What if you replaced yourself?
Now.
Cottonbro Studio
Introduction
We rarely ask ourselves what would happen if we replaced ourselves.
With a more capable person.
Or a younger person.
Or an older person.
Or a faster person.
Or a more scalable person.
In this edition of Anti-Design Patterns, I’ll dig into the question of “What if you replaced yourself”?
I’ll ask 3 questions:
Why replace yourself?
Are you the right person to lead your team right now?
How do you replace yourself at the right time?
Why replace yourself?
It amuses me that we almost always assume that we cannot be replaced.
We assume we can improve. And that we must improve ourselves.
But not replace ourselves with someone else or something else.
Like planned obsolescence.
Or AI.
Western culture developed to a point where society is obsessed with improvement.
Being faster, stronger, smarter, more efficient, more beautiful.
Thousands of business books and social media posts talk incessantly about systems for improvement.
All kinds of meaningless names and labels for better time management and execution - like Pomodoro.
Which is Italian for tomato.
I never understood that.
Total Quality Management (TQM) started to take shape in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The concept was significantly influenced by the work of quality management pioneers like W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa.
Deming introduced quality control methods to Japanese manufacturers after World War II, and his principles became the foundation of Japan's quality improvement initiatives, which later evolved into what is known as TQM.
In the 1980s, TQM gained prominence in the United States and other parts of the world as organizations sought to improve their competitiveness by focusing on quality in all aspects of their operations.
In the past 20 years, this notion percolated down into our personal lives.
We use systems and coaches, cosmetics and clothing to improve our competitiveness.
By focusing on quality of the systems and coaches, cosmetics and clothing.
Continuous improvement, often associated with concepts like Kaizen in Japanese manufacturing, is a key principle of Total Quality Management (TQM). It involves an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes over time.
We can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once.
Incremental improvement
The brain needs periodic learning sessions and reinforcement learning in order to achieve incremental improvement.
Periodic Learning Sessions
Spaced repetition involves spreading out learning sessions over time instead of cramming.
When information is reviewed, neural connections are strengthened. When intervals between reviews are gradually increased, information moves from short-term to long-term memory.
System: Review the material periodically.
I read the weekly Torah portion every Shabat in our local synagogue. This involves learning the musical tropes for 100 - 180 verses by heart. I divide the work from Sunday to Friday - and try to space out and review every day.
Sleep and Consolidation:
During sleep, the brain removes waste, processes and integrates new information.
A study published in Science in 2013 by Xie et al. found that the clearance of interstitial waste, including through the glymphatic system (a system for waste clearance in the brain), is more efficient during sleep. The study suggested that the glymphatic system's activity could be up to 60% more active during sleep compared to wakefulness.
Neural replay during sleep helps to solidify the connections formed during learning, enhancing memory and problem-solving skills.
System: Sleep well and sleep enough to improve your cognitive performance and retention of memories. An often quoted rule-of-thumb is 321: Stop eating 3 hours before bedtime, stop screens 2 hours before bedtime, read a paper book 1 hour before bedtime.
Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning involves using rewards (positive reinforcement) or punishments (negative reinforcement) to encourage desirable behavior and discourage undesirable behavior.
Dopamine pathways in the brain are activated by rewards, reinforcing the neural pathways associated with the rewarded behavior. This makes the behavior more likely to be repeated.
System: Reward yourself for continuous improvement. Learn anti-design patterns to make better decisions.
Breakthroughs do not work well for us
Just like cramming does not work well for tests.
We are not wired to replace ourselves with a breakthrough change.
When you decide to leave your job, you almost never go to your boss and say, “Mary, I’ve decided that John is a good replacement for me. I’ve trained him and he’ll be replacing me on the first of the month”.
In a marriage, you never go to your wife and say, “Mary, I’ve decided that John is a good replacement for me. I’ve trained him and he’ll be replacing me on the first of the month”.
In the workplace, you quit.
In marriage, you get a divorce.
In extreme cases, you run away.
You rarely replace yourself.
Are you the right person in the right place right now?
In the workplace, the timing of a change seems to depend on how old you are.
My brother-in-law was CEO of a successful insurance agency, a subsidiary of one of the largest insurance companies in Israel. From age 28, he had a career plan, which he executed.
He is a boomer.
Gen X is stable, particularly as they move into mid-career and senior roles. However, they also have experienced significant layoffs and restructuring during the economic downturns.
Gen Y are more likely to leave jobs that do not align with their values or offer flexibility.Millennials are more open to gig economy jobs and freelance work.
Gen Z values job mobility and is often looking for the best opportunities that match their skills and interests. They are more willing to switch jobs frequently to find the right fit. Gen Z prioritizes jobs with flexibility and tech-savvy environments.
In a marriage - it was “Until death do us part”. At least for our parents.
Still, we almost never consider the possibility of a divorce when we get married.
In Israel, religious people marry young and start having children and careers.
Often 4-6.
Secular people live together and get married when they want to have children.
Usually 2-4.
It is not uncommon to see a woman build an independent professional career and care for her family. This is now the rule during the war. 300,000 men are away fighting and the women carry the load.
Timing is clearer in the workplace than in a marriage.
Now may not be the best time to leave a job.
Or now may be a perfect time to leave your job.
This is different for entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are notorious for believing that they will live forever and that no one can replace them.
We usually wait until almost the last minute.
When we are driving on fumes in the gas tank.
When we are already broken with burnout.
How do you replace yourself at the right time?
Is the timing for your replacement a decision out of your control?
Like meeting a loved one, a great match is as much about timing as it is about capabilities and shared values.
We’ve seen 3 use cases:
In the workplace, timing is a decision that is always made. It just depends on how old you are.
In marriage, timing is almost never a controlled decision. Perhaps it should be.
Entrepreneurs (and politicians) live in denial.
Andy Grove was the third employee and, eventually, the third CEO of Intel.
Time magazine named him "Man of the Year" in 1997 for being "the person most responsible for the amazing growth in the power and the innovative potential of microchips."
He had a massive influence on electronics manufacturing worldwide and has been called the "guy who drove the growth phase" of Silicon Valley.
I worked at Intel during the 90s.
I know Andy Grove best for one simple question.
I worked at Intel Fab8 just as Intel was at the cusp of the change to processors from memory chips.
Grove’s greatest strength as a manager may have been his ability to confront himself. In the early 1980s, sales of memory chips, Intel’s core business, plunged in the face of competition from Japan.
Rather than continue to make incremental change, Grove asked a lieutenant, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?”
The answer was to exit the business and make microprocessors for the new wave of personal computers. The shift led to 8,000 employees losing their jobs—and positioned Intel as the industry’s undisputed leader.
Conclusion
I opened this essay by asking 3 questions:
Why replace yourself?
Are you the right person to lead your team right now?
How do you replace yourself at the right time?
Why replace yourself?
At work, a leader can and should think about how to replace herself.
Not to leave it to chance.
To plan succession
Or execute a big change that requires someone with a different skill set.
In marriage, it sounds absurd but perhaps couples can and should think about how to replace themselves.
If not personally, then functionally.
The man can step up to the plate and take more responsibility at home with children as his wife is doing her PhD. And when the man is at war, the woman steps up to the plate.
Are you the right person to lead your team right now?
For an entrepreneur, replacing yourself is the most important decision you can make.
This requires a good deal of capability to search inside yourself and then look outside yourself and ask yourself if you are the right person to lead your team right now?
How do you replace yourself at the right time?
If you know that you need to replace yourself, then the timing question is simple.
Now.
To quote George Patton:
"A good plan executed violently now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."
Decisive action, speed and aggression are effective, and not only in military operations.
Swift and aggressive execution of plans, even if they are not perfect, can lead to success in your battle for survival of your company.