NYTimes: “When I wake up during the night, I try every mental trick to avoid thinking about my job. Because if my thoughts wander to anything work-related, I will ruminate — about deadlines, unfinished tasks, the laugh-free joke I made during a meeting — and I’ll be awake for hours. This is a familiar scenario for Guy Winch, the author of “Emotional First Aid” and a co-host of the “Dear Therapists” podcast. He has found, in his psychology practice, that people experience most of their work-related stress while they’re off the clock: during a commute, with family or friends, or in the middle of the night…There’s evidence that ruminating about work during leisure time can affect our emotional well-being, but thinking about creative solutions to problems does not. So when you’re stewing, Dr. Winch said, ask yourself: “Is there something I can do about this situation? And if so, what?” Frame specific concerns as problems to be solved, he said. Are you brooding that a new hire is performing better than you? Ask yourself what that person is doing well, and what he or she is not doing that you are, Dr. Winch said. “And most importantly,” he added, “what you might learn from them.””
Transformers: the Google scientists who pioneered an AI revolution: from FT. “Today, the transformer underpins most cutting-edge applications of AI in development. Not only is it embedded in Google Search and Translate, for which it was originally invented, but it also powers all large language models, including those behind ChatGPT and Bard. It drives autocomplete on our mobile keyboards, and speech recognition by smart speakers. Its real power, however, comes from the fact that it works in areas far beyond language. It can generate anything with repeating motifs or patterns, from images with tools such as Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, to computer code with generators like GitHub CoPilot, or even DNA.”
Claire Hughes Johnson: “The Marty Linsky quote that I really like is, “Leadership is about disappointing people at a rate they can absorb,” which sounds somewhat negative. When you think about leadership, it’s about driving people toward a vision. You don’t have all the specifics; it’s challenging. You’re setting goals that don’t always seem achievable, which can be disappointing to people. In the process of setting that vision and of getting that followership up the mountain, you’re liable to disappoint people because you don’t have all the answers. You won’t actually make it in a straight line. Yet you are creating change. You’re creating some discomfort. You’re turning up the heat on the people around you. People want to follow great leaders, and they also want to impress them. On the other hand, management is about taking something that’s been more defined and saying, “I’m going to identify the talent. I’m going to understand the thing we have to achieve. I’m going to apply the talent to the problem, to the objective. And I’m going to organize my way and have my team achieve that,” which is incredibly powerful. There are some fantastic leaders who are not always great managers and vice versa. They’re quite different. I say in Scaling People that there’s a point in your career you can get to and not be as strong a manager or as strong a leader.”
McKinsey Tech Trends: “One new trend, generative AI, made a loud entrance and has already shown potential for transformative business impact. This new entrant represents the next frontier of AI. Building upon existing technologies such as applied AI and industrializing machine learning, generative AI has high potential and applicability across most industries.”
