Alex Furman on LinkedIn: 🌻Erin McCune is hiring. I recommend her without reservation. (2024)

Are you a product marketer with a passion for making a real impact? Invitae improves the lives of millions of patients a year.

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Caveat: Alla's a close friend, so I'm not entirely impartial. That said, I know her family well, and over the years, she's one of the very few people who approach parenting a lot like we do. In a sea of contradicting advice, massive amounts of BS, and every objective measure of kids' well-being seeming to hit new lows on a regular basis, her family has always been an example of happiness, sanity, and, yes, fun. I'm on chapter two and will post a full review when I'm done, but I can't recommend her book more highly.

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This. You can manipulate me into doing little things. Big change only comes when I understand and internalize the “why” behind it. Nudges are great, but they’re one of the tools.

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I've never seen "survey fatigue" in any context where there's a clear loop between the survey and decisions made, actions taken, and results delivered. We're not tired of surveys - we're tired of anything that feels like a waste of our time. Kalifa Oliver, Ph.D. nails it, as usual.

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Mission-driven companies can be ticking time bombs. This is one of the most common and overlooked failure modes. Let's skip all the positives—they've been discussed ad nauseam. Mission-driven teams are capable of moving mountains—we all know this. What we often forget is that strengths can and do turn into liabilities on a dime. The worst kind of stress is a toxic mixture of two things - responsibility and lack of control. This co*cktail lies at the root of burnout, depression, and all the terrible things that follow in and out of work. And therein lies the problem. Mission-driven organizations are made up of people who feel responsibility for the success or failure of the whole endeavor. They are not satisfied with clocking in at 9 and leaving at 5. They care deeply about their customers, their teammates, and the impact their work has on the outside world. Mission-driven people crave context. They have feelings and opinions about things outside the scope of their immediate responsibility. Work is much more than a way to pay the bills. It's an integral part of their lives and identities. They want to know everything and understand everything. Trust is paramount. And when they don't get these things, they feel betrayed. Where their less engaged teammates will put their heads down and focus on putting one foot in front of the other, mission-driven people will ask questions, poke holes, and question decisions. When something's off, they will notice. When management isn't transparent, they will either find out the truth or, failing that, come up with their own answers. They will take this personally. And rightfully so. Working with mission-driven people is a social contract of sorts. They will work harder, care more, and do the impossible. In return, they deserve to be taken seriously and treated as partners and not subordinates. Mission-driven people are unforgiving of poor communication and lazy management. And by "they," I mean "we." Everything I work on, I deeply care about. I do my best to only work with people who care deeply. From experience, I know how high of a bar that sets for me as a teammate. Naturally, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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I highly recommend MDisrupt and Ruby Gadelrab Tudor to anyone with health tech experience.

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Performica Research: Information bubbles are a source of hidden risk in organizations. In this view of the OrgGraph, the bright magenta represents people (and in one case a whole department) that live in a bubble. This is dangerous in two ways. This level of siloization exposes the company to risk - insular teams in informational isolation from the broader org are likely to become misaligned. They're also prone to collapse should a key person or two decide to leave. Identifying and addressing these kinds of communication issues is critical to the long-term health of the organization. It's aslo important tactically to ensure alignemnt, engagement, and productivity. The OrgGraph is the only way to monitor these patterns in real-time. It will let our customers detect problems early. It's also a way to track organizational intervention and know, empirically and for real, when the problem is fixed.

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