The Costs of Caution

Some wise words on organizational learning and how a business process develops over time:

The gradual accumulation of checks in an organization is a kind of learning, based on disasters that have happened to it or others like it.

Key point:

Whenever someone in an organization proposes to add a new check, they should have to explain not just the benefit but the cost. No matter how bad a job they did of analyzing it, this meta-check would at least remind everyone there had to be a cost, and send them looking for it.

If I taught an MBA class, you better believe this would be in it.

Not Challenged at your Job?

Maybe you're unhappy because you're 'smart'..
An interesting article with an extreme bias towards the intelligent and ambitious set.

My comment:

Excellent piece - I think you capture and convey well the feelings of a significant portion of the population. And of course you have stirred a lot of controversy with your explicit grouping of ’smart’ ( reads defensively as ‘better’) and ‘not smart’. Anyone who perceives themself in the latter group will probably feel insulted. Veritas has some nice comments there.

I think there is basically one criterion for Success: create something good or destroy something bad.
(Btw, be Really careful about that second one.)

Here’s the Problem: you will probably not Succeed at a 9-5, at least not anytime soon.
That’s because a 9-5 not designed for Success, it’s designed for Stability. Decent income, minimal risk. And let’s face it, creation and destruction are risky! But with that risk comes greater potential reward. Wealth doesn’t just appear, it has to be created (natural resources being the blatant exception).

So if you want out, you need to plan for risk. That means saving of course, but it also means communicating your plans to those around you. Finding partners and supporters is every bit as important having the idea in the first place.
Just don’t fall into the trap of not engaging people because you don’t have one yet. Your brilliant idea will be a variation of someone else’s idea.

First, go to the appropriate place. Next, win.

I love trying and learning new things but often times it can be a big hassle to join a new community or system. This is especially true of ongoing activities, such as workplaces, where people are not necessarily interested in helping new entrants learn the name of the game.
There's a basic level of knowledge needed to operate that everyone has, except you of course. Often linked with the local culture of a group or region, these things come in the form of implicit (undocumented or unspoken) steps, and they drive me nuts! However, they are often very important to the activity at hand, so they are definitely worth pondering.
They also tell me one or more of the things below is true about, you, the person that I encounter in this new context, and how you treat me:

1. You are not consciously aware of their existence. Having participated in the culture for so long, you simply no longer notice the steps and rules unique to the situation. Depending on your degree of personal empathy, you will expect me to understand some or all of these things already, likely without even realizing this may be an unreasonable assumption.

2. You are aware of the existence of the implicit rules, but don't fully understand them and are embarrassed to reveal your lack of knowledge. This can lead to a lot of jargon and vague statements, spreading further confusion.

3. You understand the rules but have insufficient motivation to record and explain them. Perhaps your time is too valuable (or in relatively high demand). Maybe you just don't know who I am or why you should bother to help me. As Peter said in Office Space: "...it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care"

4. You understand the rules but deliberately withhold knowledge in order to maintain a tactical advantage. This is true in many businesses, as well as politics on all levels. Thankfully, the many of these places have opened up dramatically, as the Internet has lowered the cost of recording and spreading such knowledge.
Such knowledge hoarding won't go away any time soon though; there will continue to be such secrets as long as the benefits of keeping them outweigh the benefits of sharing. I figure that for a particular person in a particular area of knowledge, the trend would look something like this:

accumulation of knowledge -->



Of course this trend is quite debatable and depends heavily on the knowledge at stake. Perhaps 'willingness to help without competitive compensation' would be more accurate. Also, the curves could vary in interesting ways depending on the subject matter.

No doubt there are many counter examples to the trend, mostly falling under the umbrella of altruism. I would postulate that most such cases are prompted by biological factors rather 'rational' behavior, in the economic sense of the word. Such cases of conflict between benefit to self and benefit to a larger group provide some of the most interesting cultural indicators.

The purpose of government

This is not entirely my idea; call me silly but it's partially inspired by some Terry Pratchett novels. As I see it:

"The primary purpose of government is to prevent rapid change."

Examples: Protecting the citizenry, defending the nation, preventing civil wars, upholding property rights, disaster recovery, maintaing a stable currency, preventing severe market flucatations, providing due process...

Zero-sum "games" and Critical Mass

In both my studies and recreation I have often come across a universal question of life: for any given situation where there is a declared 'winner', why did that person or group win? This becomes an especially crucial question because some "games" are played for all the beans; most notably war and politics.
History books are the common venue for learning about these subjects and yet they are often merely a showcase of winners. Historians generally start with the victorious conclusion and then research backwards to find its causes. However, in doing so they can critically misrepresent the rules of such zero-sum games, which appear pre-destined in retrospect but are usually not at all.
Rather, they are an exercise in building critical mass. From presidential campaigns to military ones, the race to critical mass is the story of humanity's most epic struggles. The pivots of history turn at the point when some outcome or string of events convince a sufficient plurality of people that one side is winning. From that point the greater majority will seek to gain benefit by aligning themselves to the perceived winner, which in turn reinforces their lead status.
Therefore the first question "Why do I want to play this game?" is closely followed by "What are the rules?" and "What are the possible strategies for reaching critical mass?"