Mark Brooks

COO & Wealth Advisor @ Convergence. Prior work in PE, SMB, F500. I think & write about management, strategy, & culture. See pinned tweet for a list of threads.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

1/ Compilation of threads on management, operations, culture, and strategy. Would love your ideas for future topics!

100 ideas on managing people:
https://t.co/FMIR9DTSUa

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

1/ My first @threadapalooza. I've been managing people for 18+ yrs and tweeting about it for 10. Here's 100 tweets on what I've learned and try to implement in my work @PermanentEquity :

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

A film version of Dante’s Paradiso called “Tiers in Heaven”

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Update: the troop at MailChimp exercised their opposable thumbs and got our missing link restored. Glad this wasn’t an evolutionary dead-end and thanks to the team @Mailchimp

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Hey @Mailchimp, you suspended us for sending a test email to ourselves. Support says only Compliance can fix. 7 days & 5 follow-ups later & 0 replies. An email company that doesn’t respond to email? Bananas. Stop monkeying around. My friend George is Curious how this is possible.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@MailchimpHelp Appreciate it! Case number: 15167034876

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

You ever see a program name and wonder how on earth it saw the light of day?

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@chrislakin Your addiction is not your problem, it is your solution

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

These barriers to AI diffusion are remarkably similar to the barriers that keep people from becoming good managers. And that’s not a coincidence.

[BuccoCapital Bloke @buccocapital]

The current barrier to greater AI diffusion isn’t model capability. In my eyes, the barrier is three things (in order):

1. Most people don’t understand what AI can do
2. They need to fundamentally think differently about their life and work
3. Human preference. Even if AI can do the thing, people still want to do it (like shopping)

Each layer is a more rigid barrier. First, someone must be motivated to understand.

Then, they have to build a habit of flipping their thinking to a more AI-forward way. They need to consider how they would deconstruct and assign out work as if they were a manager. They need to understand abstract capabilities and apply them to their own use cases, or understand what previous use cases were uneconomical that are now available.

Then they need to want to assign that task out to AI in the first place

All of this leads me to believe that we are still incredibly early. It will take 3-5 years for the middle of the curve to even understand today’s AI capabilities and change their mindset to put this technology to work on their behalf. And by then we will be much more advanced.

The technological capability isn’t the blocker. It’s our understanding, creativity, and preferences that will determine the pace of diffusion

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

My 11yo wants you to see this film about her stuffed toys that she made with PowerPoint. (she is now better at PP than 90% of you)

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

A first draft you hate is infinitely better than no first draft.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Being a good fit at an organization today doesn’t guarantee you’ll be a good fit tomorrow. Assuming otherwise means you and the org have identical growth paths. Rarely the case.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

That's just disrespectful, @YahooFinance

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Experienced the greatest (and funniest?) AI fail last night:

My 11yo: “Alexa, does Guardians of the Galaxy have bad words in it?”

Alexa: “Guardians of the Galaxy does contain some mild language, including sh*t, d*mn, *ss, and b*tch.”

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@dave_stickland @ComfortablySmug @marcorubio I’ll crawl back into my hole after I enjoy this short moment in the sun

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@mattbramanti top right

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Marco Rubio finding out he has to lead an assault on Greenland

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@MarcACaputo @EggerDC lol I finally hit the big time (top right)

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Marco Rubio finding out he has to lead an assault on Greenland

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

The market is the one thing people hate to buy on sale

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

@JayhawkTalk The mind abhors a vacuum. In the absence of information, we create stories that fill those gaps, and they generally are protective of ourselves over others (meaning they tend to be uncharitable).

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

illustrated: https://t.co/tjojgW2b2x

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

4/ The intersection of your intellect and ego dramatically impact the way you communicate.

High ego prioritizes image.
Low ego prioritizes clarity.

Choose the simplest words possible to convey your idea.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

Simple explanations for complex ideas are a sign of intelligence and care. You understand and want that for others.

Complex explanations for any idea are either a sign of intelligence or of self-preservation, but do not demonstrate care.