Tag: Humility

Identify the Problem Part 2

Here are the two articles I mentioned previously:

A quote from the second article, originally published in 2017:

In surveys of 106 C-suite executives who represented 91 private and public-sector companies in 17 countries, I found that a full 85% strongly agreed or agreed that their organizations were bad at problem diagnosis, and 87% strongly agreed or agreed that this flaw carried significant costs.

“Are You Solving the Right Problems” by Wedell-Wedellsborg, Thomas, in Harvard Business Review, from the January-February 2017 issue (site last visited June 15 2023)

I’m slowly sidling up to expressing my own views on this topic, I know. My initial reactions are very vocal and filled with disbelief and profanity.

I’ll try to calm down a bit and be more methodical in my critiques. What are managers, whether low level, mid level, or C-suite, paid for in these companies? What are the discussions when they are promoted?

This would be like a national non-profit, closing down multiple chapters per year, with an acknowledged problem in getting members to sign up for leadership positions in chapters which are still active. And the national officers of that non-profit being most concerned with getting enough personal information from members that they can better qualify for government grants.

The bigger the problem is, the more chance there’s something about it people don’t want to acknowledge. The longer the problem exists, the more chance it spawns its own side-effect problems which will have to be dealt with, before the underlying problem can be addressed.

Bureaucrats of all types are very adept at finding what will get them promoted, what will keep their job safe, and what will threaten their job. Not what should get them promoted, keep them safe, or threaten their job. What will.

If an organization promotes people on how eagerly they follow orders, and not whether they understand the orders they give and are given, the intent, the immediate effects, and the long term effects of those orders, then the more likely this will be the result. Organizations which are much better at solving problems than identifying problems.

Life changes. These organizations will not be able to handle the change, and will die.

Slowing Down to Speed Up, Writing Edition

I listen to some small business and entrepreneur podcasts. One of the phrases I frequently hear is “slow down to speed up.”

I’ll be honest, I typically hear that right before the host explains why they fought that idea when they first heard it, before having to learn it the hard way. And by “hard way,” I mean by repeated painful experience. Anyway, I’ll get back on topic.

Slowing down to speed up also applies to writing. I used to wonder why there were so many different types of notebooks and stationery. For that matter, why were there so many different types of accounting ledger books?

In both cases, writing something down and then rewriting it somewhere else in a different way helps focus the mind.

For writing, I’ve seen guidelines which say there is a creative mode which runs fast and often a bit too free, then there is the editing mode. These are different parts of the brain, and trying to switch in and out of editing mode while ostensibly being in creating mode doesn’t work that well.

I’ve tried that with writing and it does work. I’m still not fully in the habit. But each time I get a little bit better are remembering to let it flow first and then go back and correct later.

I’m also finding it helps to do that with money. I don’t write down every cent of every transaction, but I’m starting to create a list of regular expenses, pulling the information from multiple other places it’s recorded. And it is helping me focus on what I want to keep and what I’m fine letting go.

Why am I writing this on a blog about making technology work for you?

Technology has created so many time-saving services, it’s erased the friction which used to exist. So we all, myself included, want to let the apps and programs and whatever do it all for us. When we do that, we convince ourselves we’re going faster and faster. But we’re planning and considering less and less.

A re-read and rewriting of a good idea is better than writing it hurriedly fifteen times. And it will be fifteen times because we’re moving so fast we forgot what we already wrote.

An inventory and accounting of what classes and guides and books have already been purchased is better than purchasing more variations of the same thing. But it’s faster and feels faster to just buy more of what has already been purchases.

Slowing down to go faster is a real thing.