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Juan Lage's avatar

Excellent post Leo!! I also miss doc reads, I wish more organizations would see its benefits. That said, this post also reminded to something someone told me after I left AWS: "you can take people out of Amazon, but you can't take Amazon out of people" ... is there some truth in that? ;-)

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Leonardo Quattrucci's avatar

I confirm what you were told and confess my Amazonian sin! :-)

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Robert Madelin's avatar

Great prose, great idea.

I like the constructive respect of joint silent reading. The so-called tutorial method is somehow in counterpoint: everyone has been thinking and researching the issue, one person reads aloud their doc.

The need to develop a culture of professional writing is very important and a lost art. In my own early days in public service, very senior people sat me down and dismantled and rebuilt my early efforts. Something stuck.

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Leonardo Quattrucci's avatar

I would add that, today, even those who are not fortunate enough to have great bosses can leverage Gen AI tools as Socratic partners, to raise the bar of their writing/thinking.

These machines are not a replacement for great mentors, of course - but they can augment us. They also are not simple substitutes for deep thinking.

Incentives matter too. Too much writing is associated with compliance, rather than creation.

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