⚒️🦇 Eisenhower vs Batman - Unpopular Opinion about Prioritisation

Batko OS #6 - Get yourself a Batmobile.

Startmate is hiring.

We’re using Applied to find our fourth team member. Without submitting a CV, we review the answers to three questions - it's anonymous and bias-free.

This was the first question I asked:
“What do you believe about the future that most people would disagree with you on?”

360+ answers later, it shows that most people believe they hold contrarian views, but only few do.

90% of applicants expressed one of the below views:

1. AI is the future, but will not replace empathy

2. The future is bright, despite COVID

3. Every company will need to emphasise their triple-bottom line

*Note: When we scored the answers, a logical structure was more important than the point of view. Otherwise, if the answer was truly contrarian every reviewer would have given a low score.*

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This made me rethink which views I hold, that most people would disagree with.

Here is what the future holds, which most people will disagree with me on:

1. My kids won’t need a driver’s license

2. Telepathy

3. More time spent in brain training than in the gym

Here are some of my unpopular opinions:

1. Food is overrated - I look at food as fuel

2. I’m a fan of personalised ads, I wish all ads were

3. I don’t believe in talent - anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it

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I extended the thought experiment.

🤔 What do I believe about Operations, that most people would disagree with me on?

Let me challenge a president and every business school in the world.

1st-year students in every business school globally come across the Eisenhower Matrix. How to be effective, rather than efficient.

Prioritise in order of
1. important urgent > 2. important non-urgent > 3. non-important urgent > 4. non-important non-urgent.

It’s a great, logical and easy framework.

It’s also inherently selfish.

You’re applying your own filter of important and urgent over everyone else’s. You’re delaying other people’s important/urgent tasks because they don't rank on your matrix.

I believe that to be truly effective you have to first unblock others.

I believe that to be truly effective you have to jump in a Batmobile, before you become Eisenhower.

Batman looks for the Bat-signal. Gets in his Batmobile. Zooms around town, saving people. And only then, attends to his own billion-dollar empire.

Be like Batman 🦇

Before you start the time-consuming Eisenhower process, skim your tasks and emails. Identify any emails or tasks sitting on your to-do list that are blocking others. Anything that you can action in 2 mins or less (thumbs up to 1-2 sentences) - do it straight away.

In essence, you help people. 

You unblock people to achieve their highest priorities. Meanwhile, you fill gratitude tanks and build trust. In the long term, this pays back many times over. People will be more willing to unblock you faster, do you favors or unexpected acts of kindness.

You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar

Bonus: Before you start prioritising, unblock yourself too. Send all your questions/blockers off to give people ample time to reply to you, so by the time you get to the task, you have all the information you need.

Gratitude and trust are great, but where the real magic kicks in is your speed. It compounds the magic, but more about that in my next newsletter.

What would Batman do? #wwbd

My Ask for You

💌 If this stimulated you to action - hit reply and tell me - I reply to every email 🙏