Natalie Rothfels

I spend a considerable amount of time communicating across the org about what’s going on my product, what we’ve been able to accomplish, and how that’s impacted real humans around the world. All of that is super important (and usually a good reminder that we are making things happen). It means, though, that what we’ve done can often overshadow what we’ve learned in the process. I’m hoping to change that, and taking time to document my own learnings is my starting point.

I hope to share a range of things I’m learning, from work to technology to languages to social issues and beyond.

#1: Pre-mortems are helpful for getting a sense of what others consider success

A newly-minted, 13-person team formed this week. We’re off to the races to solve some meaty technical issues that will drastically impact our ability to scale international efforts and bring learners around the globe more locally relevant content.

We have a tradition of kicking off these big “initiatives” by sharing as a team the high level vision, why it’s important for the organization, what we should tactically have by the end of the work, our hopes and fears as a team, etc. Sometimes we even make up a silly team chant! But 13 people is…a lot of people. And the only two rooms at the office that fit that many people are long, formal conference rooms.

The team leads spent a non-trivial amount of time thinking through how to take this important but semi-cookie-cutter kickoff and make it more engaging…so it didn’t feel like a Sterile Conference Room Where People Are Presenting Decks. We wanted folks to walk away with a strong sense of why this work was important. But very few team members shared the same amount of context, so we were confronted with a very real challenge of personalization/differentiation: if Robin knows x but not y, Jaime knows y but not z, Amelie knows a, b and q…etc, how can we make this kickoff relevant, timely, and helpful so that everyone walks away with shared context and is pumped to go make this thing happen? (Sounds likes a classroom, eh?)

To combat that, I asked a few of my teammates ahead of time to do a pre-mortem: Imagine the kickoff has happened, it’s gone really well, and you feel equipped and excited to go tackle this thing. What happened during the kickoff? Folks were very open to this, and the practice helped to expose not just the range of responses (wide), but what people on the team actually cared about. Would recommend!

Kickoff happened, and there’s lots still to learn about how to make those sorts of things more effective, but this was a good start!

#2: Terseness in the face of big, hairy, open ended questions is incredibly difficult

This week I was on a panel hosted by Breakthrough Collaborative at Yelp: “Ed Tech in the Classroom”. Turnout was good, and it was a pleasure being on a panel with some of the folks doing the Real Work at SFUSD.

I really enjoy public speaking. It’s a skill, and one I’m improving, and it’s hard. But it’s so fun getting to talk about the work I’m passionate about. It’s so fun getting to hear other people’s perspectives and be inundated with big hairy questions. It’s a humbling experience to have people listen to you as if what you say has even an ounce of truth to it.

This week’s panel was full of big, broad questions…

• What is EdTech and how do you view the role of EdTech in the classroom?
• What’s the role of humanities in EdTech? Are we going to see the demise of arts, music, social sciences as EdTech folks focus on STEM?
• How do we begin to bring Computer Science into public school curricula when there don’t magically become more hours in the day?
• What’s the intersection of private and public edtech companies? How do we see innovation actually playing out in the classroom?
• How do we deal with the infrastructural issues that prohibit many students from even having access to the tech we’re building?

I’m excited about some of these questions, and I think they merit interesting discussion. Answering them succinctly is incredibly difficult. Dropping nuggets that people can walk away with and continue to think through is next level. Challenging myself to dig deeper than surface level answers is mega important. All of that is super hard on the spot. I’ll keep working on this.

(Shoutout to RM for the feedback, and for BZ, JW, JH and others for coming out to support!)

#3: Listening and observing is critical to successful collaboration

Chris Thile and Bela Fleck played together at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Tuesday. It was absolutely, mind-blowingly incredible. Two superstar musicians, experts at their craft, jammin’ with each other for hours.

The interaction and engagement between Chris and Bela was what’s stuck with me.

At some point, Bela made a mistake and had mistuned his banjo. It meant that a certain chord just wasn’t right, and as soon as he played it, they both knew it. They immediately stopped, giggled, made an adjustment, and without words nodded and started right back in the form. The professionalism was top notch and nobody in the audience cared, but I found their ability to wholly listen to each other astounding. Neither was so focused and intent on what he was doing as and individuals as to miss out on what the other was expressing. Both emanated pure, concentrated joy at being in each other’s presence and making music. They seemed to truly enjoy creating something together.

Both have different but complementary skills. Both were selfless and giving of their own limelight in pursuit of the collective. Each couldn’t have done it without the other. How powerful collaborations could be if we just kept these basic truths in mind…