Deep work for executives: how “async-first” aids smart decision-making
Nag and I have been colleagues and friends for a decade and a half now. In recent months however, he’s been a passionate advocate for deep, asynchronous work, amongst executives. We keep chatting about all the ways being async-first has positively impacted his team’s work, so I invited Nag to write on this platform. He debuts on asyncagile.org with this article that explains how being async-first, can help execs get better at making decisions.
At a recent meeting at our company, we were trying to make an important decision with the potential to affect the growth of a new business unit (BU) for years to come. The BU leadership came to the meeting with a well-written longish Amazon-style memo full of facts and research, data and charts, and a recommendation of what should be done. The assembled senior executives engaged with the memo and a discussion ensued. But 30 mins into the meeting, a sense of unease enveloped me. It wasn’t clear that everyone had enough of a grasp of the crucial bits of the memo for the discussion to be of a sufficiently high standard. Some questions being asked were a bit basic, costing us precious time to challenge one another, and build on one another’s ideas.
It was then that the absurdity (even unfairness) of it all struck me. We were expecting executives to digest a fairly deep memo, examine the problem from many angles, deal with arguments and counterarguments, and make a potentially far-reaching decision, all in the space of 90 minutes. Given how difficult all that is, we were in effect inviting people to shoot from the hip.
In the event, we did make a decision by the end of the meeting, as we had wanted to. But was it the best decision we could’ve made? Had we avoided groupthink? Would we have made a better decision, if we had had a more considered discussion?
Pre-reads don’t get read. Not deeply anyway
The obvious solution to this is to send pre-reads in advance, so that execs can come prepared with their thoughts and questions. But experience suggests that this is easier said than done. There has been a pattern of many people just skimming through the pre-reads (at best) minutes before the meeting. While this is better than not reading at all, it’s far from optimal.
What’s going on? Our people are smart and conscientious; it’s not that they don’t care, or don’t want to do the right thing. I’m convinced that it’s because people have no time to read anything in-depth. Ours is a globally distributed company, with a meeting-heavy culture. People are always running from call to call, too busy (and too sleep-deprived) to sit down for a few hours to read, think and reflect.
As the wise philosopher didn’t ask, If a memo wasn’t engaged with fully, was it written at all?
The paucity of System 2 thinking is hurting us
We know from behavioural scientists like the Nobel-winning Daniel Kahneman, that human beings evolved to do two kinds of thinking. System 1 is instinctive and is appropriate for situations when speed of reaction is crucial - like when an ancestor of ours suddenly realised there’s a tiger looking straight at him. System 2 is for situations where considered action is essential - like when the same ancestor needed to plot with his comrades to bring down a deer which was faster than any of them.
Now there are plenty of situations in the modern corporate world where it’s fine to employ System 1 thinking and make a snap decision - a team member asks you to approve a relatively small budget item, you’re asked for your preferred location for an offsite, etc. But there are probably many more situations that require considerably more thought, and hence require System 2 thinking - evaluating the value proposition for a new product, figuring out how your company should capitalise on ChatGPT, judging if you should take a punt on a smart-but-inexperienced person for that crucial role in your team, etc.
Each of those situations needs time and a clear mind to look at the situation from different angles, do deep research, reflect, wander off in tangents, get back on track,... strategise. But time is something modern execs have very little of. Which means that they’re applying System 1 thinking to situations that demand System 2 thinking. We’re using instinct, where a more careful decision-making process is required.
Asynchronicity could give you a leg-up
It’s well-known that creative types such as programmers and writers need meeting-free periods of time (in four-hour chunks at least), to produce their best work. It’s less well-understood that managers too need deep focus for numerous things - to crunch numbers, to learn all about a new innovation sweeping their industry, to verify the assumptions in a report submitted to them, to write long-form articles so that their own understanding of a topic deepens.
Many companies fail to give their execs deep work time - this may in fact be the norm. Execs rarely have the “luxury” of uninterrupted four-hour chunks where they can do deep work, because there’s always a meeting to go to. This may be less of a problem in industries that aren’t very dynamic - if the contours of an industry haven’t changed for a long time, it may be possible to rely on muscle memory (and intuition). But increasingly in many industries, the future ceases to resemble the past. So the old heuristics won’t always work well. Intuition is still important of course, but as Kahneman suggests, execs must delay it till they’ve surfaced, chewed through and digested relevant information.
There’s now a compelling body of evidence that half of all corporate meetings are pointless; precious time can be returned to attendees by instead circulating an update memo, to be read by people when it suits their work-style. Do that with enough meetings, and suddenly you’ll have people able to put their heads down, and engage in serious Systems 2 thinking. It’s almost certain that most of your competitors don’t do this, so you could be giving yourself a crucial bit of competitive advantage in decision-making.
Baby steps
My team has members on most continents inhabited by man; there’s no time when someone won’t have to stay up till absurd hours, if we called for a team call. So when Sumeet suggested we adopt an async-first mindset, it was too intriguing an idea to pass up. We cut the number of meetings in half, and encouraged people to use asynchronous channels (group chat, plain old email) liberally. Crucially, we committed to a culture of people circulating well-written memos, and other stakeholders reading them, before big decisions are made.
After eight weeks, we’re finding that some of our behaviours need to change in an async-first world. One of them being that we shouldn’t expect instant replies to chat messages. Another is that requests for comment should be responded to, in a reasonable time - say 2-3 business days. A third is that meetings are the last resort, and certainly not be used for updates.
More of our team are writing good memos before asking for important decisions. We’re building on one another’s comments in Google Docs, Telegram and other media. It has even allowed a fellow exec to declare that he’ll spend two (meeting-free) days a week in deep work. How liberating that must feel!
