work – Made by Mikal

Training isn’t a work perk, its essential operational risk mitigation

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 13, 2025
Post category:Work

I’ve been thinking a bit about training at work recently, largely in the context of having spent the last twenty years working for US technology companies. I think effectively all of these companies made a pretty big mistake — they viewed training of employees as a perk much like vacation, book budgets, or t-shirts. They advertise their training programs as part of their recruitment process, and just like other perks they’re cut when times get a bit grim. However, that’s not actually why employers should train their people. We train people so that they have the skills they need to do their jobs — especially when things get real and aren’t working out to plan.

There are definitely industries who have good examples of this sort of risk reduction training done well — airlines and the military both engage in regular training activities that ensure that when things get exciting the people know what to do. This includes leaders being trained on how to make decisions that are likely to result in the desired outcomes.

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Leaders Eat Last

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 8, 2024
Post category:Book

This is the first Simon Sinek book I’ve read. His stuff has been on my mental to do list for a long time, but never seemed to get to the top until now. This is about a book about how employee happiness and trust in their management directly results in better outcomes for employers, and how the best way to create happy employees is via mutual trust and empathy. In fact the book goes further and outright states that staying in a job that makes you unhappy, even if it also makes you feel safe, is bad for your health and eventually your life expectancy. I haven’t seen this stayed quite this clearly before and the book wastes no time in making this point.

Leaders Eat Last also has a section on the various chemicals in our brains and how they guide our behaviour. I felt specifically called out by this quote on the addictive nature of social media and how it interacts with our dopamine levels:

…if you wake up in the morning and the first thing you crave is a drink, you might be an alcoholic. If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is check your phone to read email or scan your social media before you’re even out of bed, you might be an addict.

How very aligned with Digital Minimalism. Now in my defense, the first thing I check in the morning is the state of outstanding GitHub pull requests so I guess I’m not a social media addict?

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Title: Leaders Eat Last
Author: Simon Sinek
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
Publisher: Penguin Books
Release Date: 2017
Pages: 350

Leaders eat last : why some teams pull together and others don't is the much anticipated sequel to the global best seller, start with why by Simon Sinek. This book talks about how great leaders sacrifice their own comfort for the good of those in their care. With the help of numerous intriguing examples, the author attempts to prove that the best organisations foster trust and cooperation. As the author points out, this book is not a management theory, but it actually a biological one. Individuals thrive only when they feel safe among a group.

More commuting to work

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 5, 2006
Post category:Bike

I've done the commute three times now (it's been really wet the last couple of weeks), and now have the ride down to 21 minutes, which is nice.

First commute to work

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 21, 2005
Post category:Bike

This morning was my first bike commute to work ever. Not just to my new American job, but ever (I've always lived too far from work until now -- being a bike ride away from work was one of the criteria for the apartment in the US). The ride was rather pleasant, and involved very little on the road stuff (just getting onto the bike path near the apartment) -- 27 minutes, 7.7km, maximum speed of 33 km per hour. There is a lot of room for improvement here -- we didn't go the most efficient way, I am relatively unfit at the moment not having ridden for a month, and Andrew is learning how to use cleats which made for a bit of laughter. A nice ride though, and I'm pretty happy with how it went. I'll be riding more in the future.

Two weeks of being sick

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 19, 2005
Post category:Bike

And 31km travelled. Not too shabby given I couldn't breathe and had goo coming out of my head. I feel quite unfit riding now though, so I need to put some work into getting back into things. James talks about commuting to Google, which is currently of interest to me so I'd like to hear more about the practicalities of commuting in Mountain View if possible. For instance, are their off road bike paths, do American drivers try to kill you, and how far is Jame's commute on the bike each way? I'm not sure I really care if commuting to work by bike is cheaper, I only want to own one car in the US if I can (I have two here), and I like the idea of living close enough to work to be able to ride there. [icbm: home]

Addiction?

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 2, 2005
Post category:Bike

I've been feeling agitated all week, and really quite stressed out. This could be because of: The three conference papers i give next week in Perth Including the opening keynote The impending release of the product I work on The two book chapters I am meant to be writing this week The PhD work I am meant to be doing Not spending enough time with the kids or Grant and Lindsay's departure from TOWER HQ yesterday But I've put it down to being because I hadn't been for a bike ride since Saturday, so I just went for a 12.14km, 41 minute, ride around ANU and the edge of the lake. Now I feel better, if more sweaty. [icbm: work]

Hackathons again

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 25, 2005
Post category:Link

How about a 48 hour hacking session in a house? It forces you to turn of that part of your brain associated with fear of failure, and therefore makes you more creative. Again, this sounds like a cool idea to me. Previous linkage. [icbm: work]

Hackathons

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 23, 2005
Post category:Link

Let your development team spend a day hacking on a feature they care about. Sounds like a great idea to me. I look around at a lot of the developers I know and they're running at 50% efficiency because they feel bored doing what the managers say they should the whole time, and the product suffers as a result. Is your company having trouble with staff churn? It's probably because you don't let your employees become passionate any more. [icbm: home]