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Daily Growth

2 Way Doors

Amazon has a concept of 1 way and 2 way doors.

A one way door decision is where there’s no going back once the decision is made.

A two way door is a decision that, if you end up feeling like it’s the wrong outcome, you can reverse it and try a different approach.

When you get to a decision meeting, identity if this is a one or two way door. If a 2 way and there’s general consensus it might be a good idea from the team to try it but you disagree, try Disagree and Commit and trial it for a fixed period (say between 7-14 weeks). You may be surprised that it turns out to be the right call.

Similar to disagree and commit, it allows you to provide ownership and decision making to your team to make it more of a meritocracy.

You should also log these decisions throughout your cycle and review them at given points throughout the year.

Try asking yourself these questions:

Was this the correct decisions to make at the time? If not, why?

Was there information we didn’t have or were there biases in place?

If you can set up a system of periodic review, it’ll make everyone’s decision making much better as they’re able to reflect on previous decisions made with hindsight.

Disagree and commit

In team scenarios, not everyone will agree with you. And that’s OK. You’ve created a team culture where to question decisions and tactics is the right thing to do to create a healthy working environment.

Disagree and commit helps us to continue moving forward knowing that, although you disagree, you know enough people want to commit to that and you’re aligned with them.

The opposite is later down the line if the directive fails, you say ‘I told you so’. That’s not helpful or healthy for any team.

With disagree and commit, you’ve justified your reasoning, the majority overruled you, and you’ve moved on. If the decision turns out to be the wrong one, you adjust and see what you can do to fix it.

If it was the right decision, you have the bonus of being able to reflect – why did you disagree originally? Were you working from first principles? Was there an internal bias built in that was preventing you from seeing the data?

Disagree and commit will save a lot of unnecessary hours in meetings trying to strong arm your way to people agreeing with you.

Try committing to the process, reflect, and adjust if it turns out to be wrong.

Creating a Slowdown list

“Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results.”

Albert Einstein

In your work, how often do you repeat the same mistakes whilst at the time, thinking you’re using data and logic to reinforce your decision?

Your memory can play tricks on your and is biased – it’s called confirmation bias.

A tool that can support you in this is a Slowdown list.

Did the milestone slip by 2 days? Write down what happened. What factors lead to it. The responsible person. The duration & knock on effect it had.

By having this data, either in a cyclical review, quarterly review or project retrospective, you can see the issues that consistently go wrong and you’re able to put process in place to fix, or at least mitigate, those issues.

I use a synced notepad file on my desktop for the capture of information, then input the data at the next review date in software such as Notion.

Use whatever tools work best. If you can track and measure what matters, you can help support future workflows and pipelines.

Projects will never be 100% smooth operations, but you can keep iterating with data to get as close as you can.

The Next 7 Years

You become a new person every 7 years.

That means that all of your cells completely regrow themselves throughout this process so none of your original organic matter is you any more.

The same can be true for picking your path. A 7 year point feels like the right amount of time to challenge yourself. You will find new interests and aspirations. Your mission will never change, but the route you take to get there may.

Be open to change. You don’t have to go on a linear trajectory through life. Seize new opportunities and also keep doors open.

Follow what you truly love to do and the rest will follow.

Taking time off

When you’re starting out, work can become your main goal. When you don’t invest yourself into the work, it can have mild outcomes. Maybe you’re not successful or maybe you don’t build enough momentum to reach the tipping point. That’s not to say that overinvesting yourself will cause success, but it needs drive to start turning the flywheel.

The clichéd issue with this, is that it will impact the relationships and the people closest to you. It’s easier to do it whilst you’re younger for that reason.

From reflection, I could have handled this more successfully, it was only after the 5th year I really found a balance. I hope these tips help.

  1. Take all the holidays you need to
  2. Communicate and hold strict working hours
  3. Focus and hold a strong routine

There’s an argument to be said that a longer 4 day work week would be more productive than a 5 day work week. I believe that to be true. There’s always something to do and there’s always something high priority on your plate. Take time off. We force 1 day off per cycle. If you don’t need holidays but you live with someone, take days off when they have their holidays scheduled. This has helped massively with my focus and productivity. Last year I took X days off. This year I’m taking X. In the first 5 years it was probably that number in total for all 5 years. Yes, I’m speaking in hindsight, but I do believe having that time off would have helped prioritise and execute.

If you’re holding strict working hours you know will produce the results, then the holidays take care of themselves. It means you can schedule in life events around these. You’ll miss out on a lot of things your friends and family are doing, especially in the first 5 years. You may not have time for the occasions that happen at short notice, you’ll want to be invested in your work. But if you’re holding yourself to strict hours, anything that falls outside of that should be a ‘yes’.

Every 6 months I refine my schedule. Whether it be sleep, diet, workouts, supplements, work hours, hobbies, I’ll try to refine my Mon-Fri week to fit with my body’s energy and focus cycles. This is one of the best things you can do to ensure you’re delivering on what you set out to do. For me, if everything is laid out, I can generate momentum.

Even though those 3 things worked for me, it’s not to say it will work for everyone but you should definitely focus on scheduling in down-time, especially in the first 5 years so that you can spend time outside of the work to engage with family & friends. It’s important for your health and important for your company.

A book you might find interesting on this topic is ‘It doesn’t have to be crazy at work‘ by Jason Fried.

Feeling Heard

Feeling heard can be a factor at multiple junctions throughout the day.

The need to feel heard is a strong underlying feeling that impacts your daily life.

In your work life it can happen in team meetings, in off-hand discussions, in suggestions you make or even at milestone reviews.

Without forethought, it can be easy to dismiss someone.

You may dismiss based on your understanding of the situation and you feel as though they haven’t put as much thought.

But they’re choosing to expose themselves and their ideas.

At that moment, they want to be heard, regardless of their ideas.

So take the time to listen. Don’t interrupt. Repeat back to them what you thought you heard to ensure you heard it clearly. Then if you agree, say so. If you disagree, give your reasons why.

As Successful As Your Last Title

It took me longer than was probably needed to realise.

You hear the phrase “you’re only as good as your last work” a lot. Whether in film, television or games, people will remember your last work.

When that last work is successful, they’ll of course remember the body of work that came before but it’s hard when you’re on the inside.

If you’re bridging projects or feeling the momentum dip between projects, you have to keep putting in the reps. Showing up day after day. We were lucky enough to have our ninth birthday in June, I’m excited to see where year 10 goes. Throughout the 9 year period we’ve had peaks and valleys, and that’s how it should be. I’m one to celebrate less on the peaks and really dig in throughout the valleys. The valleys for me is where I thrive to get better and learn more through improving process and routine.

You need to have the intrinsic motivation of just creating great work and to not let people engaging with you be a reflection of who you are. The world is busy and people understandably forget. But you’re creating work for them. You’re showing up for them. It isn’t about you.

Binding our wishes to what will be

In the Daily Stoic this morning, there is a passage that reads ‘Binding our wishes to what will be’.

As we begin the 2nd of November with the biggest game launch in the studio’s 10 year history, there is a feeling of it being out of our hands.

We’ve done the prep, made the best game we could, kept the team healthy and happy, created marketing assets and shouted about the game.

Of course, there’s still lots more to do to continue to talk about the game post-launch, the real work begins now, but for the initial reactions, we have done all we can.

Whatever project you’re completing and pushing over the finish line, it was the journey that got you here. Of course the results are required for future projects to get off the ground, but right now, you did all you could. The rest is out of your hands.

The three masks of a creative startup

The creative, the manager, the entrepreneur

After nearly 10 years after founding White Paper Games, I’ve only just become aware of the many masks and how people are unable to read who you are at any given time.

I read a book a few years ago which I highly recommend to anyone in creative fields called the E-Myth.

I have quite strong beliefs when I communicate. I listen often but when I’ve formed an opinion, I use this to drive my feedback.

Most often, these are in creative situations. I try to use rational drive these discussions which Adam Grant in his book ‘Think Again‘ also says could be an issue, but I realised in creative discussions people don’t know who I am.

Am I the ‘boss’? A term that never gets used but are they seeing me as someone who says it should be done X way from an authoritive perspective?

We believe in strong creative disagreement and we can have many heated meetings. This is always focused on what’s best for our users/players over and never a personal attack and we believe this creates the strongest ideas when people are able to poke holes. You can refer to this as an idea meritocracy.

But when I’m in one of those discussions, I’m in there as a designer, alongside everyone else, but people are unable to see that. They either see me as a production manager, as a studio founder or ‘boss’.

I don’t speak unless I have a strong opinion about something, but how do you know between people thinking your creative idea is the right one as opposed to agreeing due to an unwritten hierarchy?

You need to find people that can engage and question.

You need to separate yourself from the many masks as soon as you’re able to. If you want to be a creative, let someone else handle the day to day business. This can be super tough for 2 reasons.

Money, there’s never enough of it. After 9 years, we’re only just getting to hiring our first ‘non-developer’ role.

You need to spend time an energy making sure the person you bring in understands your vision and purpose. You’ll find it hard to verbalise this over the first 5+ years so you try to take on those roles as well as the creative but as you’ve probably experienced, this can lead so many more complications when scale is introduced.

Being aware and understanding the different masks you might wear will help inform your view in meetings and creative collaborations.

The phrase ‘wearing many hats’ is unhelpful. It doesn’t get to the psychology of the team dynamics and could instead be seen as you’re doing multiple roles, but it goes deeper than that.

You can wear many hats and be proud of this fact because it shows you’re able to (or in a lot of cases unable to) balance the work and do each hat justice. But people can still see you when you change hats. This isn’t the case with a mask. You’re unrecognisable and it’s for you to decipher how you’re able to communicate with your team about this. Knowing it exists allows you to provide context to your thoughts when having a creative disagreement.

Another One of Those

You see them coming once you’ve been there a couple of times.

Ray Dalio uses the phrase ‘Another one of those’.

You learn to see the signs and you get a little better with dealing with them each time.

Throughout your journey you’ll have actions you’re good at and actions that need improvement. Whether signing the next project, hiring a key role or marketing a product, it’s always ‘another one of those’ once you’ve been through it.

Reflect and learn from past actions. Dissect what was & wasn’t successful. Refine your approach. There will always be refinement, but with another one of those, you’ll learn to see the key points.

If you can see it in the distance and have time to prepare, you’ll feel better with yourself. Then, once it’s passed, you have more data to compare with past and present experiences. You’ll see that you’ve grown on this path.

The inflection points may happen every 5-7 years or so. They’re key deciding beats which will dictate your journey.

They’re inevitable and invariable but they’ll make you antifragile.

What can you do to prepare for your next inflection point and how will that change your strategy?