"Team of Rivals" - an MBA in Leadership

"Team of Rivals - The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" is a #1 New York Times Bestseller by the Pulitzer Prize winner and Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

The Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln was based on this book.

I have seen Goodwin in several documentaries and shows, primarily when it is related to the US history and past Presidents. I have heard and read about this book in number blogs and articles on Medium for a long time but never got to read it.

When I saw the book in my local library, I borrowed it. It took me forever to complete the book as I am practicing 'slow reading' this year. I will read a chapter and go read another book, then return to the next chapter. In some cases, I re-read multiple chapters. This was just so good that I wanted soak in the finer details.

This is almost a 1000 page book. It is one of the most researched, fact-based, historical biopic that goes into depths of Abraham Lincoln's time during his first primaries through his re-election.

The book is so good that it doesn't try to paint anyone in a good or bad light, but rather what someone documented in their journal or captured in a news article at that time. It also clearly says whenever something is a hearsay or rumor.

The book goes into greater detail on some portions of Lincoln's life including his 1960 primaries, his rivals in those elections, each of their background, the civil war, Lincoln's challenges and friendships with various cabinet members and key individuals during that period, his re-election and the time leading up to his assassination. 

Key highlights that stuck in my head after reading this book:

• Lincoln always appointed his cabinet and other key positions based upon the qualifications even if they opposed some of his policies and views.  
• Lincolns empowered his people to the highest level. 
• He used humor more than what people expected. 
• He didn't really care about the appearances but rather was focused on being his authentic self. 
• Lincoln was a congressman, lost many small and big elections, then very unexpectedly was nominated as the Presidential candidate for the Republican party. 
• Lincoln grew up in very humble circumstances and continued to live with humility.
• Lincoln never reacted with emotions like anger or disappointment whenever someone made him angry or disappointed him. 
• Lincoln visited the army during battle consistently which really made him the favorites of those who were in the battlefield even if they didn't agree to all his policies. 
• Lincoln rarely overrode his subordinates and when he did, he provided the reasoning and ensure it was clearly communicated.
• Lincoln didn't react to news headlines, rumors, bad behavior, or, when he was misunderstood. 

There's a lot more to unpack in this book. In some chapters, I almost felt that I was reading a fiction, as some of his leadership habits are almost unreal and somewhat hard to imagine in today's world.

Almost everyone thought he was not suitable to be the President at the beginning. And almost everyone ended up respecting him for the way he treated them and his thoughtful long term strategies and approaches.

I am keeping this post short, so that if you are a book reader and haven't read this book, you can enjoy it as I did. 

"AMP IT UP" or Fail.

I listened to the Chairman and CEO of Snowflake, Frank Slootman, in the 'This week in Startups' podcast and was immediately intrigued by him. 

Maybe it is the immigrant in me, maybe I share some of the ideals he shared in the podcast, but his straight talk connected to me. And many of the ideas he shared was right out of what has been in my mind for a long time

I immediately put his book AMP IT UP on hold with my local library. I support my local library, but that is a totally different podcast. And got it within a few days. 

The book's title is: 

AMP IT UP. 

Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity.

Frank Slootman was the previous CEO of disk storage company, Data Domain, that was acquired by EMC and now part of Dell Technologies.

He was then the CEO of the service management SaaS company, ServiceNow, taking it to a $100B market value.

Slootman is now the Chairman and CEO of the Data Cloud company, Snowflake, hovering at $75B market value during the writing of the book. 

The author breaks down the book into the following sections:

1. Amping Up
2. Raise Your Standards
3. Align Your People and Culture
4. Sharpen Your Focus
5. Pick Up the Pace
6. Transform Your Strategy
7. The Amped-Up Leader 

The themes of the book, while sounds familiar, are not usually discussed in other books. My take on the book is split into the following ideas:

1. Product: the author talks a lot about architecture and getting it right.
2. Leadership: the author just wants the leaders to take the ultimate ownership and be assertive.
3. Sales: There are a few chapters dedicated to various ideas behind running a good sales organization.

The entire book boils down to what I picked up in his interview:

"If someone says they will get back next week, ask them Why not tomorrow? If they say I will get back tomorrow, ask them Why not today?"

Basically, the author advises leaders to focus, increase the sense of urgency, reduce waste and delays, and most importantly deliver value to customers. 

"It's hard to beat any leader who combines great resolve, persistence, mission focus, and clarity about what is and is not important. 

It's hard to beat any leader who truly amps it up" - Frank Slootman.

One Takeaway From Viktor Frankl’s "Man's Search For Meaning"

My all time favorite book is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning.

This book was recommended to me by a friend many years ago and he also gave me a copy to read. Since then I have recommended this book to almost anyone who would ask me for a book recommendation.

I also noticed that this is one of the highly rated and most recommended books in many blog posts and forums on platforms like Medium and Substack.

This book is the author's true life experience from the most difficult chapter in his life. This book does not fall in the category of business or leadership or fiction. Though it is biographical, it is a portion of the author's life. 

The author wrote this book while in the concentration camps during World War II. While we all have ups and downs in life, and I have faced some serious hardships myself, nothing compares to the author's experience in this book.

He wrote this for his own journaling and hid it while in the camps, most of it was destroyed and he had to re-write from memory. He did not intend for this to become a book, let me a best selling book in many languages.

The author talks about his companions who had positive thoughts and survived the hard conditions. He also talks about folks who gave up hope and ended up dead. Some portions of the book are really hard to read, but it portrays the reality of those camps in a first person perspective. 

He always envisioned getting out of the camps and giving lectures and curing people as he is a doctor. 

Author writes quotes like, "If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete".

The one takeaway for me is: 

One cannot control what happens in the outside world and what happens to them. But one can definitely control how they feel and how they react to the outside world no matter what happens. 

This is a simple but powerful life lesson that resonated with me and millions who read the book. If you are curious, and haven't had a chance to read this book, highly recommend it. 

I am using ChatGPT's training plan for the 2023 Chicago marathon (and let's see what happens)

I have run around 100 long distances races in the past decade (I need to count all my races one of these days). Definitely over 50 races that are marathon distance or more (over 26.2 miles, varying from 50k to 160 miles). I have run the Chicago marathon since every year since 2012 (except the Covid year). 

I used to follow the Hal Higdon's marathon plan when I started training for marathons. If you were a novice like me, you may have read his book or followed his free online training plans. 

Hal had various plans for novice, intermediate and advanced level runners. These training plans are from Hal's experience in coaching thousands of runners and running an online forum (remember LMS or ListServ?!). 

While they appeared to be customized for runners, they were basic and old school. You can get through a marathon if you follow the plan. Tens of thousands of runners have achieved their running goals through these plans.

Hal Higdon's Book

What was my plan? 

I stopped following training plans a few years ago. It served well for a couple years as it allowed me to not have the pressure of following a strict training plan, but train using my tribal knowledge (if there is one!). It is also called 'winging it' 😇🏃 

Last year, I ran the Chicago marathon with no training and wrote a blog about it. While I finished the marathon, it was not rewarding. It was painful and slow. 

This year's marathon training season starts soon. I was thinking of what plan would I follow. There are numerous marathon training plans available online, both free and paid versions. One can also hire a coach who can make customized plan for the runner based on their level. This year, I want to take my training seriously and improve my fitness, after a few years of lagging.

Enter ChatGPT

I have been learning about various use cases for ChatGPT and GPT-4. Most of my use cases are surrounding healthcare, technology, automation, efficiencies, etc. 

The thought of, 'Can I use ChatGPT to help me train for a marathon?' popped into my head. I played with it a bit and then got serious.  

I kept modifying the inputs to see if there will be a customized marathon training plan for me

Inputs varied from:

"Create me a marathon training plan"

To

"Create me a marathon training plan and a nutrition plan"

To a much detailed input like,

"Create a marathon training plan and a nutrition plan for the Chicago Marathon on October 8th 2023 starting on May 1st. I am returning to long distance running and would like to train for a sub-4 marathon finish at the Chicago marathon"

To this,

"Create a marathon training plan and a nutrition plan for the Chicago Marathon on October 8th 2023 starting on May 1st. I am returning to long distance running, a little out of shape and would like to train for a sub-4 marathon finish at the Chicago marathon. Include speed workout, temp runs, long runs, cross training, core workout, and any meaningful training needed for a fast marathon in the training plan and be as specific as possible on what train on a daily basis. The training plan can build mileage for 3 weeks and cut back after that. Include a keto like nutrition plan to lose 15 lbs during this training on what to eat healthy."

Yes, I wanted to bring my inputs as close to reality as possible and see how the training plan changed for each input.

Here are a few initial observations about ChatGPT's marathon training plan:

• Overall Plan:
• ChatGPT quickly spit out a marathon training plan. All good here.
• Mileage:
• A real marathon training plan will have 2 to 3 weeks of mileage build up and a cutback week. ChatGPT gave me long periods of mileage build up and less cutback weeks. This may not be good for novice runners as you need to vary your mileage. This is ideally not good.
• Rest and Cross Training:
• There was ample rest and cross training built into the training plan. This is good.
• Nutrition:
• For nutrition, ChatGPT advised 'against' a keto type nutrition plan and recommended a balanced nutritious diet. This was reasonable.
• Speed:
• I don't think the marathon training plan is customized for me, however it had elements to increase my speed for a sub-4 hour marathon. This is decently good.
• Duration:
• While I was able to continue my training plan beyond the word limits, all versions of the plans stopped short of the expected 24 weeks. There was a math problem here. 
• Disclaimers:
• ChatGPT has a ton of Disclaimer like language sprayed all over. Whether it is regarding regarding the mileage, nutrition or cross trainings. 

So, whats my plan?

• I am planning to follow ChatGPT's marathon training plan as much as possible, and track it for the next 5+ months.
• I am going to take multiple outputs i.e., marathon training plans from ChatGPT and create a foundational plan. 
• Where the plan is not practical, too easy or unreasonable, I will modify using common sense and my previous trainings.
• I am going to track progress and report back on the results. 

Wish me luck!