Almost all car crashes would be avoided if the driver were just going a bit slower. (That’s why it’s more accurate to call them “crashes” and not “accidents.”)
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have bold plans. That’s essential. It’s the last-second shortcuts that get us into trouble.
Hurry, but don’t rush.
Sheep are not like ideas.
200 years ago, William Foster Lloyd began pointing out that if land is shared, ranchers will all have an incentive to overgraze their sheep–if they don’t, the thinking goes, the others will. Each farmer expands until the commons is ruined. And this justifies the long process of fencing in land, because the owner of private property, it’s argued, will have an incentive to care for it.
Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for challenging this simplistic view. She argued that in many settings, 8 principles can produce resilient and effective ways for managing commonly shared resources:
And sheep are not like ideas.
The cultural commons, particularly software, doesn’t get used up when more people contribute to it. In fact, it gets better.
Software patents are tempting (I have two, neither of which rewarded the investors who filed the patents) but they almost never pay off. Like a hit song, software does better when more people are part of it. And it’s more likely that people will participate in software that’s resilient, inspectable, connected and always improving. The hard part might not be the idea–it’s in creating the conditions for others to participate.
Open source software is the backbone of the internet (it’s powering many of the sites you visit, including this one, and is behind most of the tools you use, including email and Wikipedia). But there’s always been a relentless, profit-driven push to fence it in.
It’s not that difficult to try to selfishly take advantage of the generous rules of open source. It’s tempting to take without contributing. Particularly if investors are pushing for market share instead of resilience and forward motion.
That means that, like so many good things, open source needs to be celebrated, supported and defended. Especially when it’s not convenient to do so. People who are working for open source are working for us.
We’d miss it if it were gone.
It costs more than you think.
Last month, I hit the old stock on the Avery labels in my office cabinet. I had a bunch of things to send out, and off they went. It turns out, who knew, that old labels stop sticking. It’s entirely possible some of my really important packages never got there, but it’s hard to tell. It was certain, though, that the adhesive wasn’t doing its job.
On the back of the box, it says, in big yellow type: 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. It goes on to talk about how glad they’d be to replace the product. You’ve already guessed–six emails back and forth and they’re now whining about making a one-time accommodation, but just this one time.
“Hot bread, fresh from the oven, every time” is seductive, but what happens the first time a customer goes out of their way to visit and discovers that this is simply a lie?
Marketing puffery can have much bigger consequences. When Full Self Driving isn’t actually that, people can die. And every single person who has tried it realizes that it’s not what it says it is. And so we wonder, what else are they lying about?
If you need to out-hype your competition, it’s a race to the bottom. Someone is always more willing to hype than you are. Ironically, it’s not even the effective sales pitch lazy copywriters think it is.
Marketing puffery:
The alternative can be simple and effective: 99% of Avery users are delighted, and we’re doing our best to make it all of them. Or perhaps, “Now upgraded to next level automated driving assist.”
Marketers are privileged indeed to make promises. Why make promises you know you can’t keep?
Money is a story.
But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in different ways. And time is the wildcard.
Situational spending is a trap that seduces us into forgetting that time passes and debt (or assets) remain.
A couple about to wed might not hesitate to spend $750 on imprinted matchbooks that no one will ever use, but struggle to make the rent payments a few months later. If they were measuring peace of mind, it’s unlikely that they’d choose the matchbooks over rent.
Corporations nickel and dime frontline workers over a $1 raise, but don’t haggle with McKinsey on a $20,000,000 contract.
Instead of going deep into debt for a new car that might raise one’s status, that same money could be spent regularly buying a round for friends at the local pub, becoming a local philanthropist, or investing in an asset that might increase professional standing or income.
“Compared to what?” is a powerful question. The right answer might not be, “compared to what I just spent a moment ago, or compared to what my peers are spending…” A more useful alternative could be, “compared to what I want or need to spend money on in the future.”
The situation isn’t in charge, we are.
When I made breakfast this morning, I didn’t begin by making the blender. Someone else, a team with more skills, resources and scale, built the blender. I simply bought it.
That seems obvious–no one expects a from-scratch baker to make their own baking powder.
And yet, our projects are rarely fine tuned around leverage.
Begin with this question: “What are you hiring yourself to do?”
Are you making that choice because your labor is cheap and convenient, or because it’s the place of maximum leverage? It’s often easier to be busy than it is to be productive.
Busy is a morally superior distraction. Busy gets us off the hook. Busy is a great place to hide.
On the other hand, productive can be scary. When you’re buying someone else’s skill and time, you’re making a different sort of commitment.
Your job might not be to do your job. Your job might be to make the decisions and commitments needed to lead other people who do your (former) job.
The calculation is simple: If the commercial project is worth doing, what’s the most direct, cheapest and fastest way to get it done well?
There’s nothing wrong with hiring yourself to do things you enjoy. And it’s imperative that when you embrace leverage to get projects done, you produce work you’re proud of–shipping junk, at scale, is not the point.
But my guess is that most of us settle for a pattern of leverage that we’re used to, a pace that we’ve become accustomed to, a day filled with tasks we think we’re good at. I’ve talked to people all over the world–entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees and bosses–and most of them are sure that they’re leveraging just the right amount. Even though it’s different for everyone…
The make or buy choice is one we face all day, every day, and rarely consider.
If you’re serious about the project, it’s time to give yourself a promotion, and to hire yourself to do work that’s yours and yours alone to contribute. It’s almost certain that there’s someone cheaper, faster and yes, better at the other work than you are.
On our best days, what we actually make is decisions.
You might need to invest some time and energy to get the skills you need to find this leverage. To be smart about the tools you use and the people you hire. That’s an investment worth making.
Find the resources you need, and figure out how to work with them. Then hire someone else to make a blender.
An artifact is an object that holds or signifies an idea.
A book on paper is an artifact: it’s the object plus the words. Now that you can get the words in many other ways, the value of the book is changed.
A wedding ring is an artifact. If lost, it has sentimental value far greater than what you could buy a similar replacement for.
Sometimes, the value of an idea fades away, which is why many old books are worthless. Garage sales are filled with previously valuable items that hold ideas that people aren’t attracted to.
And sometimes, the value of the object fades away, but the idea remains important. That’s what happens when you upgrade your laptop.
When the world shifts, the artifacts around us change in value.
Situations have no solution, they’re not problems, they’re simply the way it is.
Problems are distinguished by the fact that they have solutions. But that doesn’t mean that the solution is obvious, easy or convenient.
If the problem is important enough, we should pick the best available solution, not turn it into a situation.
We all make mistakes. We all do things that we then realize weren’t in our interest, or useful to the community.
If we do it a second time, it’s worth taking a hard look at the system that set us up for failure. How did the system get here? Who benefits?
When we can see the system, we have a chance to fix it.
That’s the first question.
The second question is, “how do we make it work better?”
These two questions, patiently repeated, lead to incremental improvement and an understanding of reality.
The opposite approach is, “because I said so.”
Reality might not care what you want.
The Strategy Deck that I made to go with my book has developed a real following. It’s a powerful way to break a creative logjam. Taking out the deck in a meeting lowers resistance and increases a sense of possibility and playfulness. I’ve just gone back to press for a fourth printing, but they take a while. You can only get a deck from Porchlight.
This is Strategy was selected today as one of the 25 BEST NON-FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR. It’s a useful selection of books, and I’m delighted to be on it.
In more delicious news, the Strategy chocolate bar I created with Askinosie continues to delight and inspire. First, because it’s delicious (my friends at Zingerman’s said it was one of the best they’ve ever had). Second, because of the hard work Askinosie is persistently doing to change the brutal nature of the chocolate industry. And third, because it comes with a collectible trading card.
I had a ton of fun making these cards (which is a totally separate set of cards from the more functional deck I mentioned at the beginning of this post), sitting in my studio and dreaming up which people ought to be highlighted…
And it’s been delightful to hear from people who have discovered a card in their bar.
But the most delightful part is hearing from people I put on a card (I didn’t ask first). My hope, of course, is that I’d get lucky and a friend or colleague would randomly discover a card in a bar they purchased, but that hasn’t happened quite yet. Here’s what Acar sent me:
Everyone should have a daily blog, and now I’m coming to the conclusion that everyone should make a collectible deck, at least once. I make mine with Skylar at Shuffled Ink.
PS in case you missed it, yesterday’s post had an invite to Purple.space. Signups close in a few days.
