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Melinda French Gates has been very busy since her divorce and subsequent departure from the Gates Foundation. For example, she launched her own venture, with $12.5 billion to put toward advancing causes she cares about, specifically those related to women and families. She has even gotten involved in politics, endorsing a candidate for the first time ever. French Gates isnt new to leading an organization, or to leading people. She has spent the past few decades leaving her imprint on what is arguably the most influential charitable organization in the world. Still, I imagine it can all get a little overwhelming at times. The key to managing it all isnt to work constantly, according to French Gates. As counterintuitive as it might seem, one of the most important things is getting enough sleep. In an interview with Vanity Fair, French Gates says she believes in the importance of getting seven or eight hours of sleep a night. She also had a few choice words for those who claim they dont need to sleep more than a few hours a night, something she says is so dumb. You can probably imagine the type. At some point, it became a weird sort of flex to suggest that you didnt need sleep. It was as though sleeping was considered some kind of weakness. Instead, there is a type of leader who seems to think working all the time is a strength. Elon Musk, for example, has claimed that working long hours was necessary to run his companies. While Musk now says he tries to get at least six hours of sleep, there are a number of instances where he talked about working more than 120 hours a week and sleeping on the factory floor for a few hours at a time. The same goes for Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of Pepsi, who has said she only needs four hours of sleep. I guess you could argue that if you arent sleeping, you could be using that time to be productive. The problem is, thats almost never how it works. Working excessive hours is not a virtue. It might feel like a badge of honor, but it rarely amounts to better outcomes. Sleeping less doesnt make you stronger or more productive; it just makes you more tired. And tired people almost never perform as well as they could with a good nights sleep. Look, I am definitely a morning person. I prefer to get up pretty early because its when Im most productive, but that doesnt mean I dont need any sleep. It means I need to plan accordingly and go to bed early enough to get seven hours of sleep. In fact, Ive argued on a number of occasions that the single best thing you can do to be more productive is to get enough sleep. It turns out, science agrees with me, and with French Gates. The Centers for Disease Control has said that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep. In fact, some scientific studies have suggested that sleeping for only four hours a night is just as bad for your body and your mind as not sleeping at all. The consequences for not sleeping arent just that youre ready to doze off by the fourth meeting of the day. Lack of sleep can contribute to real health issues like stress, anxiety, heart disease, and diabetes. The CDC also says that almost 40 percent of adults dont get enough sleep, defined as fewer than six hours. Thats a lot of tired, stressed-out people not performing at their best. The lesson here seems really simple: You should make it a priority to get enough sleep. Youll be far more productive when you show up to work rested and energized. If you lead an organization or a team, you owe it to your people to be at your best. If you think you can be at your best by working constantly without taking time to rest andmore specificallyto sleep, well, French Gates has a few words for you. Like this column? Sign up to subscribe to email alerts and you’ll never miss a post. Jason Aten This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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Lots of work situations require some creativity. A client needs a nonstandard solution to a problem. A colleague is stuck in a dispute with their supervisor. Youre writing an article and you need to find a third good example of the concept youre describing (see what I did there?). You may have the occasional brilliant insight, but then look on in dismay at all of the mediocre ideas you come up with in times of need. Is there something you can do to come up with better ideas? The answer is, sort of. Quantity over quality First off, dont fret if you feel like most of the ideas you generate when trying to solve a new problem are bad. Research on creativity consistently demonstrates that the people who come up with the best ideas are the ones who come up with the most ideas. That is, you cant really know as youre thinking of a new idea whether it will be a brilliant stroke or another dud. But, if you keep generating ideas, youll eventually land on a gem. That means your focus should be on finding ways to keep generating ideas. Dont get discouraged and give up when your first few thoughts arent amazing. Stick with it for longer than you think you need to. When the well seems to have run dry, dont give up right away. Refocus yourself on the problem statement and think about whether there is another way to characterize the central problem. Consider giving the problem a title that encapsulates the central dilemma or try describing the problem to a colleague who knows nothing about it. (Computer programmers often keep a rubber duck on their desk to describe coding problems to, because they find it helps them find solutions to tough problems.) Dont be afraid to incubate A creative flash may strike you when you set about trying to generate an idea, but sometimes you generate many thoughts and no gems. No matter how much pressure you may be feeling to come up with a great concept, try giving it a rest. There are several benefits to letting the problem sit for a while (a process called incubation). First, your initial thoughts about the problem may stick in your mind crowding out other potential solutions. Putting the problem aside may allow those persistent thoughts to fade into the background, allowing other ideas to emerge. Second, you may actually continue noodling on the problem in the background even when youre not focusing on the problem explicitly. As a result, you may find yourself suddenly hit with an insight. Third, your memory for the problem description will change in subtle ways over time. You are likely to focus less on the details and more on the gist of the problem. This natural change over time (particularly if you sleep on the problem for a day or two) may provide an alternative method for redescribing the problem that has the benefits I discussed in the previous section. Learn to turn a B- into an A Another thing to know about great creative problem solvers is that they are often masterful editors. That is, they dont just spin out golden thoughts at the drop of a hat. As I mentioned, most of the things they think of at first are more likely to be straw. But, they are good at spinning straw into gold. By continuing to think through the ideas they generate, they may find that a flimsy initial concept becomes stronger by addressing its weaknesses. So, rather than kicking every mediocre concept to the curb, hold onto the list of ideas you generate. Then, explore those ideas in more detail. Ask yourself why they wont work. When you state the objection to the idea, you may find yourself thinking of elegant ways to adapt the initially bland concept into something that shines. That is, lurking within a B- idea that you have generated may be the roots of the A+ you really desire.
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In some cities, as Amazon delivery vans make the rounds with your latest order, theyre also delivering something differentfree food to people who rely on food banks. In a program that quietly started during the pandemic, the company has used its logistics infrastructure to deliver enough groceries for 60 million meals to families facing food insecurity. Today, Amazon announced that its extending the program with its food bank partners through 2028. The Community Delivery program began early in the pandemic as the companys disaster relief team saw long lines at food banks and looked for ways to help people stuck at home. We started talking to our operational teams here at Amazon and said, were doing this for our customerswere delivering food to their doorstep, says Bettina Stix, director of Amazon Community Impact. What if we did that same delivery, but instead of coming from our Amazon grocery fulfillment, it would come from the food bank? [Photo: Amazon] As pandemic restrictions ended, they realized that there was still a clear need for delivery. In a study with Feeding America last year, they found that 46% of visitors to food pantries had skipped visits because of transportation challenges. (Unsurprisingly, that number jumps to 60% for people without a car.) Others might work multiple jobs and simply not have enough time. Some recipients who use the delivery program said that theyd never been able to access free food from a pantry in the past. There are many people who, because of disability or transportation or schedule constraints, can’t get to a pantry, or stand in line at a pantry, or transport a 25-pound bag of groceries home, says Seth Harris, associate director of home-delivered groceries at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, one of more than 40 food banks that now works with Amazon. Picking up groceries from a food pantry might involve two hours of travel and trying to navigate a bus with a heavy package. Some food banks already offered limited home delivery, but it’s resource-intensive and typically relies on volunteers, making it difficult to scale. “At some point, you end up in a world where you have more deliveries than can be done by a single route,” says Josh Hirschland, principal product manager for food security at Amazon Community Impact. “So then you start to think about, okay, how do we divide up the packages across multiple routes? How do you set the order of the different stops to be the most efficient, and how do you divide that up? How do you manage all of these orders? How do you figure out which ones have been picked up? Have you made sure that they’re being delivered?” Hirschland adds. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank had a delivery program before working with Amazon, but was able to significantly expand it. The nonprofit now makes around 1,000 home deliveries a day, primarily to seniors and adults with disabilities. [Photo: Amazon] In many cases, Amazon works with its network of Flex drivers, gig workers who use their own cars, to make the deliveries. Instead of picking up a shift for Amazon Fresh, a driver can choose to pick up a carful of prepacked boxes from a food bank and deliver them over the next hour or two. Amazon foots the bill. The program, like the rest of its Community Impact work, isn’t a separate philanthropic arm of the company, but part of a business strategy to find ways to benefit communities by using its existing infrastructure and technology. The company adapted software that it had initially used for Amazon Restaurants, a food delivery service that the company shut down in 2019. Engineers created a portal that food banks can use to add and track orders. In some cities, like Los Angeles and Austin, food banks pack shelf-stable food that doesn’t need to be delivered immediately, and the boxes can be incorporated into regular Amazon delivery routes. Larger trucks pick up pallets of boxes at food banks and take them to Amazon sort centers. “At the sort center, those boxes start to be comingled with iPhone cables and jigsaw puzzles, and then get sent down to a truck where they are driven to the delivery station,” Hirschland says. At the company’s last-mile delivery stations, boxes are loaded onto racks and then head out on vans. Using vans helps make it easier to reach rural areas, he says, where it’s often even harder for families to access food pantries. [Photo: Amazon] The company now has a team of engineers dedicated to continuing to improve the technology behind the philanthropic initiative. One recent feature, for example, tracks how long each package is with the driver, from pickup to delivery. Since the program started, Amazon has been renewing it with its food bank partners each year. But now, with a longer three-year extension, the nonprofits will be better able to plan. “If you are running a home delivery program as a food bank, even if the transportation is free, there are still any number of costs that you’re looking at,” Hirschland says. Food banks also don’t want to offer the service and then have to unexpectedly cancel it. The longer commitment “is something that we’ve been trying to d for a long time,” he says. The need keeps growing: The cost of food is now nearly 30% higher than it was in 2020. Tariffs are pushing up the cost of imported foods like bananas and coffee. The Department of Labor warned last week that current immigration policies are causing a shortage of workers on farms, and that’s also threatening the food supply chain and food prices. The budget bill that President Trump signed in July made steep cuts to SNAP, the federal food assistance program, that will soon begin rolling out. Earlier in the year, the Department of Agriculture cut $1 billion in funding for food banks and school nutrition programs to buy food from local farms. With rents and energy prices also rising, buying food has become even more of a strain. The delivery program can’t solve the larger issues that make hunger a logistics problem. But in a strained system, it’s become a critical tool for food banks.
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E-Commerce
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