Yes, but how does it work?

I worked with Arthur C. Clarke at the very beginning of my career. He’s most famous for saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Magic isn’t such a bad thing.

And we certainly have plenty of advanced technology around. Advanced in the sense that we can’t be bothered to take the time to understand it.

A friend showed me his electric water bottle. A tiny USB charged battery is in the lid. “It gets rid of the impurities.”

I wondered–where do the impurities go?

It’s probably a more powerful placebo if you simply accept that something magical is happening inside the bottle, but no, it doesn’t get rid of the impurities. There’s a chance that it creates a light that kills some microorganisms, and there’s an even better chance that in New York, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, battery or no battery.

Perhaps it’s more useful to say, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is worth understanding.”

If we understand it, we can use it well. We can improve it. We can share it with confidence.

AI, rice cookers and vaccines are not magic. They’re understandable technologies we can learn about and improve.

October 5, 2024

A really good reason

Do you see the defaults?

The question, “What are things like around here?” has two possible answers.

When a new idea or opportunity arrives, your organization says yes, unless there’s a really good reason to say no.

Or your organization says no, unless someone makes a powerful argument for yes.

In the no organizations, everyone has veto power. If it’s inconvenient or feels risky, it doesn’t happen. The bias is for the status quo.

And in the yes organizations, someone needs to make a very strong case if they want to impede the new work.

If it’s working for you, keep at it. If not, it’s worth naming and changing.

October 4, 2024

The broomstick objection

Every founder, leader, sales rep and person on a dating app has heard this.

Why did the Wizard ask Dorothy to bring him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch? It’s not because he needed a broomstick.

It’s because he wanted Dorothy to go away. If you send someone away to get something ungettable, if you articulate a need that violates the rules of physics or possibility, then you’ve said no without saying no.

For his own concealed reasons, he wasn’t sold. It’s usually fear. Fear of the unknown, or fear of going first, or fear of being seen as a fraud. There are lots of reasons we don’t want to fund a company, offer a job, go on a second date or buy something.

But sharing the real objection is painful. It might expose us. We might have the objection ‘overcome’ and then we’re on the hook.

When we ask for a broomstick, we’re sending the well-meaning person on a fruitless mission, hoping that they won’t come back.

When someone asks for a broomstick, the first thing to do is to find enough empathy to imagine why the person actually needs a broomstick. Because sometimes they do (and if that’s the case, it’s not a ‘broomstick objection’ and you should either find new people to call on or fix what you’ve got).

But if they don’t need a broomstick, realize that the only thing you’ve learned is that the person you’re sitting with is afraid of something. For their sake, and yours, it pays to patiently and generously discover what it is.

October 3, 2024

The opposite of ‘perfect’

It’s not junk.

No, the opposite of perfect is:

Meets spec

Useful

On time

Productive

Valuable

By definition, good enough is good enough. If the spec isn’t what you need, change the spec. But perfect is unattainable and perfect is a place to hide.

October 2, 2024

The paradox of brittle

Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the short-run, optimization works as long as the world stays the same.

We can optimize a device to work at capacity. However, something working at capacity blows up if you step on the gas when you need 5% more out of it. It’s brittle.

Smart leaders build for resilience instead. Power plants, transit systems, careers–they’re built to be sub-optimal some of the time, with slack built in, so they can thrive all the time.

And the paradox?

If you’re a competitive capital-driven market where little head starts can become bigger leads which can lead to lock in and monopoly, the obvious strategy is to optimize early and often.

Outperforming your more resilient competitors is possible in the short run.

And if you’re lucky a few times in a row, you get access to more capital or more customers and you can do it again, at a bigger scale, leaving your thoughtful, slack-enabled competitors in the dust.

Until you crash.

And you always will. Because optimized systems cannot thrive in a changing world.

If you don’t want to crash, don’t compete in marketplaces where optimization is required.

PS Britain shut its last coal plant yesterday. 140 years ago, coal began its conquest of the world in Britain, and now it’s over. Change is possible.

October 1, 2024