[post] Triangles of Death (#72)

* Initial commit of Triangles of Death post

* Fix spelling

* Edited Triangles of Death

Taskfile.yml

@@ -27,6 +27,12 @@ tasks:
     cmds:
       - npm run dev
 
+  deploy:data:staging:
+    silent: true
+    dir: backend
+    cmds:
+      - wrangler r2 object put flinnlab-blog-dev/posts.json --file ../data/posts.json
+
 
   install:hooks:
     silent: true

data/posts/0017-triangles-of-death.md

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+!! title: Organizational Communication - Triangles of Death
+!! slug: org-comm-triangles-of-death
+!! published: 2023-11-13
+!! description: Discuss the triangling communication pattern in remote organization culture
+
+---
+
+
+There is a growing communication pattern in remote communication culture that is a cause for great concern. In some
+organizations, information is not flowing evenly throughout; both in timing and source of information. This isn't
+necessarily a huge surprise since organizational communication is one of the hardest problem to solve.
+The patterns that we have become used to over the decades have been flipped on their heads and might
+not be effective anymore.
+
+Communication has become more asynchronous as the world has started to adopt a more distributed work culture. As a
+result, information does not flow through the organization at the same rate. Every employee might read an email from the
+CEO at different times even thought she sent it out to everyone at the same time. All-Company meetings are an example of
+synchronous communication when all of the employees receive information at the same time. But these are not new
+communication patterns resulting from a globally distributed work force. When used in at an in-office company, all of
+the employees would eventually receive the information and this happened relatively quickly. Employees might ask "Have
+you read the latest All Company email?" which essentially quotes the source of the information. But it is not the rise
+in asynchronous communication that is causing concern.
+
+As our workforces get more distributed across different timezones, sometimes with timezones that have little to no
+overlap, the use of asynchronous communication techniques has drastically risen. The increase in asynchronous
+communication has caused the need to first level-set when attending to synchronous communication and make sure everyone
+is caught up before proceeding with the agenda. This level-setting has led to what I am call the _Triangles of Death_.
+If I share a high impact piece of information that was given in a meeting with someone that missed that meeting, there
+is a high likelihood that they will want to confirm the others in the meeting. Without an email or notes to point back
+to for that decision, they have to go get that information the original person and this starts the triangle. There might
+be more conversation, perspective or decisions discussed in that chat and that doesn't get back to the original meeting.
+This is the start of the _Triangle of Death_. 
+
+_Triangles of Death_ become more prominent when there is a lack of transparent communication in the organization as a
+part or a whol$. If information has passed through many people of the organization network before getting to someone,
+the information takes a lot longer to get to the destination and there is a lot more room for translation errors.
+Everyone that touches the information as it passes has the opportunity to change it in some way, sometimes
+unconsciously. This is a source issue that is aggravated by timing.
+
+_Triangles of Death_ also become more prominent when there is a lack of organizational alignment on the company's Golden
+Circle (the WHY, HOW, WHAT of the organization [[1](https://simonsinek.com/golden-circle/)]) or even a lack of having a
+Golden Circle to align on. Without alignment, everyone in the company is doing what they think is the best thing for the
+company from their perspective of the goals and mission. And these differing directions constantly get in the way of
+other's directions which creates a lack of trust that people around you understand the goals and how the organization is
+getting there.
+
+It seems that the lack of trust is the common denominator of _Triangles of Death_. And the scary bit is that being in a
+_Triangle of Death_ continues to grow the lack of trust in the organization. Any system that grows itself is a
+compounding growth system and has the capability of exponential growth. Exponential growth of _lack of trust_ is not a
+system that we want to see grow exponentially. _"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. [They] who
+understand it, earns it...[they] who doesn't...pays it"_
+[[2](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76863-compound-interest-is-the-eighth-wonder-of-the-world-he)].
+
+
+## Some things to experiment with to improve
+
+*Intentionally design and iterate on organization communication guidelines* with a focus on asynchronous communication
+first. Organization communication is a necessary process in any organization. Left on its own, it will evolve as
+everyone sees fit which will leads a high risk of becoming chaotic as the company changes.
+
+*Use transparent communication channels first, only reserving DMs for personal, private, or sensitive information*.
+Using public communication channels helps share information out to the rest of the team, department, or organization.
+There is a risk of information overload, but it should be mitigated with an intentional design from the above point.
+GitHub Engineering [3](https://github.com/github/how-engineering-communicates) has a great example of how they create
+guidelines, expectations, and channel definitions. 
+
+*Realize that effective communication takes time* and that time will not be spent on product development. A lot of
+perspective on product or feature development take on the idea of maximizing feature development because more features
+means more value to the end user. While we might not be able to put out the theoretical maximum value for this cycle,
+sprint, or quarter, focusing on investing the time to improve communication processes and systems will result in a
+better employee engagement which will sustain the organization through even the toughest of economical times, delivering
+more value over time.
+
+*Cultivate awareness of _Triangles of Death_* so that we can all strive towards avoiding them at all costs.
+
+
+---
+
+## Resources 
+
+1. [Simon Sinek: The Golden Circle](https://simonsinek.com/golden-circle/) 
+2. [Albert Einstein: Compound Interest](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76863-compound-interest-is-the-eighth-wonder-of-the-world-he)
+3. [How GitHub Engineering Communicates](https://github.com/github/how-engineering-communicates)

data/posts/wip-org-communication-styles.md

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+
+Every organization can be examined as a social network
+(discrete mathematical graph [[2](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_(discrete_mathematics)>)]), with every individual
+being a node (or vertex) in the graph and each node bi-directionally connected to every other node. This is the
+theoretcial maximum of all communication paths possible in any organization. A communication channel is a set of
+communication paths that are used together to communicate to multiple people at the same time. For example, an email
+sent out by the CEO to the `[email protected]` email alias sends information directly to all nodes in the
+graph in an omnidirectional fashion.
+
+
+- Lack of organizational alignment
+- Lack of transparent communication (channels first, DMs for only private/sensative topics)
+- Lack of trust in the organization
+- The above are leading to a lack of inclusive communication.
+
+
+## Resources
+
+2. [Wikipedia: Graph (discrete methematics)](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_(discrete_mathematics)>)
+3. [Elon Musk's Six Rules](https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/11/elon-musks-six-rules-would-you-survive-working-for-elon-musk/?sh=307ed774a4b2)