Journal

Well-written book documenting the rise and fall of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The book itself is semi-chronological, though it does jump back as necessary to frame the story.

The history that it covers is worth understanding and for that reason I’d recommend it to almost anyone who wants to learn more about the history of the tug-of-war around equal access to voting. It’s hard not to have a visceral reaction to the attempts at dismantling voting rights. The contemporary chapters at the end are especially upsetting since it’s clear how little has really changed.

The post-Shelby voting rights landscape most closely resembled the period before 1965, which the VRA was meant to end, when the blight of voting discrimination could only be challenged on a torturous case-by-case basis. The loss of Section 5, combined with an often hostile judiciary, created perpetual uncertainty when it came to protecting voting rights. Roberts’s long-held view that violations of the VRA “should not be made too easy to prove” was finally being put into practice.

I probably retained about 10% of the information (optimistically) – there’s a lot to learn from this book! This is definitely one I’d consider revisiting or referencing in the future.

Well-written overview of the history and current state of trash in the United States. The book only just scratches the surface of various focus areas and moves at a rapid pace.

One of the most interesting portions of the book was the chapter centered around the history of trash management. I especially enjoyed hearing about piggeries – a concept I didn’t know existed until I read about them in this book.

More than two hundred towns with populations over ten thousand built piggeries where raw garbage served as the feed, as what passed for waste experts at the time estimated that seventy-five pigs could dispose of a ton of garbage a day—and provide revenue and meat at the same time. New England led the nation in pursuing this waste-to-swine strategy; turn-of-the-century New Haven sent all its wet garbage, 5,400 tons of it a year, to pig farms, while Worcester, Massachusetts, proudly kept two thousand garbage-swilling swine at its forty-acre piggery near the city limits.

[Piggeries] persisted until the 1960s, when evidence that it could spread disease to both swine and humans became impossible to ignore.

Also interesting is the concept of using trash for energy, something that the United States appears to have mostly resisted. I’d love to learn more about the tradeoffs of this approach.

Our behavior in the U.S. in this area is really quite irrational. And it’s irresponsible. We are throwing energy and money away every day, burying it in the ground.

It would be interesting to see what a 2021 version of this book would say. Especially with our current recycling crisis in which many recycled goods can no longer be sent overseas.

I have trouble writing much about this book. I really struggled to finish the book due to its style. It felt like a trudge to get through what is overall a pretty short book.

The book is written in a clinical style – intentionally to appear like a report written by a medical professional. Unfortunately I found this style incredibly dry, making it hard to get into the story.

To me this distracted from the important subject the novel was about – the challenges of sexism that women in Korea face.

All this said, I admit that I am probably not in the right position to judge this book. For the right audience, it could hit differently. Maybe it’s better in Korean.

There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate. All I can do is look up from the train at the windows in the buildings that might be hers. Every one of them could be her window, it sometimes seems to me, and at other times I think that none of them could be hers. There are simply too many of them.

Murakami’s short stories are like Raymond Carver’s, but with more magical realism.

Here are my ratings for each short story in the collection.

Honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed Radical Candor.

There are two main behaviors that make up ‘radical candor’: caring personally and challenging directly. The book is an overview of ways one can exhibit these behaviors to be a better manager (or honestly, human).

Below I will share some quotes an explain why they resonated with me.

On acting on feedback

Reward criticism to get more of it. Once you’ve asked your question and embraced the discomfort and understood the criticism, you have to follow up by showing that you really did welcome it. You have to reward the candor if you want to get more of it. If you agree with the criticism, make a change as soon as possible. If the necessary change will take time, do something visible to show you’re trying.

I agree that it is hugely important to act on feedback – and show progress towards change – quickly. If one doesn’t, people will not continue to offer feedback. Why bother? Similarly, retros without real change suffer the same fate.

On an obligation to dissent

In meetings, consider making an “obligation to dissent.” If everyone around the table agreed, that was a red flag. Somebody had to take up the dissenting voice.

This is a novel idea to me. It’s all too easy for everyone to agree by default in meetings. Encouraging people to role-play as a dissenter or devil’s advocate seems like it could be productive in certain situations.

On work-life balance

Don’t think of it as work-life balance, some kind of zero-sum game where anything you put into your work robs your life and anything you put into your life robs your work. Instead, think of it as work-life integration. If you need to get eight hours of sleep to stay centered, those hours are not something that you do for yourself at the expense of your work or your team.

I’ve seen way too many peers work crazy hours by choice (or working late at night or on weekends). Being singularly focused on work makes one a worse employee. It’s important to take care of one’s mental and physical health. For example, by running I’m able to think and solve problems more clearly. I chose this quote because I like the framing of work-life integration.

On feedback latency

Giving guidance as quickly and as informally as possible is an essential part of Radical Candor, but it takes discipline—both because of our natural inclination to delay/avoid confrontation and because our days are busy enough as it is. But this is one of those cases where the difference in terms of time spent and impact is huge. Delay at your peril!

I admit I’ve put off giving direct reports feedback. When I’ve done this I wanted to wait to perfect the message. But doing so makes it less effective. I need to remember to just do it.