#92: The Karate Kid and Google Slides

and Happy birthday Steve Jobs !

Do you ever find yourself struggling to understand certain aspects of your job, especially when you're a new hire?

It's like you have all the instructions, and learn all the principles, but still can't seem to hit the mark.

For me, it's making slides not for presentation but for reporting purposes (yep, something pretty common in the corporate world). Despite knowing all the rules to make a good slide deck, I still get tons of (you gotta improve!) feedback from my manager. Compared to her slides, mine is like child's play.

Corporate slides for reporting purpose looks a tad like this, but with even more data. Image source

When I asked her how did she do it - cramming so much information into a slide but in a very structured and clear way - she started explaining to me all the principles of slide-making. Things like "Each slide should have one message only and it should be bolded on top."

But I waved her away. I already knew that. I wanted to know how she arranged all the parts of the story, how she decided to put this table here and this graph there..., all within a few hours.

"I really don't know. It just felt right"

Well, most useless advice ever.

I even tried to search for any formal slide guidelines or training from my company. No luck.

After a few months, I observed other managers and some senior friends in the company and noticed they shared quite the same styles of slide-making.

Only then did I realize that there are certain things you learn by being exposed to them daily. And the way I can learn them is far different from what I thought.

Before I dive in, there's a term for such things: Tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that cannot be studied through textual explanations alone.

It's something one needs to feel, to experience hands-on.

It's like riding a bicycle. You can read an entire encyclopedia about it, and you will still not be able to cycle it (pun intended) until you really jump on it.

My statement holds true even for this type of biking. Image source

Things like slide-making or stakeholder management are tacit knowledge because they are difficult to articulate but are gained through observation and, as my manager said, feeling.

So the only way to learn those skills is: Copy. Copy. Copy.

Yes, you heard me right! Copy is a fantastic way to learn the ins and outs of your job, especially when it comes to tacit knowledge.

In particular, just try to do things as similarly as your manager, get feedback, then try again. By doing so, we're identifying the patterns of successful behaviors and adapting them to our own style.

You'll, soon enough, develop your own sense of doing things

This technique is similar to the one used in the movie "The Karate Kid," where the master teaches the kid by sticking a piece of bamboo on his hands and letting him mimic the master's movements. In this way, the kid was able to learn the necessary skills and techniques to become a skilled fighter.

So go forth, watch, and learn from your boss and colleagues. Who knows, you might just become the next Karate Kid in your workplace.

Copy is no shame. Fail to progress at work is.

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Around the Internet

1. Futuristic tech be like:

Karen X. Cheng @karenxcheng

Behind the scenes on my early @runwayml GEN-1 experiments Still very early tech, but it will only get better - Soon there will be a whole new generation of filmmakers who can make whatever they can imagine - and they'll no longer be limited by their budget

2. Netflix allows password sharing and this happens

Hurt CoPain @SaeedDiCaprio

they thought we forgot

3. If you think using your own voice as your password is safe, think again | LINK

4. Steve Jobs on the mission of Apple products. The last sentence explains why so many people in the creative industries use the Macbook.

Marc Randolph @mbrandolph

A coming wave of disruptive companies will be built by layering domain expertise over GPT3. The best of these will: - solve complex problems, not just automate simple tasks. - be exceptionally nimble - evolving as fast as the underlying AI does. - use usage as a metric, not… https://t.co/C4ZZ5W5GkB

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As always, I wish you a relaxing Sunday and a productive week ahead.

Yours,
Tuan Mon

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Many One Percents newsletter is my weekly curation of Internet gems, mostly about technology, productivity and product management. If you want to support me, you can either subscribe to this newsletter, or donate via these channels: Momo | Paypal | Vietcombank