(parenting) The capsicum analogy for illuminating selfishness to a toddler

We are driving home in the city when Charlotte, our 3+ y/o daughter, starts asking us to play her favourite song. For this week it’s We Are The World by USA for Africa.

But I had already listened to it enough this week because she’s been requesting it every time she’s in the car or at home… so I turn to her and say, “Can we not listen to that song again?”

“BUT I WANT TO!” she shouts.

“I like the song so so so SO SO SO MUCH. It is my FAVOURITE song!!” she adds, whining. There’s a tremble in her voice.

“But we’ve just been listening to the same song all the time. It’s not always about what YOU want, all the time, right? Don’t you think it’s nice to also let others in this car listen to songs that THEY would want to listen to?” I plead.

“No but I love the song so SO SO SO SO SOOOOO MUCH!!!” she repeats again. My words clearly falling on deaf ears.

Fortunately my wife is next to me. She looks like she’s been baking a thought for a while, which she now takes out of the oven:

“Charlotte, if mama loves capsicum, can mama always cook capsicum for dinner?”

Everyone is quiet for a few seconds. We know Charlotte doesn’t like capsicum, but we don’t know if this analogy is going to do anything to change her mind about We Are The World.

”… no,” she replies hesitantly.

Noticing a window open up in her, my wife explains the lesson: “If mama only cooks capsicum for dinner because mama loves capsicum, then mama is being selfish. Selfish means caring only for yourself, about what you want, and not caring about what others want.”

“When you keep asking daddy to play We Are The World, and start crying when he doesn’t want to, then you are being a little selfish.”

“So, instead of always wanting daddy to play the songs that you like, it’s better to let daddy play one or two songs that he likes, then we can play some songs that you like, and we can take turns doing that.”

Charlotte, to her credit, is the kind of child who listens when there is something to be learned. Sometimes you have to work hard to open the window to her attention, but when it’s open, she takes it in.

And she has just taken it in because the very next moment, she asks, “Daddy, what song do you want to listen to?”

“Fix You by Coldplay,” I reply.

“Okay. We can listen to Fix You. But after that can we listen to We Are The World?” she asks.

“Yes, of course!” I respond. I turn to my wife and give her a smile.

What I learned from this is that to be an effective parent — one who is able to impart knowledge and life lessons effectively — you need to be good at drawing analogies. I’m not as good as my wife in this, but I’ve had hit it lucky a few times too. It’s almost like a team sport where the goal is landing on understanding.

(career) Move fast for opportunity

Moving on to a career topic.

I recently pitched to transition into more of a Product Manager (PM) role from my current Software Engineer role. I spoke to the co-founder about this and within a week, decisions were made and I’ve now started working on a project as a Technical PM.

There are a lot of kinks left to work out:

• This is to be a mixed role, where I’d still have engineering responsibilities. How should I split my time?
• What does success look like for a Technical PM role in our company?
• What work should I prioritise if we’re in a time crunch? Product or engineering work?
• … and many others.

But what I’m very happy with is the speed with which this went from a 1-on-1 conversation to me being given the chance to be Technical PM on a project. Now what’s left is for me to learn a lot quickly about how to do the work of a PM. I haven’t felt this energised in several years about work.

(communication) Always ask for context!

A C-level person is asking me to pull up some usage numbers of our Create Shipment API endpoint.

I see the Slack message and I can think of various reasons why they are asking for these numbers. Each reason would entail a different focus when looking up the numbers.

I could choose to say, “I’m on it” and come back with the exact numbers requested, which was ”% of orders where the Create Shipment API was used” and be done with it. But that feels like an incomplete answer, likely to lead to a second round of number pulling.

To avoid that, before going to BigQuery, I ask a clarifying question: “Any relevant context that I should know about as I pull these numbers for you?”

The C-level person replies with 3 additional paragraph of context. It’s about a deal we might be making with a partner and they are asking this for due diligence to understand how we reconcile order shipments.

Now instead of pulling just ”% of orders where Create Shipment API was used”, I know I have to also pull:

• How much GMV had shipment info passed on? How much didn’t? What’s the percentage?
• How complete is the shipment info? Partial or full? What is the percentage breakdown?
• Which big partners use it most? Which big partners use it least? => Helps us understand our partner profiles better, maybe influencing future partner selection.

I realised that this “just do it, no questions asked” approach would also leave me unaware of the business opportunity that we’re pursuing, which would make me feel more like a blind cog in a machine that is also less valuable to the company.

The lesson is to always ask for additional context if you’re being asked to do something by someone. Even if it’s by a C-level person. Because doing so benefits everyone.