Rowan Spazzoli

Strategist. Lecturer. Consultant

He got the job!

A very close friend of mine has been unhappy in his job for some time. In fact, a lot of my posts about poor management and treatment of employees have been based on his stories from the office

But today he got the job of his dreams. At a company that will treat him well. With a much bigger salary.

And he deserves it so much.

Congratulations dude, I’m so proud and excited for you 🙂

Image is from the promenade (I mean, what else did you expect?) 😉

Blog: 293/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Born to be yours - Imagine Dragons & Kygo
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Leave it to the professionals

I used to try and do as much as possible on my own. I’d do my own tax return instead of paying a tax professional to do it. I’d try and self medicate instead of going to the doctor. I would never have gotten a professional proof reader to check my thesis.

But I’ve had a shift in perspective over the last few years.

Doing stuff yourself can save you money. 

But this month the tax professional (an online system called TaxTim) saved me a massive amount of time. The doctor resolved my issues in 15min. And the professional proof reader will do a much better and quicker job than I would.

And today, instead of trying to do healthy eating on my own, I got a premade kit by FitChef for the next few weeks.

You might be able to save a bit of money by doing it yourself. But you get the job done better (and sometimes more efficiently) if a professional does it for you.

Image is another one from the promenade. First time I’ve been able to go there in a week due to the storms 🙂

Blog: 292/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing ft Florence
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Get amped

I love people who get excited about what they do.

Regardless of what it is.

You love accounting? Awesome!

You get giddy when talking about coding? Brilliant!

You are passionate about global development? Wonderful!

I spent my lunch break today chatting to someone about innovative finance mechanisms for fighting poverty. She got so animated that I almost exclusively became interested in her excitement. Her eyes lit up as she discussed all the work that she was doing

My favourite people are not one that are in a specific field.

My favourite people are those that get amped about their own.

Image is of one of my favourite people, Thabo, when we were having drinks at the Gin Dock earlier this 

Blog: 291/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Ariana Grande - Break Free ft Zedd
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Sunday blues and other colours

We all know about the Sunday blues. They sound like the theme music from Carte Blanche and taste like day old leftovers. It feels like a weight that sits heavy on your chest, until you are released from it by a deep sleep.

One of the key reasons that we use to explain Sunday blues is that the weekend is over and that we have to work the next day.

And I can understand this if you absolutely hate your job. (In which case, you should probably get out of it)

But I think that Sunday blues are more than that. I think that they’re likely the lack of flow that comes about on a Sunday evening. 

There’s no work to do, you’ve finished all your Sunday plans and exhausted your entertainment options. Now, all that’s left is to wait for the next day.

So the solution to beating the Sunday blues is easy. Bring in other colours and find things that excite you. Have a regular event, like a Sunday dinner, or a hobby to bring you through the evening.

The reason you’re feeling blue is that you’re probably just bored. So take the opportunity to find something great to do

Image is of a rainbow, taken from our flat 🙂

Blog: 290/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Solomun - Kackvogel
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Orange flashing lights

While driving home from the airport this afternoon, I was caught in a tumultuous storm. Visibility dropped to almost nothing and in some areas there were deep, standing patches of water.

As this happened, every car on the road slowed down and put their hazard lights on. I turned off my radio so I could focus and I’m sure other people did too.

But what I found most amazing was how polite and understanding everyone was to each other.

We all drove at the same speed. If you needed to get out a lane or move to the offramp, people let each other in immediately. At one stage I almost got stuck in a deep patch of water, and the car in the lane behind me stopped and flashed their lights, and allowed me to join in front of them.

I know that people were likely doing this is in the interest of their own safety. But there was also a really odd sense of community on the road. We were all in a common predicament, and we were looking out for each other.

In contrast, we are often horrible to other people on the road. We get angry at slower drivers and angry at faster ones. We complain about people cutting in front of us and get annoyed when people hoot at us for cutting in front of them.

It seems like having a common adversarial situation and danger changed this, only for a little bit.

It’s odd, but tough circumstances often bring out the kinder side of humans.

Image is of Devils peak at sunset, taken by my mom 🙂

Blog: 290/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Grimes - Realiti

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Recurrent thoughts

When I sit down to write my blogs in the evening, I’m often surprised at how many of my thoughts are recurrent. There are similar ideas that pop up again and again, and I sometimes have to check that I haven’t written about them before.

Reflecting on this, I realised that much of my environment and belief system exists on a handful of concepts and thoughts. And my days are often reflective and reinforcing of these thoughts.

So based on this, there are two important things to remember. Firstly, we need to take our thoughts to first princles. We might hold on to them dearly without checking if they are founded on truth

Secondly, we need to get out of our echo chambers as much as we can. To understand what’s going on outside of our bumble, and update our understanding accordingly.

There’s nothing wrong with having recurrent thoughts and philosophies. Just unpack them every now and again to see if they’re still valid 🙂

Image was taken in the canals at the Cape Town conference centre

Blog: 289/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Rudemental et al. - These days

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

All the puzzle pieces, coming together

I know I’ve written a post very similar to this one before. But it still astounds me how many great things I get to work on and do.

Today was a fairly “ordinary” day, and comprised of:

  • Advising a new tech startup: I’m working with two students that I’ve lectured this year to build an exciting new startup
  • Working on early childhood development: a consultancy has approached me for help in evaluating the behavioral impact of new apps on child literacy
  • Learning more about behavioural insights (BI) units: next was a lunchtime seminar from a consultancy that works on behavioural economics projects
  • Rounding up the greentech strategy project: did a bit of work on the final version of our strategy for the special economic zone
  • Supporting the expansion of a logistics company: helping them design their marketing and administrative processes for the busy season

And after this, I spent the afternoon with my mom, which included a little boat cruise and drinks at the Silo hotel.

Three years ago, I would never have imagined a day like this in my wildest dreams.

And today it was a very normal reality

Image was taken at the Silo 🙂

Blog: 288/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Suzanne Vega - Toms Diner
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

You have to stay until 5pm

The amount of work that a person produced in a day used to be proportional to the time they spent at the job. If an employee worked from 9 until 5, you could be fairly certain of the volume and value of output that they produced.

So, because time = output, you wanted to maximise the time that the employees spent at work

But in the modern era, time is no longer proportional to output. There are two reasons for this:

  1. It is possible to use a small amount of time to produce large volumes of output. Technology has enabled work to be scalable, so 1 intense hour of work can be worth more than 8 regular hours
  2. With the number of distractions available to us nowadays, it’s possible to spend a whole day at work and do absolutely no work. If you’re not feeling motivated, you could spend most of your day on social media and produce the bare minimum output to get by.

Because of these two changes, keeping employees around for a mandatory 8 hours no longer guarantees a certain level of output.

Instead, creating output involves motivating the employees effectively. And part of this is giving them autonomy over their work.

The simplest way to do this: flexitime

As long as an employee finishes their work to an acceptable standard, they can go home when they want. Some structure can be placed on this, like a minimum amount of time at the job or being present for certain meetings.

But by allowing an employee to be flexible, they’re likely to produce more output in the allotted time AND get less distracted. Because if they finish their work, they can go home.

The world of work has changed. Forcing your employees to stay around is no longer the best way to do things. Give them some freedom, and watch their motivation soar.

Image was taken outside the economics building earlier this year 🙂

Blog: 287/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey

Song of the day: Father John Misty - I love you, honeybear
Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink