With the current covid-19 situation, I’ve had more than the normal time working in my home office. This has given me some cycles to catch up on podcasts that I’ve had queued up while at the laptop. One that recently jumped out at me and spoke to me was a conversation on Happier with Gretchen Rubin (Episode 263) [1] about the book UpStream [2]. There was a parable that the author used effectively to illustrate the point of changing our mindset about problem-solving (see 18:00 - 21:10 for the parable).

The parable illustrates what I see as a current concern within one of the projects I am working on professionally. Our team continues to be in this firefighter mode and everyone is helping to solve problems, successfully I might add. I find it hard to step back and think about how can we prevent these types of escalations, work late into the night and impact multiple teams incidents.

Adding this book to my reading list and will start acting on stopping problems upstream!

[1] Happier with Gretchen Rubin Episode 263

18:00 - 21:10

[2] Upstream - the quest to solve problems before they happen