vineri, 22 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : Turning paradoxes into problems



Turning paradoxes into problems

A problem is open to a solution. That what makes it a problem.

A paradox, on the other hand, is gated by boundaries that make a solution impossible.

If you've been working on a situation, chewing on it, throwing everything you've got at it, it might not be a problem at all. You may have invented a paradox, creating so many limits that you'll never get anywhere.

It makes no sense to work on a paradox. Drop it and move on. Even better, figure out which boundaries to remove and turn it into a problem instead.

Two examples: Building a worldwide limo fleet is impossible, a paradox that requires too much money and too much time--by the time you raised enough money and hired enough supervisors, you'd never be able to charge enough to earn it back. But once you ease the boundary of, "if you own a transport service, you must own the cars and hire the drivers," the idea of building a network is merely a problem.

Another more general one: Making significant forward motion without offending anyone or exposing yourself to fear is a paradox. But once you're willing to relax those boundaries, it becomes a problem, one with side effects you're willing to live with...

       

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joi, 21 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : Processing feedback



Processing feedback

This is one of the most important untaught skills available to each of us.

Three times in a row, a salesperson is rejected by one prospect after another.

A customer complains to a company that its website is not working with her browser.

An editor rejects the manuscript from a first-time novelist...

What to do?

How do we deal with the troll who enjoys creating uncertainty? Or the person carrying around a bagful of pain that she needs to share? How do we differentiate between constructive, useful insight and the other kind? How do we decide which feedback is actually a clue about how our core audience feels, and which is a distraction, a shortcut on the road to mediocre banality?

If you listen to none of the feedback, you will learn nothing. If you listen to all of it, nothing will happen.

Like all life skills, there's not a glib answer.

But we can definitely ask the questions. And get better at the art of listening (and dismissing). 

The place to start is with two categories. The category of, "I actively seek this sort of feedback out and listen to it and act on it." And the category of, "I'm not interested in hearing that." There is no room for a third category.

       

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miercuri, 20 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : Numbers (and the magic of measuring the right thing)



Numbers (and the magic of measuring the right thing)

What you measure usually gets paid attention to, and what you pay attention to, usually gets better.

Numbers supercharge measurement, because numbers are easy to compare.

Numbers make it difficult to hide.

And hence the problem.

Income is easy to measure, and so we fall into the trap that people who make more money are better, or happier, or somehow more worthy of respect and dignity.

Likes are easy to measure, so social media becomes a race to the bottom, where the panderer and the exhibitionist win.

Five star reviews are easy to measure, so creators feel the pressure to get more of them.

But wait!

What does it mean to 'win'? Is maximizing the convenient number actually going to produce the impact and the outcome you wanted?

Is the most important work always the most popular? Does widespread acceptance translate into significant impact? Or even significant sales? Is the bestseller list also the bestbook list?

Who are these reviews from? Are they based on expectations (a marketing function) or are they based on the change you were trying to make? It turns out that great books and great movies get more than their fair share of lousy reviews--because popular items attract more users, and those users might not be people you were seeking to please.

Or consider graduation rates. The easiest way to make them go up is to lower standards. Or to get troublesome students to transfer to other institutions or even to get them arrested. When we lose track of what's important in our rush to keep track of what's measurable, we fail.

The right numbers matter. A hundred years ago, Henry Ford figured out how to build a car far cheaper than his competitors. He was selling the Model T for a fraction of what it cost other companies to even make one of their cars. And so measuring the cost of manufacture became urgent and essential.

And farmers discovered the yield was the secret to their success, so tons per acre became the most important thing to measure. Until people started keeping track of flavor, nutrition and side effects.

And then generals starting measuring body count...

When you measure the wrong thing, you get the wrong thing. Perhaps you can be precise in your measurement, but precision is not significance.

On the other hand, when you are able to expose your work and your process to the right thing, to the metric that actually matters, good things happen.

We need to spend more time figuring out what to keep track of, and less time actually obsessing over the numbers that we are already measuring.

       

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