No #166 | April 27, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

My son played in a two-day high school golf tournament this week. The night before, I asked him what he was most nervous about. He said he was most worried about who he would be paired with, especially since it was likely going to be older kids that he didn't know. Would they be way better than him? Would they be nice?

After the first day, he came home with a big smile, not because of how he played, but because he had such a great time with his group. The other kids were welcoming, encouraging, and funny. A good reminder that when we feel like we belong, everything else gets a lot easier.

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 😁The Comedian
• 🤝Onboarding
• 🤔Life is Short
• 😜Old Wallets
• 😎Cool Links

😁The Comedian

Last night, I went to see Jerry Seinfeld live with my parents and brother.

(Side note: when my son asked who Jerry Seinfeld was, I ended up explaining to him about a magical time in the 90s when everyone actually watched new episodes of TV at the same time — no streaming, no on-demand, just you, your couch, and a very real fear of missing out)

But back to Seinfeld.

I’ve always had a deep admiration for the skill of a great comedian. On the surface, it looks like they’re just standing there telling jokes, easy enough right?

But in reality, especially for the true masters (like Seinfeld), it’s so much more. They’re reading the audience, feeling the energy, and taking everyone on a ride. It’s not just comedy, it’s orchestration.

The best comedians also have this magical ability to tell a joke as if it’s the very first time they’ve ever said it: spontaneous, fresh, like it just popped into their head. In truth though, every word, every pause, every glance has been meticulously crafted and perfected through endless trial and error. IMO it's one of the highest forms of art and, honestly, one of the greatest teachers of public speaking you’ll ever find.

One of the reasons comedians make such incredible public speakers is because laughter opens people up. There's a saying if if you can make people laugh, you can make them listen.

And it's true.

Laughter disarms people. It lowers their defenses and earns their attention, which is half the battle in any kind of communication.

In a world where attention is the ultimate currency, the ability to make people laugh, even just a little, makes them far more willing to listen to what you have to say next.

What's the deal with newsletters? 🤣

🤝Onboarding

​

I had a conversation with a colleague this week and it reminded me of this article I wrote a couple years ago:

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A study by Adras Vicsek on an IT firm found that connecting experienced and inexperienced employees can impact retention.

To understand the company's poor retention rate for new hires, Vicsek mapped out the team's informal network. Employees were connected if they mutually nominated each other for questions like "Who do you turn to for advice regarding your work?" The thickness of the lines between co-workers indicated the strength of their informal ties.

In the network diagram, the newcomers (who joined the company less than a year ago) are represented by light blue nodes, while dark blue nodes represent employees who have been with the company for more than a year. The red nodes represent the most recognized experts in various IT-related topics. As you can see, the light blue nodes (the newest employees) are the least connected. And, not surprisingly, these were the employees who were most likely to leave the firm.

This disconnection between new and experienced employees can be exacerbated in the current "hybrid work" environment, where new hires have even fewer opportunities to interact with and learn from experienced colleagues.

To address this issue, the Harvard Business Review recommends that all new employees be assigned a dedicated onboarding liaison. This person should be someone different from the new hire's manager, so that the employee feels comfortable asking any questions, big or small. The onboarding liaison should proactively reach out to the new hire prior to their first day and establish themselves as the go-to person for any questions or concerns.

​HBR also suggests setting up a "shadow week," during which the new hire attends a variety of team and stakeholder group meetings, even those that may not seem directly relevant to their core responsibilities. This gives them a chance to not only learn how the business operates, but also to identify who they should go to with specific questions.

🤔Life is Short

Keep it simple (source)

😜Old Wallets

Speaking of Seinfeld theme, what do we think of this?

There is a running joke in my house about how old and decrepit my wallet is.

But I'm just not ready to change!

😎Cool Links

🎵Here's the secret to getting songs unstuck from your head. Scientists at the University of Reading found that jaw movement disrupts the nerve signals responsible for mentally “practicing” a song. So, next time you’re stuck with an annoying tune, try chewing on something.

😊When Leaders Express Positivity Early On, Employees Perform Better. We found that when leaders expressed a lot of early-term positivity, their employees performed better throughout the year, compared with all other leader expressions (for example those leaders who expressed more positivity at the mid-point, or end of year, or leaders who were primarily negative at the outset). This remained true even after controlling for factors like past performance or tenure in the firm.

🤖Annoyed ChatGPT users complain about bot's relentlessly positive tone. AI researchers call these yes-man antics "sycophancy," which means (like the non-AI meaning of the word) flattering users by telling them what they want to hear. Although since AI models lack intentions, they don't choose to flatter users this way on purpose. Instead, it's OpenAI's engineers doing the flattery, but in a roundabout way.

🌸Why Japan Counts 72 Microseasons. Although the Japanese government officially adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, the spirit of the traditional Japanese calendar persists. Modeled after the lunisolar Chinese calendar introduced in the early seventh century by a Buddhist priest from the Korean Peninsula, it divides the year into 72 ko, or microseasons, each no more than a handful of days long, with evocations like “fish emerge from the ice” (mid-February), “rotten grass becomes fireflies” (mid-June) and “rainbows hide” (late November). According to this trajectory, winter has already begun. Nov. 7 through 11 is designated as the time when camellias thrust forth their showy, swaddled heads; next week, according to this system, a freeze should settle across the land. And yet this afternoon in Nara the temperature peaked at 71 degrees, and I had to shuck my coat and sweater as I dragged my suitcase uphill from the train station.

Next Sunday is May 4th... big day!

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