Pain, Learning Organizations, and Trainwrecks

Managing Up

Nick, pondering the Texas electric grid and the 2021 power crisis posits the question to Travis and Brandon: What role does pain play in leading teams? What is the role of a manager in managing and reacting to pain on our teams? What are the dangers of hiding or deflecting this pain? This leads to a discussion of processing feedback, helping teams learn from pain, and yes, launching trains at meteors. What roles do curiosity and fear play in managing organizational pain? What role do retrospectives play in this? How do you pronounce "gigawatt"?

Show notes:

• 2021 Texas Power Crisis
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
• The lottery factor (AKA bus factor)
  • https://towardsdatascience.com/maintaining-a-good-lottery-factor-1eeb2b2f52a6
• Ted Lasso: "The shower pressure is rubbish: make a note of that"
  • https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cff607e3-f79e-4a84-a38c-ab6124c596c6