Idea Surplus Disorder #113

In this week's edition of Idea Surplus Disorder: the art of delegating the right work, why leadership makes teams stronger, and how change resembles climbing cracks in a mountain. Plus: treating AI like resistance training, the paradox of pleasure reading, and why our attention may already be compromised.

And as always, you’ll find a mix of fun finds, practical insights, and thought-provoking quotes to help you lead, live, and think more intentionally.

I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here.

Ideas + Insights

What's the best work to delegate?

Context-setting includes explaining why the work needs to be done (following an organizational strategy, entering a new market, onboarding a client, or investing in a project, for example); the results the person or group is expected to deliver; the deadline for the work; and how people should behave (with one another, other colleagues, clients, and others) to get it done.

By contrast, activity-based work—including making decisions about what work to do to achieve the company’s or team’s goals—should be your team members’ responsibility. That’s because their time costs less than yours, they typically have more on-the-ground insight to drive good choices, and they’ll be motivated to do the job well when given autonomy and accountability. Case study research I conducted from 2011 to 2013 showed that leaders’ strategic initiatives were more likely to succeed when they made the desired outcomes clear but left the execution decisions to their teams.

Google's Nano-Banana (a part of Google's Gemini) is insanely good at image creation and editing. Step changes from AI image creation even 3 months ago. Here's a fun video overview.

Change in large organizations is like mountain climbing because it requires looking for the cracks:

We don’t actually climb the mountain, we climb the cracks in the mountain - the cracks are where we put our fingers and toes.

And as any mountain climber will tell you, the cracks aren’t always where you want them to be, but that’s what makes finding a path up the mountain a worthwhile challenge.

It's important to realize that cracks are not just where the system is breaking. Cracks can be where the system is starting to change already, or a bright spot of new growth. Cracks can be where someone's mental model is open to influence, suggestion and conversation.

Forget a leaderless, "flat" organization. Leadership makes teams better:

• Teams asked to choose a leader were 25% more likely to succeed and solved problems significantly faster than teams without one.
• Whether leaders focused on keeping morale up (motivators) or on organising tasks (coordinators), performance improved. The leadership act itself was the game-changer.
• Teams with leaders shift toward decentralised problem-solving, where members gather information individually and share it more effectively, leading to better organisation and faster results.
• Leadership didn’t reduce originality, teams were just as willing to explore new solutions as those without leaders.

Think of working without AI as resistance training:

The more the world automates, the more value accrues to people who continue to condition their fundamental capabilities. It's like watching a gym empty out because everyone discovered protein powder—meanwhile, the few who keep showing up, deadlifting and squatting, get exponentially stronger.

You cannot optimize reading for pleasure...

... even though I know so many adults who try. They make lists and goals and they pick short books to juice those goals. But when you’re reading because you’ve convinced yourself that reading is a mark of your general achievement as an adult, is it actually for pleasure?

I feel this insight from Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks:

The only faculty you can use to see what’s happening to your attention is your attention, the very thing that’s already been commandeered. This means that once the attention economy has rendered you sufficiently distracted, or annoyed, or on edge, it becomes easy to assume that this is just what life these days inevitably feels like.

In T. S. Eliot’s words, we are ‘distracted from distraction by distraction.’ The unsettling possibility is that if you’re convinced that none of this is a problem for you—that social media hasn’t turned you into an angrier, less empathetic, more anxious, or more numbed-out version of yourself—that might be because it has. Your finite time has been appropriated, without your realizing anything’s amiss.

Forget transformational; we are in Tectonic Times.

Fun Finds

• Similar Song Finder
• Send self-destructing notes.
• A fun, real-time AI camera tool.
• Save an entire web page as a single HTML file with just one click.
• How to resist everyday temptations.
• How to build a medieval castle.
• Google's AI experiments page

Words of Wisdom

Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered. — Giorgio Armani

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William Fitzjames Oldham

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. – John Steinbeck

Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives…make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself. – William Martin

Effort requires no talent. – Marshall Faulk

The conscious mind thinks it’s the Oval Office, when in reality it’s the press office. – Jonathan Haidt

You are never pre-qualified to live your dreams. You qualify yourself by doing the work. – Benjamin P. Hardy

Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we’re experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It’s not only how we express what we remember, it’s how we interpret it—for ourselves and others. – Twyla Tharp

There is much more value to be found in understanding how people behave in reality than how they should behave in theory. – Rory Sutherland

Up Next From Filament

Every month, Filament delivers an incredible mix of free programming and professional development. You can find links to sign up for all of our upcoming events, including PlayDays, Wavelength, NSFW, and SuperCollider here.