GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • OPM.21 (notes on) Find Your Why, Simon Sinek, David Mead, and David Docker, 2017

    Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter in your inbox.

    (notes on) Find Your Why

    Sinek’s first book was a TED talk that was bloated to book-length. This is the book that Start With Why should have been.

    The first chapter of Find Your Why is a perfect encapsulation of its more famous predecessor. The rest of the book completes Sinek’s “why-how-what golden circle” concept, fleshing out the idea within the standard structure of the self-help genre:

    • Introduction: Sell the Concept (Start With Why)
    • Body: Instructions for the reader actualize the Concept in their lives.
    • Conclusion: Reiterate the Concept with final encouragements.

    The Find Your Why method asks you to recount the moments in your history that lit you up inside. Then you process these memories with their method to develop a why statement formatted as:

    TO <blank> SO THAT <blank>.

    “TO inspire people to do the things that inspire them SO THAT, together, we can change our world.”

    Sinek’s own why statement

    Unfortunately, the Find Your Why process requires a partner for half a day to talk about yourself and probe your memories. I generally avoid self-realization exercises (even though my experience with Golden Parachute was fairly illuminating), much less burdening those around me.

    The authors claim their process isn’t possible to execute by yourself, so I’m not going to try. But if I were to take a stab doing their program, I would first try it on my own to probe the weak points of their method, before forcing an acquaintance (spouses aren’t recommended for this exercise) to participate in my navel-gazing.

    If you’re curious about discovering your why, and if you have someone who owes you a big favor, it’s worth checking out. And even if you don’t, this is the better of these two “why” books.

    I listened to this book at double speed, taking two and a half hours to “read” while doing chores. I don’t regret this minimal investment, however, if I were to do anything further, I would need to get a printed copy. I can’t imagine running this elaborate exercise without a visual reference. Then again, I haven’t felt any urge to find my why so over the past few months, so it is unlikely it will ever happen.

    Even though I’m meh about both of Sinek’s “why” books, I very much enjoyed his other books Leaders Eat Last and Infinite Game. They are both excellent reads.

    ~

    A Question

    Is the whole “why” thing is overrated?

    Hit reply and let’s chat!

    ~

    A Few Links

    ESPN occasionally commissions a great essay. This is a lovely portrait of a Will “Akuna” Robinson, a veteran who has hiked the three great trails in the United States.

    Self help books may be a contemporary route to self knowledge, but I wonder if traditional wisdom books may be a better path. If my hunch is correct, I’d recommend Ecclesiastes, Dao De Jing, Analects, Bhagavad Gita, and Havamal. If nothing else, these have stood the test of time.

    … and a photo.

    Supersonic Wing Wind Tunnel Model – A three-quarter rear view of a wooden Langley display model in January 1958 showing the radical twist and camber of a supersonic arrow-wing design. Note the cobra-like raised nose at the upper right and the cambered, drooped trailing edges of the 75-degree swept wing. These features were inverted in the first seal design by Modarelli. (NACA L-00502), January 1958

    ~

    Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!

    Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

    I don’t do recreational sadness.

    Bomani Jones

    With this motto, I’ve avoided the Little Prince.

    I must have read this book way when. How else would I have known this is a sad book? I think my parents had a copy.

    After watching the movie, I borrowed a copy from the library to read it afresh.

    The book is fully deserving of its acclaim. It is a heart-aching fable with spare watercolor sketches.

    It is a subtle and nuanced meditation of childhood and the loss of adulthood (unfortunately, the movie bowdlerized the message by shoving it in your face).

    Grown-up normalcy is shown to be absurd.

    But.

    Only an adult would see the message.

    That said, I’m not going out to find more recreational sadness even though this book was totally worth it.

    Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Little Prince (Movie), Mark Osborne, 2015

    This is a lovely film, especially the sequences that mimic a stop animation with paper cutouts. Maybe a little heavy-handed in its fear of adulthood, but it means well.

    Growing up isn’t the problem it’s forgetting.

    As an inveterate planner in my current job, I must admit that I was impressed with the big board that Mom made for tracking her daughter’s summer of achievement. However, her mistake was not in planning out the current summer, but in scheming for the next summer.

    Maybe the problem is planning.

    Planning and forgetting are synonymous with avoiding the present. It’s important to have an idea for the next couple of days, but peering beyond the haze is a futile task. Even worse than wasting time, you’re overlooking the richness right in front of you.

    Give yourself room.

    Mom’s other mistake was not planning slack in her schedule. Along with indulging the farce that one can divine what’s around the corner, having no fluff time is a recipe for overlooking the important.

    Don’t plan too far, give yourself time to smell the roses, and maybe growing up won’t be so bad after all.

  • Nuts and Raisins

    Last year, I discovered the perfect cereal mix – puffed wheat, raisins, and nuts (such as walnuts or pecans). This works great with yogurt or whole milk. The nuts provide complex notes while the raisins give a bit of tang, and the ensemble is backed up by the fatty heft of whole milk. This has become a breakfast staple (along with my bread, of course).

    I recently simplified this combo into an elegant snack – nuts and raisins.

    I stumbled into realization when we toasted some unsalted pumpkin seeds. With my family’s history of high blood pressure, I’m careful with salt, but these seeds needed something else. I had some raisins and voila, I had a new snack from the pantry!

    You’d think that all the years of store-bought trail mixes would have led me to this pairing much sooner. However, this discovery was only possible because we’ve been on a detox of unhealthy foods since the pandemic started. Aside from the occasional frozen pizza, every meal we’ve had for the past year has been home-cooked. Admittedly, we’ve bought our share of snacks in plastic bags, but even these have been limited because of the cold rationality of shopping online instead of being waylaid on the path to the checkout lane.

    It’s impressive that toasted nuts and raisins can result in an elegant combination of tanginess, umami, and fat. It’s all the more satisfying when this magic mix was discovered organically.

    After the initial draft of this post, I’ve come up with a second simple “magic mix”. Ground black pepper, garlic, and olive oil can be applied to almost any savory meal to good effect. The label on the pepper container states that it is a product of Vietnam, which invariably makes me marvel at how far we’ve progressed since the age of exploration, kicked off by the Portuguese search for an alternate trading route to break the Italian monopoly on spices. It still amazes me that these mundane kitchen ingredients were worth so much that men would devote years of their life traveling the high seas to obtain these basic goods.

  • OPM.19 (notes on) Enter Sandman, Drumeo and Larnell Lewis, 2021

    Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter in your inbox.

    (notes on) Enter Sandman, Drumeo and Larnell Lewis, 2021

    This is an impressive display of craft. Drummer Darnell Lewis has never listened to “Enter Sandman”, so he listens to it once and then plays it. No problem.

    His active listening during his first listen is a masterful example of analysis on the fly.

    Watching this video brings back fond memories of starting a new project when I was in private practice. The air was filled with possibilities as we were briefed on the program. This excitement would be viscerally manifested during field verification of a building for a renovation project.

    When entering a structure for the first time, the senses would kick into overdrive. The building had much to say, but we didn’t know what was critical, so everything mattered. With such stakes, my perception was on high alert. These moments of crossing a strange threshold were among my favorite as a practicing architect.

    Though less tangible, the excitement of starting a new project also applies to my work as an Owner PM. Any project is a function of invisible forces – state and local regulations and constrained by industry conditions, budget, and schedule.

    Beyond the hard constraints, the OPM is the leader of a new temporary team. My most important task at the start of the project is to grasp and develop the network of relationships within the user group and project team.

    No project is truly new, it is always set within an intricate context. Our first job is to sit down and actively listen before we pick up sticks to make a ruckus.

    ~

    A Question

    What are the moments that make you excited in the course of a project?

    Hit reply and let’s chat!

    ~

    A Links

    My daughter recently took a liking to Linus and Lucy, so it has been playing on loop throughout the past week. Looking up the Vince Guaraldi on Wikipedia, this paragraph jumped out. I envy folks who have settled comfortably into their niche.

    His desire to continually perform at small, local clubs was not due to financial necessity but because he wanted it like that. The monumental success garnered from his Peanuts work resulted in lucrative offers coming in from all over the U.S., all of which he declined. “Once the Peanuts music became famous, Vince could have gone out and done a whole lot more,” Mendelson said. “But he was very provincial; he loved San Francisco, and he liked hanging out and playing at the local clubs. He never branched out from there; he never really wanted to. He’d get offers, but he’d tell me, ‘I just want to do this; I’m having a good time, and I’m satisfied with it’.”

    … and a photo.

    Olive Thomas, Bain News Service, ca. 1915 and ca. 1920

    ~

    Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!

    Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes et al, 2018

    I used to go to Huffpo for my regular political web-hackery but their shrill alarmism wore thin after a while. I tried various news sites, but during the 2020 presidential cycle I settled upon the Bulwark.

    I suspect I have more disagreements than similarities with the folks on that site, but they have earned one thing more dear than almost any site out there.

    Trust.

    In a world where many Never-Trumpers heeded the tribal call of their party, these folks have held firm. I might not agree with many of their policy preferences, but they are honest and they have the courage of their convictions.

    The other thing that is quite appealing about their site is the conservative belief on American exceptionalism. I’m not fully bought into the thought, but I have to admit its appeal. It is alluring to think that my own country is somehow special in spite our multitude of faults.

    We’ll see where it goes. I presume we will transition from friends to foes during the administration of the new guy…but at least these folks have earned my respect.

    I wish we didn’t need four years of chaos to separate the wheat from the chaff within our punditry class, but I might as well take the silver linings that I can find.

    Over the year after the election, I’ve found myself following the Dispatch slightly more – I enjoy the cerebral musings of Jonah Goldberg and David French over the continued alarmism of the Bulwark (even if it is justified given the festering fallout from January 6th). Either way, I’ve been slowly weaning myself off the news, it’s all too much so I might as well give my attention to things I can control (or at least respond to in a meaningful fashion).

  • Halloween Costumes, 2021

    We’re still staying home from the pandemic, but the girl still wanted to make a costume for Halloween.

    She was so excited about the idea, she took the initiative by sketching her rabbit costume. Once there was a plan, we just had to execute.

    We started with the mask. It took a few iterations to get it right, but we eventually landed on a template that fit her well.

    Yes, these masks are basic. A piece of paper with punched holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth, using a headband of folded paper. All held together with staples and tape.

    It would have been a lot faster to buy something more sophisticated, but once you make something yourself, it’s truly yours.

    The boy saw his sister’s mask and wanted his own. Turns out their faces are close enough in size, so I used her mask as a template (sans ears) and we shortly had the Monkey King running around the house.

    The kids loved their masks. They spent all week running around as their alter egos.

    This early victory led to further successes. We moved on to paper gloves and then paper shoes (I learned why moccasins have developed their distinctive shape).

    None of the final results are spectacular. The costumes wouldn’t get any likes on social media, but we made something real, together. We weren’t just consumers; we were makers.

    The world will constantly sell you on the satisfaction of owning excellence, the German sports car and the Swiss watch. But I’m starting to wonder if there is deeper satisfaction found in making something yourself, even if it’s mediocre.

  • OPM.17 (notes on) Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell, 2015

    I hope you enjoyed your Halloween and Nevada Day!

    Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter in your inbox.

    (notes on) Team of Teams

    This new world moves too quickly for top-down, optimized entities.

    The twin narratives of this book are the rise of the hyper-efficient organizations (exemplified by the work of Fredrick Winslow Taylor) in the 20th century and the rise of the hyper-connected network (exemplified in the structure of Al Qaida) in the 21st century.

    After Saddam was crushed in Iraq, the occupying forces were constantly harassed by the flexible amorphous cells of the terrorist organization. This underground operation was running laps around the awesome might of the great American military machine. General McCrystal’s task was to reverse this trend.

    He accomplished this by “shared consciousness” and “empowered execution”. He merged the information silos in multiple organizations so that all the data was shared throughout the forces. He also delegated decision-making power as low as possible, allowing the staff who were most familiar with the situation to respond in an agile manner.

    These twin endeavors ultimately turned the tide of the war. While history was being made, I had thought that the “surge” was merely an issue of applying more resources. I did not realize that the eventual defeat of Al Qaida was the result of better management techniques.

    At first glance, it does not seem that the lessons in this book are immediately applicable to the much more methodical work of a government OPM.

    However, timing is always an issue. Sooner is generally better than later, but our processes with multiple peer reviews tend to push the schedule longer. It’s a bit of a conundrum. Budgets for state buildings are tight. This one renovation may be the only project in this building for the next twenty years. With such timescales, losing a couple of months is worth the tradeoff of ensuring the design is dead on.

    But still, the needs are immediate. It would be nice to move more quickly so we can better serve our users. This book makes me wonder if I should experiment further to speed up my projects. It also makes me question if our system of multiple checks is truly effective. Are we getting proper value for the delay? Each extra step incrementally improves the project, but at what hidden cost?

    In all, this book is a good read. It is a compelling story of how a top-down behemoth adapted in response to the networked resilience of its opponent. Restructuring the team was the key to the endeavor, the nature of the organization is its strategy. As such, this book is a great case-study companion to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Anti-Fragile.

    The other concept that intrigued me is the regular status update meetings that were instituted by General McChrystal. Along with transforming their main base into a large open office plan, his team started running a 2-hour meeting every day. All relevant parties could attend these meetings, and he touts it as his primary tool to achieve “shared consciousness”.

    There is a prevailing trend in Tech to avoid such meetings. In that vein, I’ve been pondering how to minimize my OAC meetings. Maybe that is the wrong approach. Maybe I should be thinking about how to maximize the effectiveness of those meetings.

    As OPM’s, we tend to think in a top-down fashion, after all, we are the “owners”. However, delegation (empowered execution) is the primary job of our work. Empowered execution is only effective when there is true coordination, so how does one create a shared consciousness between the multiple parties in our team?

    ~

    A Question

    How do you handle regular status meetings?

    Hit reply and let’s chat!

    ~

    A Link

    As an employee of the State of Nevada, I’m contractually obligated to mention that October 31 is Nevada Day when we joined the Union. Unfortunately, we observe it on the last Friday of October, akin to celebrating Independence Day on the first Monday of July.

    … and a photo.

    Baby in Pumpkin, Gippsland Australia, John Flynn 1880-1951

    ~

    Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!

    Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • I Ching Links

    Like many other hobbies, I’ve cooled a bit on the I Ching. For a while, I consulted it once a week, but it’s been a while since I last visited the book. Like my bread baking, I will coast on the knowledge I picked up over my first couple of months of diligent practice. Or maybe like the Ukulele, I won’t visit much at all.

    With the honeymoon phase long past, I won’t be finding many more internet resources for the I Ching, so this seemed the appropriate time to compile some key links.

    Biroco – S. J. Marshall’s book reviews were a great introduction to the world of the I Ching in English. I also follow his method for interpreting the changing lines. A comprehensive site, though I suspect that some people might take issue with some of his harsher judgments of various translations. However, I picked up the Wilhelm/Baynes and Lynn translations due to his recommendations and have been pleased with both.

    Hermetica – A lot of good resources, both weblinks and book reviews. He also shares his own translation of the book on this site. His page comparing a multitude of hexagram names is quite interesting to peruse.

    Russell Cottrell – Another site with many reviews with a few virtual divination resources. He also explores a lot of other ideas, including a page comparing 44 translations of #3 and #36, and a nice pocket format I Ching based on the Richmond translation.

    Online Clarity – A nice forum and good community around the I Ching. I’ll occasionally pop into Reddit as well, but prefer the homier feel of this site. I also enjoy Hilary’s email newsletter. She was recently interviewed on youtube which covers quite a bit of ground as an introduction.

    Wikipedia Hexagrams – A concise location of hexagrams and English and Chinese names.

    LiSe – I have not explored this site much, however many people have recommended her site. If I was to start exploring the I Ching again, this would be the next spot to dig into.

    Fred Hatt is a New York artist who has made a good video of divination with yarrow sticks.  It takes a while (a feature of this style of divination), but he chats his way through the process. He was also the guest on this great podcast episode which includes an audio demonstration of divination with coins.

    Finally, I must close with this extended quote from Fred Hatt’s autobiographical blog post.  It has nothing to do with the I Ching, but wish I was as comfortable with myself as Fred is with his path in life, “while I ignore this official Art World, it ignores me back.”

    I rarely write about my own life here on Drawing Life. I avoid drama and so I imagine my life would be pretty boring to anyone not close to me. I devote much of my free time to drawing, photography, and other creative pursuits. While I show work and do events and performances fairly regularly, I’ve always maintained my art as an amateur practice. Of course the word “amateur” means lover, one who does something for the pure love of it. Since I work for a living, I don’t have to worry about creating work to please a market or to make it fit what some critics want to write about. I keep the work free, and I follow it wherever it leads me. To be honest, while I love a lot of living artists and their work, the international contemporary art scene as a whole, with its mega-wealthy collectors and ego-driven art stars, its combination of pretentious discourse and cheap gimmickry, bores me, and while I ignore this official Art World, it ignores me back. I’d rather treat my work as my own exploration of perception and practice. I do want to use it to communicate to a larger audience, but I’m actually more driven by the pleasure of sharing one on one, the special connection that develops between me and my models, the people I sketch portraits of and the people whose bodies I paint, the dancers and performers I collaborate with, and the fans of my work that visit my studio, sit with me on the floor and look through piles of drawings or photographs.

    Fred Hatt

  • OPM.15 (notes on) Anti-Fragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2012

    Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter in your inbox.

    (notes on) Anti-Fragile

    Taleb’s core premise is that we can’t predict the future, so we can only prepare in the present.

    Pretty basic advice for an uncertain world. So what can we do?

    His counterintuitive elaboration is to posit the idea of “anti-fragility”. Anti-fragile things are not merely robust – they don’t merely avoid failure under stress. Anti-fragile systems improve when they encounter variability. For example, our bodies get stronger when we practice a wide variety of exercise routines.

    What an inspiring concept!

    Anti-fragility provides a framework for developing improvements. As individuals, there isn’t a ton we can do to fix the big problems, but we aren’t completely powerless. Don’t obsess over massive single-shot wins. Focus on making lots of experiments. A bunch of little mistakes will come up with the occasional win. Transform one of those discoveries into a big victory.

    He recommends that one starts with a life that maintains a baseline stability. With this solid foundation one is freed to take some risks that might become big wins. Avoid debt and live freely. Procrastinate thoughtfully – a default aggressive stance isn’t always best.

    To nitpick, I admit that the book is a bit long and would have benefited from a sharper editor. But what the hell, it’s well worth your time. Taleb is a punk. He points out that the emperor has no clothes, and that our castle is a house of cards. I wish this book had been published while I was in grad school, I suspect my master’s thesis would have revolved around this concept.

    As with all audio books, I started listening to it at 1.5x speed. Unlike most of them, I dropped it down to 1.0x speed almost immediately and listened to all 16 hours at the narrator’s natural pace. Highly recommended.

    ~

    One Question

    Where can you start experimenting? How are can you create the variability to make you become anti-fragile?

    Hit reply and let’s chat!

    ~

    One Link

    Along with Anti-Fragile, I recommend checking out Simon Sinek’s book the Infinite Game. It hammers in the point that “winning” in life is being invited to “keep playing”, a critical concept that rhymes well with the themes of Anti-Fragile.

    … and a photo.

    “Dreamland” burned, Coney Island, Bain News Service, 27 May 1911

    ~

    Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!

    Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting!
    Justus Pang, RA