Confused by signals
Even at a distance, we can sometimes tell if someone is educated, rich, powerful or physically attractive.
But that doesn’t always correlate with smart, kind or honest.
Strong signals might not be the same as useful ones.
Remembering toward better
We don’t get a chance to do yesterday over again.
The best reason to think about the past is because it gives us the opportunity to improve the future.
Because we don’t get tomorrow over again either.
Happy Juneteenth.
Here to please
Please who?
If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the owners of the tech stock or your personal goals?
If you’re publishing a book, are you working for the book or is the book working for you?
You might be able to get the folks in the back row to smile a bit if you play your hit song just like it is on the radio, but perhaps your objective is to please the real fans in the front row–by jamming on something new.
Of course, it’s really difficult to please everyone. Which means that we have to figure out which someone we’re here for.
“I made a mistake”
This sits right next to, “I made a bad decision,” in things that are hard to say. But there are many moments when we’re confused about what actually happened.
You might not have made a bad decision. And it’s also possible you didn’t make a mistake.
It could be that there was simply a bad outcome.
That’s different.
Annie Duke opened my eyes to the distinction, and it’s critically important.
Good decisions are calculations based on what you know right now. If the world turns out differently than the data you had indicated, that’s not a bad decision.
A bad decision is one that isn’t based on available facts. It falls into traps like sunk costs or peer pressure. A bad decision is an error in judgment or skill. Good decision makers, when faced with the same options as you had, would not have done what you did.
But good decisions often can lead to undesired outcomes.
Taking the 8:20 train is a good decision, and if the train breaks down and you’re late, it was still a good decision.
Buying a lottery ticket is never a good decision. Sometimes you win, that’s great, but given the data you had when you bought the ticket, there are clearly more profitable ways to invest your money.
If you start a business and unlikely events cause that business to fail, it’s not at all clear that you made a mistake (or a bad decision). What is clear is that the business failed, and you are involved in cleaning up a bad outcome.
The words matter. Because we should repeat our good decisions and avoid our avoidable errors.
Outcomes happen, every time. But we’re only able to be smart about what we know (including the odds), not about what is about to happen.
Orange cars
In a given neighborhood, just about all the cars are the same.
There are few that are pink, orange or purple, for example.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with those frequencies of light. Nothing that modern paint technology can’t deliver, nothing that offends the rods and cones of our eyes.
It’s because the color of the car we choose tells a story. A story about our cultural awareness, status and attitude, for example.
And if something as benign and random as a color tells a story, just imagine what the other choices we make say about us.
We send signals with every choice we make.
The power of a pause
The single-most effective way to invest 90 seconds a day is simple (and difficult).
18 times a day, when you’re about to offer advice, ask a question or blurt out a response, wait five seconds.
That pause shifts the way what you say next will be perceived.
It also opens the door for you to discover what was about to be said, which might be the most important thing you haven’t heard.
Buzzer management is essential for some activities. But 18 times a day, a pause might be exactly what’s needed instead.
PS Yesterday’s post had a link that caused a warning for some folks. I’m sorry. There was a bug in the software I use, and I’m hopeful they fix it soon. The warning was needless, but it still perplexed some folks. My apologies.
Rigor and curiosity
Kids grow up with innate curiosity. It’s the hardwired instinct that permits us to walk, talk and survive long before we get to school.
And at school, the industrial imperative prizes rigor over just about everything else. Obedience, detail orientation and system compliance are the unstated goals.
Curiosity is supposed to fend for itself, apparently.
Once we leave school and enter the workforce, curiosity gets even less encouragement. That’s a shame, because while many institutions suffer from too much rigor, just about all of them would benefit from more curiosity.
If you are lucky enough to find a curious person, perhaps they could benefit from a little rigor. But if you encounter a rigorous person, the real opportunity is to rekindle their curiosity. It’s there, we simply need to encourage it.
XKCD.
What do you need more of?
If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more:
- Division
- Shortcuts
- Momentary viral jolts
- Breaking news
- and doom
…we know where to get it. If not, then why are we spending our magical attention there?
Status (and the grass tax)
Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture.
The front lawn was only invented around the time of Columbus. The idea was to demonstrate that you had time and money to waste. You could take useful land and make it non-productive. You could take labor and put it to work taking care of this non-productive land with no obvious utility in return. A big front lawn, well cared for, was a sign of status and luxury.
It’s a contagious idea, and a sticky one. Many suburbs have it written into their laws.
John Green reminds us that Jay Gatsby paid to have a neighbor’s yard groomed before Daisy came over to meet him…
The costs are real. Depending on location, we use 30 to 70% of our country’s total potable water supply to water the grass. We spend billions of dollars a year maintaining it, and the machines we use make our air toxic. If someone invented grass today, with all the hassles and costs, there’s no way it would catch on.
The next step in the status ladder is happening in many communities–grass for the high school playing fields has become low status. It needs to be replaced with plastic “turf” (a name created by wordsmiths to remind us of grass, when it’s actually carpet). The best reason to do the switch, supporters say, is because all the other schools are doing it, and we’re falling behind.
If it can happen to grass, it can happen to everything, and it does.
When in doubt about why a cultural trope exists, look for status.
And perhaps, now and then, we should set status aside and take a hard look at where we are, making a new decision with new information.
Ecosystems come and go
Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers, competitors, marketplaces, systems and tech that make it all work.
I used to make almanacs. Long, detailed, fact-checked reference books that might save a trip to the library. When there are plenty of bookstores and no internet, the almanac is an important resource and a useful business model.
I also had a division that made DVD roms for book publishers.
Neither project was likely or possible in 1920, and as the web took hold, both became unsustainable.
The ecosystem for board games was large, steady and profitable. The combination of toy stores and TV ads made it sustainable. And then, for most providers, it wasn’t.
The telegraph employed tens of thousands of people… and then it didn’t.
Google profited from building a huge search ecosystem and selling little slivers of it to advertisers. Many companies and projects thrived from the organic or paid traffic they got from billions of people doing a search. And now, it’s very clear that search traffic is way down, and will almost certainly never recover. AI has upended an ecosystem that many organizations assumed was normal and here to stay.
We can lament the end of an ecosystem. After all, we worked hard to get here and we counted on it. We’re comfortable with it and we understand it.
Or, we can accept that ecosystems come and go, and focus our energy on how the next ecosystem gives us a chance to do our work, new work, different work, but work that matters, for people who care.