People remain slightly more fascinating than gadgets and widgets.
The gap is getting closer, I know, but people still emit quite unexpected tropes and behaviors that gadgets and widgets can only mimic or reproduce.
This occasionally includes, surprisingly, senior people in tech. I sometimes fear they're so systems-minded that they see neither the wood nor the trees. Nor even the sky above. Even when they're riding a surfboard and wearing too much sunscreen[1].
You surely have asked yourself more than once: "I wonder what it takes to succeed at a company like Microsoft[2]. There must be so much rancid politics there."
Well, I've been bathing in an extensively revelatory interview[3] given by Kate Johnson, Microsoft's American president, to Adweek.
Enter the good times coach.
Johnson is an electrical engineer who became a management consultant. I refuse to hold either choice against her. Especially after reading some of her personal revelations and advice.
For example, I know that many people hire coaches to help them become, er, better versions of themselves. Or perhaps even sparkling versions of someone else entirely.
Many do it, however, when things aren't going so well. Johnson has an entirely different view: "On more than one occasion, I've hired a coach to help me up my game especially when things are going well. I find that I'm most receptive to developmental feedback when it's not a diving save, but rather a chance for continual improvement."
It's fascinating that, in a monstrous corporate environment, getting help when you're doing well might be so advantageous.
Indeed, the churlish might suggest that when Microsoft was doing well in times gone by, it could have done with some coaching on, you know, how cellphones could