Blind spots and bright spots

Tim Ferriss had Adam Grant on recently. It’s a fantastic episode, but it gets extra fantastic at 1:33:00. Adam says that we shouldn’t write our own personal READMEs. We should have our coworkers write them for us.

Who better to give tips for working with you than the people who work with you? They’ll expose your blind spots and your bright spots (i.e., things you’re good at that you don’t know you’re good at). That’s the stuff that a personal README needs. That’s the meat.

Here are the questions he says your team should answer:

• What are my strengths and what brings those out?
• What are my weaknesses and what brings those out?
• What do you now know about working with me that you wish you had known from the start?

Camille Fournier posted a crispy Twitter thread about this a couple years ago:

No, writing self-serving docs about "how to work with me" is not a good way to build trust, especially since I promise you that you have some glaring blind spot that will inevitably show up in your behavior vs doc and undermine your credibility

— Camille Fournier (@skamille) November 21, 2018

Adam’s suggestion should expose the “glaring blind spot that will undermine your credibility.” Have your coworkers write your README and your own blind spots are irrelevant.

I’m going to give it a shot. I’ll report back!