A Crash Course in Creativity
We are in the fog of war. As much as we’d like to know the ‘full story’, we are most likely going to get bits and pieces of the truth (if we’re lucky) and massive loads of misinformation and spin in the normal scheme of things.
Let’s all pray for an end to hostilities, and yes, let’s pray that in the long term, Pakistan comes out of the vicious and suffocating grip of its Army, one of the root causes of this entire conflict.
And now, on to the newsletter.
Welcome to the one hundred and fifteenth edition of ‘3-2-1 by Story Rules‘.
A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:
- 3 tweets
- 2 articles, and
- 1 long-form content piece
Let’s dive in.
𝕏 3 Tweets of the week
| Source: X |
This is a great point. I plan to write a post on this sometime soon!
| Source: X |
Oof, that’s depressing. But again, ‘writing’ is a series of tasks. Some tasks would become incredibly easier with AI, while others while become incredibly important. (will write about this in my post)
| Source: X |
This is so well expressed.
📄 2 Articles of the week
a. ‘Iterating Your Way to a Great Prompt for your LLM’ by Navin Kabra
In today’s AI age, if you are not following Navin Kabra on X or on his Substack, you are missing out on some powerful insights and tips on how to use AI smartly.
In this post, Navin shares some great examples of what makes a good prompt – and how to craft them.
He shares a prompt that is – hold your breath – 1,053 words long. That’s like a mini-essay. When do we need to write such a long prompt? When the output really matters, says Navin:
Of course, not all prompts need to be so detailed. Only the ones you’re going to use repeatedly, or the ones where the quality of the output is very important to you.
So what makes a good prompt? Navin refers to a post by AI-guru Ethan Mollick and shares a five-step framework:
A good prompt gives the LLM a goal, a role to play, step-by-step instructions (DOs), constraints (DONTs), and suggestions for personalising the answer to your situation.
And if you find this a lot of work, Navin has some good news for you:
You might complain that this seems like a lot of work. But, by now, you should know that if anything “seems like a lot of work,” then the first step to make your life easier is to use an LLM!
Use an LLM to create the first version of your detailed prompt. Then use your judgment/expertise to modify it.
I will soon be introducing a module in my workshops on how to write good prompts for work presentations and reports.
b. ‘Empaths at the Gate: KKR and a Stanford Psychologist Measure People Skills’ by Heather Landy
Is empathy critical in leaders? And can it be ‘learned’? Yes (to both), says PE firm KKR (yep, the same gentle-minded folks behind ‘Barbarians at the Gate’)
The article starts with a surprising factoid:
In 2011, KKR & Co. bought an industrial company in Minnesota and did something unusual for a private equity firm—it invited factory workers to share ownership.
The driving force behind this initiative is Pete Stavros, the co-head of global private equity. He made an interesting observation when he studied the results of companies that did well:
Stavros did notice over the years that there were certain types of leaders at KKR companies who produced better results in the columns tracking culture data. Often they were women, immigrants, or people who grew up poor or held deep religious beliefs. He suspected there was something in their background that helped them connect with their employees. Was empathy, he wondered, their common trait?
Not just that, they realised that empathy can be learnt:
…The science on empathy shows it is less a fixed trait than a skill that can be learned.
KKR is now piloting three different training programs designed to increase empathy. Leaders are working with Zaki on building skills such as active listening. They’re also being sent on excursions facilitated by the Financial Health Network to explore how people in their communities get by. And they’re being put into Japanese-style kaizen meetings, in which people up and down the hierarchy find ways to improve the business.
📖 1 long-form read of the week
a, ‘How to Think like Ruck Rubin: A 20-min crash course’ on creativity by Shaan Puri (X thread)
Shaan Puri is one of the few creators who writes thought-provoking stuff in a wildly readable style. His posts and articles are essentially entertainment (with a generous dash of insight on the side).
In this long tweet thread, Puri breaks down the creative process by studying the methods of creative geniuses like Walt Disney, Jerry Seinfeld and Rick Rubin (even I hadn’t heard of him).
Puri uses this (badly-drawn but cute!) analogy of an ice-cream cone to break down the components of a creative genius:
And breaks it down into four parts – Routine, Reduce, Restrict and Remix
One of the ideas under ‘Routine’ is the need to have separate spaces for creative thinking and editing.
Puri uses the famous (apocryphal?) pottery paradox experiment and illustrates them with real-life examples:
Did you know that music producer Rick Rubin credited himself as a ‘reducer’?!
Here’s the thing – I had heard of most of these ideas and examples in separate sources. What Puri has done really well is to integrate them into one simple theory, use solid examples and illustrate them in his authentic quirky style. Overall, a great thread to read in its entirety.
That’s all from this week’s edition.
Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash
