Links / Essay

• Useful Praise

  № 19

  I got squeezed into the rabbit hole that is Mandy Brown’s website, and dug up this work note on praise. The act of praising others, to me, is a muscle you train, and a habit you learn to finesse. Praising others at work is an important thing to do often, and do well. "If you can get really good at noticing when your colleagues are truly killing it—and then sharing what you notice—you will all get even better at those things together, even faster than you think."

• Disambiguation

  № 18

  “I want to consider that we borrow some lessons from Le Guin and Shevek and look at ambiguity not merely as something to manage or navigate through, but as something to hold. Something to make space for.”

  This essay by Mandy Brown about embracing ambiguity has lingered in my mind ever since I read it. In her newsletter, she wrote that the essay is more "tentative" than she’s comfortable with, but I think its tentativeness strengthens the piece. As Mandy writes, and I am inclined to agree: "I’m coming around to thinking that ambiguity, like change, is a constant companion. And maybe instead of manipulating or avoiding it, we need to listen to what it has to say."