software design. What we do with user feedback, how we prioritize new features, teach users good habits through interface design, and try to strike a balance between "simple" and "powerful". Also a brief discussion about iOS 10.

Michael explains what it means to him to mentor and be mentored. It's not what you might expect — not a master-student relationship, rather, it's about peers exchanging ideas and points of view. Teaching and being taught at the same time.

Radek started waking up so early, no one can believe this is even possible. (Isn't this weird that when we hit the snooze button, procrastination is literally the first thing we do in a day? How could that be a good thing?) Also a discussion about discomfort, stretching your limits, and sharing some brain hacks.

Michael rethinks his strategy for blogging and spreading the word about #NoOffice. The plan: one solid blog post a week to blog his way to writing the NoOffice book.

Answering common questions and criticisms about high book consumption. Why it doesn't matter how many books you read will you remember 10 years from now. Why having a lot of (often contradictory) mental models is crucial. Why it's important to have time to process and some tips on achieving it. Also a discussion about privacy and security, including the math behind differential privacy.

There is no such thing as reading too many books. (Or if there is, it's certainly way above the 30 books per year rate both Michael and Radek find easy to achieve.) Each new book compliments the previous one, adding to your trove of knowledge, ideas, and insights. Each adds nuance, or shows contradictions, or a different point of view. And so we must reject this romantic but ultimately destructive...

What does it take for individuals and organizations to be original and creative? Michael and Radek share their favorite bits from Originals — Adam Grant's newest book that tries to answer these very questions. We talk about why quantity vs quality is a false dichotomy, why procrastination is sometimes good, why we should share our ideas more often than we think is appropriate, how to avoid groupth...

Radek shares more of his experiences from the WWDC/San Francisco trip. More tips for attending conferences. About almost knowing Elon Musk, and why it's not worth being a jerk. And on connecting the dots.

Live from (surprisingly cold) California, Radek joins Michael to talk about the news from Apple on the Worldwide Developers Conference and how they affect us and Nozbe, our product.