Central points versus name-calling

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In Adam Grant’s book “Think Again” he references Paul Graham’s “hierarchy of disagreement”, saying:

“In the hierarchy of disagreement created by computer scientist Paul Graham, the highest form of argument is refuting the central point, and the lowest is name-calling.”

This hierarchy wasn’t one that I was familiar with, so I took some to understand what it looked like. Here is Graham’s essay that explains it, with the hierarchy going like like:

  1. Name-calling: That’s easy to understand.
  2. Ad hominem: Attacking the person, not the idea.
  3. Responding to tone: Attacking how an idea was presented rather than the idea itself.
  4. Contradiction: Essentially just disagreeing with an idea.
  5. Counterargument: This is a contradiction with reasoning and the first form of a convincing disagreement.
  6. Refutation: This is quoting someone and explaining why they’re wrong.
  7. Refuting the central point: This is the most powerful form of disagreement. Prior to this level you have been unclear or, in the worst case, deliberately dishonest.

Why?

So why does this matter? Graham addresses it quite well, with two main thoughts:

The most obvious advantage of classifying the forms of disagreement is that it will help people to evaluate what they read. In particular, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. In fact that is probably the defining quality of a demagogue. By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons.

But the greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier. You don’t have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don’t want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way.

If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier. Most people don’t really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can’t help it.

Disagreements can be a good thing if done right and, according to Graham, proper disagreements leave everyone happier because you can argue about the central points rather than attacking one another.

I encourage you to give it a read when you have a chance. I also found this write-up of it, which includes some examples and images to walk through it. Of course, as I said at the top, this comes from Adam Grant’s “Think Again” which is a must-read for most folks.

What is the desired outcome?

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I’ve shared a few times on here how good decisions can have bad outcomes, and vice-versa, but that only really counts if you know what your desired outcome is. In that post above, the desired outcome was clear — the Seahawks wanted to score a touchdown. At other times, though, the outcome can be a bit foggier.

Take this blog for example. I’ve written every day for a bit over 1300 days, and I’ve explained why I’m doing it, but it’s still a very difficult outcome to measure. To paraphrase myself from four years ago, “I’m writing these posts to help me think more and to sharpen my thought”. I think it’s been successful, but it’s nearly impossible to measure.

Outcomes = goals?

Is a desired outcome essentially the same as a stated goal? I think so, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. If they are quite similar, though, that explains my lack of a clear desired outcome. I’ve shared that I’m beginning to shy away from goal-setting, replacing the goals with processes. If I can write consistently, record videos consistently, work out consistently, etc, those areas of my life should continually improve.

I don’t have a specified outcome from any of those tasks, but if I stay consistent with my efforts the outcomes will reveal themselves to me.

Sifting through the chaff and grain

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There are certain people in your life that are indispensable. They can be indispensable in various ways, but I loved this description from Dinah Maria Craik (from her book “A Life for a Life“, as shared in Kevin Paul Scott’s “Inspired Every Day“). Dinah said:

“Oh the comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are—chaff and grain together—certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

It’s such a beautiful depiction of a friend. Someone you can share literally anything with, and they’ll patiently keep the good stuff and “with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away”.

Do you have that kind of friend in your life? More importantly, are you that kind of friend for someone else?

Communicate one thing

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Attention is a scare resource, so when someone is willing to give you their attention it’s wise to make good use of it. The Founders podcast recently released a fantastic episode that dug into this, and I encourage you to check it out.

The main idea is that while it can be tempting to unload everything that you want to share, the more you share the less likely that the other person will remember any of it. If you share one thing, they’ll likely remember that one thing. If you share six things, they’ll likely remember none of them.

Steve Jobs was fanatical about simplicity, and always pushed to keep communication simple. This simple communication matters for your audience, but it also matters for your team.

If you’re running an ad or a marketing campaign, you need to tell people the one main thing that you want them to know.

If you’re talking to an internal team, the same thing applies.

In both cases you likely want to share a ton of thoughts and ideas; new products, new features, new problems to solve, and more. To the extent that you can boil it down to the main thing to focus on right now, the more successful you’ll be in both arenas.

Who is the best listener you know?

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I was recently reading Kevin Paul Scott’s “Inspired Every Day“, and one little statement he made hit me very hard. He simply said:

“Who is the best listener you know? What is that person’s impact on you and others?”

It hit because this should (in theory) be me, but it’s not. It’s hard to really gauge that kind of skill, particularly when trying to compare yourself to others, but I’m confident that Ali, Brooke and Robert are all better than I am, and likely many others too.

I’ve talked about listening on here quite a few times, such as how to gain empathy through true listening, and while my listening skills have certainly improved over the past few years, they have a long way to go.

It’s important to note that Kevin directly tied the ability to listen into the degree of impact that the listener can make in your life. If you want to create impact, and most all of us do, listening is a key skill to help you get there.

Niagara Launcher for Android

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One of the popular features on Android phones over the years is the ability to change to a different launcher. The “launcher” is essentially the software that controls your home screen and app layout — the main grid of icons that you swipe through.

Years ago I used to experiment with different launchers quite a lot, but lately I’ve been content to stick with the default Android launcher. However, two things recently happened that caused me to give a different launcher a try.

First, I’m trying to de-Google things as much as I can. While I’m not going crazy on that, and I’ll likely purchase the new Google phone later this year, moving to things like the Brave browser and ProtonMail have been good moves.

One thing that I was unable to solve on Android was changing the Google-powered search box at the bottom area of the phone. While you can change many of the default search actions on Android, you literally can’t change or remove that box without a large amount of work. The easier solution is just to use a different launcher, which is as easy as just loading an app from the app store.

I came across one called Niagara Launcher and had to give it a shot. Most launchers are fairly similar to one another, with the familiar grid of icons. Niagara, on the other hand, changes things up quite a lot. At it’s core, it lets you choose up to eight icons on the home screen, along with a few small optional widgets (calendar and weather), and then you can scroll down the home page to find all of the other apps.

Here is a before and after example from a user on Reddit:

If you want to find another app, just scroll and they’re right there. You can even just tap a letter on the side of the screen to jump to that section. For example, if I wanted the “Truist” app, I could just tap the “T” on the right and get to it quickly. Here is a screenshot of that kind of scrolling:

It’s quite a change from how I’ve used my phone for years, so we’ll see if it sticks or not.

You can find Niagara Launcher here. It’s free to use, and has a premium version that is just $9.99/year and has some nice features. We’ll see how it works out.

If you’re Android user, do you ever use alternative launchers?

The Sunday Summary: Effortless effort, work-life tolerance, and paying attention to what you’re paying attention to

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, June 17: Productivity versus activity
Employees absolutely shouldn’t be using mouse jigglers and other tools to fake their activity, but if that’s the best measure you have for how much work is being done, that’s a far greater problem that needs to be addressed.

Tue, June 18: Work-life balance versus simple tolerance
“…and you ask them, do you like your job? No, no, no, I don’t like it at all. I’m like, you don’t have work-life balance. You have 40 hours a week every week that you hate. That’s not balance, that’s tolerance.”

Wed, June 19: It takes a lot of effort to look effortless
They say that for every hour that you will be presenting, you should spend 90 hours preparing, and Steve Jobs almost certainly hit that mark. His time in preparation made the talk seem effortless.

Thu, June 20: Money comes naturally as the result of service
“Look, you know, it’s OK to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, because they’re never going to send us any money. Be afraid of our customers. And if we just stay focused on them, instead of obsessing over this big competitor that we just got, we’ll be fine.”

Fri, June 21: If you’re a leader, you’re a teacher
“If you’re not spending 90% of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job.”

Sat, June 22: Pay attention to what you pay attention to
“I was kind of letting the information flow happen very passively in my life, and I wasn’t paying that kind of careful sustained attention that really for me is the way toward hope and wonder and joy.”

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Pay attention to what you pay attention to

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Attention is likely the greatest asset in the world. If you want to sell products, sell ads, lead an organization, or lead a movement, you need people to pay attention to you. There are ways to do it well, and there are ways to do it unethically, but this post is more about watching our own attention to see where it goes.

Adam Grant was recently chatting with John Green on his podcast, and John shared some great insights he had picked up when it comes to attention. He said:

I reread the work of my friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who had died a few months earlier, and I read this moment where she says “pay attention to what you pay attention to if you want to know what to do you with your life”. And I realized that I had not been paying attention to what I was paying attention to.

I was kind of letting the information flow happen very passively in my life, and I wasn’t paying that kind of careful sustained attention that really for me is the way toward hope and wonder and joy.

There are a few great reasons to pay attention to what you’re paying attention to. It can be huge reasons, like John’s thoughts on “the way toward hope and wonder and joy”, or it can be the more transactional ideal of intentionally selling your attention for things that you want to see succeed.

Either way, you can’t do a very good job of understanding your attention if you don’t pay attention to it first.

If you’re a leader, you’re a teacher

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Jim Sinegal was one of the cofounders of Costco and had some amazing quotes captured over the years. My favorite, while not related to this post, was what he told his successor as he was stepping down: “If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.”

For today’s quote, though, he was talking about the intersection of leadership and education. In a recent episode of Founders (which was focused on Steve Jobs), they shared this quote from Jim:

“If you’re not spending 90% of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job.”

As you develop as a leader, it can be tricky to figure out where best to spend your time. As GreenMellen has grown, both Ali and I have had to work to determine how best to serve our team as our roles became less about doing the tactical work of marketing. As this quote shares, teaching has been a big part of it.

  • Teaching our team through high-level items (goals, mission, etc) and tactical issues.
  • Teaching our clients through various interactions.
  • Teaching the community through things like our Meetup and podcast.
  • Teaching others through activities such as this blog.

We see this through great leaders in every kind of organization. You have business leaders like Sinegal, but even leaders in sports are great teachers; Michael Jordan was famous for the amount of time he spent teaching and mentoring the younger players on his team.

I’m not sure that Jim’s 90% number is accurate, but it’s likely very close. Finding ways to teach, at any level, is a great thing for both sides of the conversation.

Money comes naturally as the result of service

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It can feel counter-intuitive at first, but when a company focuses on service over revenue they likely earn even more money than if they had flipped that.

Back in 1997 when Barnes & Noble seemed to be catching up to Amazon, Jeff Bezos gave a talk to his company to make sure they were focused on the right thing, saying in part:

“Look, you know, it’s OK to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, because they’re never going to send us any money. Be afraid of our customers. And if we just stay focused on them, instead of obsessing over this big competitor that we just got, we’ll be fine.”

At the end of the day, you can choose to obsess about your competitors or obsess about your customers, and one of those will have a far better outcome than the other.

When building Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford was equally obsessed with his customers and put them ahead of profit, famously saying that “money comes naturally as the result of service.”

This can certainly be taken too far; if you lose money on every customer, you’re going to go out of business. Generally speaking, though, if you obsess on giving the best possible service to your customers, the money will take care of itself.