Some other people including Asya have floated the idea of having a “despair day” where people question their core assumptions of their current work. I like this a lot, and also like encouraging more of this mindset in EA. (I’m not speaking for her, just for myself).
Oftentimes I’m having a 30m one on one with someone, and I don’t know where they want me to be on the spectrum from “encouraging their ambitions” to “ruthless honesty about whether it sounds like a good idea.”
This is sad because I think the latter is more helpful, but it’s also riskier. So often I try to choose some point on the spectrum that is less risky, like just asking hard questions but not saying how I feel.
It’s very helpful if people say things like “tell me how I might be screwing this up” or things like that, as it helps me know where on the spectrum to be.
I worry that because so many EA orgs are nonprofits, it’s hard for people to have good feedback loops on how useful their orgs are. It’s hard to know how hard it is for others to get funding, and how much of the funding is because the people are good vs. the idea is good.
I think grantmakers try to give this feedback, and it’s useful. But I think it’s a lot worse than having users that one is talking to very frequently (e.g. daily instead of every 6 months).
So I want to encourage anyone that is into more direct feedback to ask for it, both from me and from others. Some of my favorite convos with EA’s are when they’ve asked for “no really, tell me why you don’t think I’m working on the right thing.”
Cross-posted thread.
Some other people including Asya have floated the idea of having a “despair day” where people question their core assumptions of their current work. I like this a lot, and also like encouraging more of this mindset in EA. (I’m not speaking for her, just for myself).
Oftentimes I’m having a 30m one on one with someone, and I don’t know where they want me to be on the spectrum from “encouraging their ambitions” to “ruthless honesty about whether it sounds like a good idea.”
This is sad because I think the latter is more helpful, but it’s also riskier. So often I try to choose some point on the spectrum that is less risky, like just asking hard questions but not saying how I feel.
It’s very helpful if people say things like “tell me how I might be screwing this up” or things like that, as it helps me know where on the spectrum to be.
I worry that because so many EA orgs are nonprofits, it’s hard for people to have good feedback loops on how useful their orgs are. It’s hard to know how hard it is for others to get funding, and how much of the funding is because the people are good vs. the idea is good.
I think grantmakers try to give this feedback, and it’s useful. But I think it’s a lot worse than having users that one is talking to very frequently (e.g. daily instead of every 6 months).
So I want to encourage anyone that is into more direct feedback to ask for it, both from me and from others. Some of my favorite convos with EA’s are when they’ve asked for “no really, tell me why you don’t think I’m working on the right thing.”