The Overlap is a newsletter somewhere between product development and organizational development. It comes out every other Wednesday.
I sprained a pulley in my right middle finger last Saturday. Ugh.
I didn’t warm up and went straight for my project, Tour de France. Lesson learned: warm the fuck up.
The bad news: All my plans to climb outdoors this October and early November are out the window. I waited five weeks until I went outdoor climbing when I had my last pulley injury. I’m bummed. October is perfect weather at Black Mountain, my go-to climbing spot. By the time I’m ready to climb outdoors in late November, there’s a chance it’ll snow, meaning periods of no climbing.
The good news: I’ve bounced back from this same injury on a different finger before.
Mid-June, I injured my left middle finger A2 pulley. Didn’t climb for three weeks.
Mid-July, I was back to climbing outdoors.
Late August, I sent one of the hardest crimpy problems I’ve ever sent (“crimpy” = small climbing holds where you can only use your fingers):
In September, my fingers were stronger compared to before the injury. I was constantly sending difficult lines that required tons of finger strength. So I am confident I’ll be even stronger than before after recovering from this most recent injury.
What helped me recover my first pulley injury was engaging in just enough discomfort. Just enough discomfort applies to product teams, too.
Just enough discomfort
The A2 pulley sprain is one of the most common injuries in rock climbing. As you climb more difficult routes, you start to rely more on your finger strength. Climbers overtrain. And humans don’t naturally have tendon strength. So we injure our A2’s pretty often.
When a climber gets their first A2 injury, they’ll do either one of two things:
Continue climbing as if it’s not a big deal
Stop climbing for 1-6 months
1) won’t heal your injury. But 2) won’t either.
Many climbers stop climbing for a long time and still feel pain in their A2. The rest didn’t rebuild the tissue that’s needed to crimp. So they feel pain when they start climbing again.
Dave MacLeod talks about how you shouldn’t rest for too long:
It’s hard to know exactly how long the lay-off should be, but in general it should be 1-3 weeks. Too short and you risk chronic inflammation and too long and the tissues become naturally weaker and scarred. Once you can move the finger through its normal range of movement without pain, its time to start using it again gently. Using the injured part encourages healing in the same way that training makes your body stronger.
When I was rehabbing my previous A2 injury, this was the advice I got from my friend, Sam Palacios:
Just enough discomfort is key here, not lasting pain/soreness.
I was fascinated. I need to hang from my fingers to recover a finger injury?!
But it worked for my last injury. Within a month of spraining my left middle finger, I was back to climbing on crimps.
Optimal discomfort allows your team to grow
I think engaging in just enough discomfort applies to product teams, too. If you’re taking unsafe risks, have too much work-in-progress, or don’t have a clear strategy, you’re probably experiencing too much discomfort. Too much discomfort won’t allow you to grow.
Yet, if you’re not taking enough risks, or playing too much success theatre, you’re too comfortable. Too much comfort doesn’t allow you to grow either.
Great teams grow by engaging in just enough discomfort.
This idea of familiar discomfort is similar to the idea of finding flow. Too much stress won’t lead to flow. Too little stress also won’t lead to flow. You’ll find the sweet spot when the challenge matches your skill level.
When you’re in flow, you’ve found a challenge that taps into the highest aptitude of your skills. In other words, you’re engaging in *just enough discomfort*. As a result, you grow your skills. You’re able to take on a higher challenge. That is continuous improvement.
Product teams need just enough discomfort to find flow. Either, they are over-capable but under-challenged, or over-challenged and under-capable. When they find the right challenge, they are uncomfortable *enough* to fully use their skills. What follows is flow, learning, and growth.
Unlearning your tendencies
To find flow, you have to unlearn old habits that you’ve developed.
Again, when climbers experience an A2 injury, they either
Ignore it and continue to overtrain (👋🏽), or
Rest and never push it
Both tendencies don’t get the outcome the climber wants: recovering their A2. I tend to overtrain. That’s how I injured two finger pulleys. I need to practice being aware of when my overtraining gets in the way of my goals (climbing hard, recovering an injury if I have one).
Similarly, your product team has old habits too. Maybe your team is great at working 80+ hours/week the days before a launch. They had no other choice but to work long and push through. But now working 80 hours is the norm. It becomes a band-aid solution to poor prioritization and planning. To get better, they need to unlearn their habit of working long hours and learn to better prioritize (and deprioritize!) work.
If your team craves more flow in their work, ask them: “What old habits might we need to unlearn to find more flow?” Try this prompt in a retro, and see what comes up.
~
Anyway, I’m engaging in just enough discomfort as I recover my finger. My goal is to not push it — I will be disciplined about easing into it. 🤞🏽
–tim
What I’m Reading/Watching
Mika Reyes on why she’s no longer a skeptic of cryptocurrency
Creating Value and Flow in Product Development: