The most important part of work isn’t the work itself.

It’s the people.

Learning and autonomy are the two components of work I value most.

But the experience of work itself is determined by the people around you.

I’ve worked in a lot of different environments: Coast Guard, small startups, medium-size startups, accelerators.

There were high-performers in each. Some were already extremely successful, by any measure.

There is a stereotype that exists in the world of money and high-pressure environments. 

The stereotype of the hard-driving, arrogant boss, who works people hard and pushes them to their limits. 

Their abuse and criticism is tolerated because they get results, and because employees believe it makes them better.

That stereotype still exists in some circles, but it’s fading. 

But I’ve seen enough high-performers to know that this kind of behaviour isn’t necessary.

Do high-performers have high expectations? Of course. 

Do they often give blunt feedback? Certainly. Feedback like that is a gift, as it gets you closer to the truth.

But being a high-performer doesn’t require treating people poorly. 

Good criticism is about the work, or the skill, and not the person. 

High-performers are often very good at one thing, and bad at many others. The best are aware of their limitations. 

So I have little tolerance for working with bad people, or those that treat others poorly.

If you work with good people, almost any work can be enjoyable. 

The reverse is true as well: if you work with bad people, prepare to hate your work.

The modern work day wasn't built for knowledge work.

Knowledge work means different things to different people.

I think about it as problem-solving: identifying problems, coming up with a solution, and implementing that solution.

It’s the work I like doing most.

Unfortunately, the modern work day doesn’t fit well with this kind of work. 

The best problem-solving starts with a period of exploration.

You stumble upon something interesting, and it triggers a moment of realization. 

You find the source of the problem you’re trying to identify, or you come up with a great idea for a solution.

That discovery triggers a burst of motivation, a rush of excitement to get started solving the problem and testing your solution. 

In an ideal world, you put your solution in place, and then document it to revisit later.

The reality is not so nice.

Most of the time, there’s a period of intense planning to begin a quarter. 

You build a week-by-week plan with aggressive deadlines. 

You’re also trying to finish the work of the previous quarter, so the exploration phase is cut short. Regular meetings cut into the periods of concentration you’d need for it anyway.

By the time the next quarter rolls around, you have to start working the plan. There isn’t time to reassess or verify the data. 

We’re bad at estimation and so deadlines slip. Documentation gets cut because it’s not considered essential. 

And by the time the end of the quarter is nearing, the planning starts all over again.

There’s little room in this cycle for alternation between exploration and bursts of execution.

There’s a better way.

Shaan Puri calls it “working like a lion”: extended periods of rest, thinking, and exploration, followed by a burst of energy to execute on a project.

The problem is, it requires acknowledging that we don’t know what we should work on. 

It requires acknowledging that our motivation levels vary. 

And it requires avoiding a fixed plan.

None of these are possible in the modern workplace.

But they are how I prefer to work.

Should you be a specialist, or a generalist?

Should you go as deep as possible on one topic? Or learn as broadly as possible?

There's no easy answer. It’s different for different people.

Personally, I don’t have the patience to become a specialist. 

I’m too curious about too many things to ever be happy working in one field, on a specific topic.

There is one concept that has always appealed to me though.

There are lots of names for it: polymath, generalized specialist, deep generalist, t-shaped marketer.

The idea is that you learn deeply in a couple areas. 

You combine that expertise with some general knowledge to form a unique bank of knowledge and skills. 

You may not be an expert in each area, or any area, but the combination makes you unique.

A key part of this idea is the amount of time required to develop expertise. 

While it may take a lifetime to reach the top of one field, you can get close to the top in two unique fields in a much quicker amount of time.

The concept of a t-shaped marketer is similar. 

You’re expected to have a broad knowledge of all the skills required for marketing, and then specialize in one area. 

You can do all kinds of things when required, but can go back to a specific area as your team grows, for example.

There's no easy answer for the question of how specialized you should be.

Some skills take longer than others to master.

It’s difficult to evaluate what percentile of a field you are in, or what’s necessary to move up.

Some skills and knowledge will become obsolete.

But for someone like me, who may never be a specialist, the idea of the deep generalist provides a useful framework for evaluating my own skills. 

And ultimately, it helps me position myself in the modern professional world.

When I left high school, I knew one thing: I wanted to build things.

It’s why I chose to study engineering. 

And it’s why I went into the world of tech and startups after university. 

I wanted to experience building things from start to finish.

Today, not much has changed.

I still love building things. And I still want to get better at doing it. 

The act of creation brings me huge satisfaction.

It’s why I enjoy writing, photography and video. 

There’s something deeply satisfying about taking a project from start to finish, a creation completely of your own making.

I get the same sense of satisfaction building systems at work. 

This is sometimes a difficult balance. 

It’s not always optimal to build something yourself when you have a team or other resources that could do it for you. 

But coordinating a project doesn’t bring the same sense of satisfaction.

And of course, on a longer time scale, building businesses has become a large part of my life.

Whether that’s contributing to a startup, or building something on my own, the same sense of satisfaction is there.

A business is a system too, albeit more complex, and building one can bring that same sense of satisfaction.

Many things have changed since I graduated high school.

Wanting to build things isn’t one of them.

I was once told that I’d be good in private equity.

It was half joke, half serious. Part insult and part compliment.

The compliment side was a comment on my pragmatism and calm nature.

The insult side suggested that my lack of outward emotion would mean I wouldn’t care about gutting businesses and firing people, hallmarks of the stereotype of private equity.

As with any great backhand compliment, there was an element of truth in each.

I do manage ups and downs well. Some combination of nature and nurture means that I can easily put things in perspective. Experience has shown me that there is little benefit to getting worked up about things.

I’ve never seen private equity from the inside. I’m sure there are plenty of good people in the industry. 

But the stereotype is of the cold, banker-types gutting a business and firing people for the sake of maximizing profits and shareholder value. For the sake of this example, I’ll assume that’s true.

I don’t think I would last long in that business, because I would have trouble seeing the value of what we were doing.

Money is great, but it’s a tool. A tool that I think is best used trying to create value. Cool software, or fun toys, or things that make our lives better.

Some of my fellow McGill grads have built a company around electric snowmobiles and jet skis. How cool is that? That sounds fun.

I work in tech because I believe in the value the industry creates. 

No other industry creates such value from nothing. 

And no, not all tech is good. But as a whole, it’s what pushes us forward.

And it’s fun! 

What’s the point of work, if not to have fun, build cool things, and provide value for other people?

It’s why I don’t work in private equity.

It’s why I have to believe in the work.