Posts tagged “Constraints”

Which Risk?

Posted on December 22, 2017
Share

It’s common to hear concerns about risk. That’s too risky. We’re risk averse. Give me the safe choice. It’s important to remember you’re not choosing high risk or low risk, you’re choosing which risk. An option that seems safe in the short-term may have massive risk in the long-term. A little risk in the present may greatly benefit the future you. Or mitigating risk in one dimension – like cost, quality, or time – may raise risks in another. It’s all trade-offs. “You’re not choosing high risk or low risk, you’re choosing which risk.” *

Categories: Risk

Tagged: , ,

Pattern or Prison

Posted on January 2, 2016
Share

I often see patterns in my clients’ (and my own) actions. While mental shortcuts may be helpful to speed decision-making and reinforce comfort zones, they can lock you into unnecessarily tight boundaries. At worst, extremely patterned behavior imprisons thinking, actions and results. Let’s consider three patterns – deferring to planning, precedent or power – that often entrap decision-makers. “What you do as an editor is search for patterns, at both the superficial and ever deeper levels – as deep as you can go…Putting a film together is, in an ideal sense, the orchestration of all those patterns.” –Walter Murch Prisoner of the Plan This prisoner spends an inordinate amount of time setting an overly complex plan, and once it’s set, he never changes it. So much…

Categories: Risk

Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Larry Page’s Rules for Management

Posted on November 1, 2015
Share

Larry Page’s rules for management are interesting in isolation, and in the context of Google’s evolution: Don’t delegate: Do everything you can yourself to make things go faster. Don’t get in the way if you’re not adding value. Let the people actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else. Don’t be a bureaucrat. Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and cooperation. The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, “No. Period.” If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to get it done. Asked about his approach to running the company, Page once told a Googler his…

Categories: Organization

Tagged: , , , , ,