March 5, 2014
Dear Grandson,
So how do you like being 13 years old and being a full adult in the Jewish world? I hope you feel really good about that. We were very happy to be at your ceremony, to be celebrating with you – fedora and all.
As you now look into the future, as you prepare for the rest of your education, and as you anticipate what you might want to do in this world, there are some opinions from very smart people that I wanted to share with you. These are opinions that I embrace. They are about the kinds of skills you must develop if you want to be successful in just about anything you decide to do.
This is the most grown up letter I have yet sent to you. It may be hard to read. It will challenge you. So you may want to read this again next year at this time – and several times after that. I am aware of the challenge but I am writing to you today because I recently read these thoughts and was struck by how very valuable I thought they were and how much I wanted to share them with my older grand kids.
Let’s begin with the source of the thoughts. The speaker is a very senior guy at Google. You know Google. Google probably sits at the top of the mountain of the tech companies that are changing the world. They may be at the top because, more than Apple, more than Face Book and Microsoft, they are stretching the boundaries of invention.
So, the question is, what skills must Noah bring to the Googles of the world if he wants to work with a company like that? Their simple answer is: “ leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability, and loving to learn and re-learn.” OK, that’s a mouthful. Let’s see if we can take it apart for a young mind.
We all want you to get good grades in school. As you get older, we all want you to try to develop real skills that can translate into the job market. Knowing what these kinds of skills are is still a number of years in front of you. So let’s not worry about that in this note and instead focus on the additional thoughts contributed by the people of Google. Lets also see if we can discuss it in a way that helps you get it. Are you ready to work a little bit?
The first element is learning ability. Are you curious? Do you like to pull different stuff together? When you are trying to solve a problem with a couple of friends, are you the one thinking about the different ways to solve it, the alternatives that could get the group to the right choice. So learning about anything – games, sports, classes in school, art, science – really supports the desire to learn and the ability to learn.
The second area is leadership. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you become an Eagle Scout or become President of your class, though it doesn’t rule that out. But what it means is when faced with a problem and you are a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. There is a second part to this: Have you learned how to relinquish power to another person when it is appropriate to do so.
The third area helps explain the second part in the above paragraph. This third area is humility and ownership. This is the feeling of responsibility to step in and to try to solve any problem. But it is also the humility to step back and embrace a better idea coming from a friend. In this sense, if you have ever failed at something – to build something, to learn a game, to play a sport – you are lucky, because you are developing humility, which is going to help make you follow these principles.
So, Google wants you to argue like crazy for your position, but then step back when presented with a new fact, or a good idea you had not thought about and say, oh well, that changes things; you’re right.
Google said that the least important thing they look for is expertise.
I write this to you today for a couple of reasons. First, I know it is really sound advice. Second, it is not necessarily what people are telling you, day by day. Third, it makes the interactions that you have with your friends – in Scouting, sports, arts, craft building, music – even more important than the very specific facts that you learn. Fourth, while this advice may be coming too early in your life for a full understanding, I may not be around to tell you these things when you are ready. So, I tell you now. And finally, I know these principles to be true. I discovered these principles to be true the hard way.
So the message is, if you want great success in your life remember to teach yourself how to learn-anything; when faced with any kind of a problem, be the first to dive in and try to solve it; take responsibility for solving problems and listen to your friends when they have good ideas. Respect your friends. Never fear being wrong in the beginning because you have your friends to help you get it right. Practice these skills every day at school, at Church, at Temple, at Scouting, at basketball, at dance, at music rehearsals – every place life takes you – and you will be practicing the very skills that will serve you best in your professional life as an adult.
This is what the leaders of Google believe.
Love, Pappy Jack
