Deciphering Chaos

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:47:43 GMT

A while back I had written a post “ Decision Making Is a Science ” in which I urged people to stop making pseudo-scientific decisions based on instinct. This is an important companion to that post. Lately, it’s become even more important to make rapid decisions in the absence of applicable data, without making a lot of mistakes. I’m thankful to several people at HP that trained me well to deal with ever-new situations, embracing an experience and intuition driven, action-oriented approach to complex, emergent situations.

When dealing with national security, cyber security, massive scale technology operations, civil unrest, invasions, biological weapons, viral outbreaks, early stage technology investing and other areas where “new” is the norm, it is important to very quickly pick a decisive course of action. Waiting and watching, gathering more data, and episteme will result in more damage, which then requires stronger than initially necessary medicine, which in turn usually bears its own vile consequences. [Two quick examples: a proposal to solve the pre-cyber Monday infrastructure issue by introducing a new, untested piece of hardware in all our datacenters, that would have tremendous expense and potentially other catastrophic short and long term consequences. Second: arming the rebels in Iraq that have now metastasized into ISIS]

Use your instinct, intuition and cross-domain knowledge to rapidly find and apply a course of action. Here’s the tricky part: Don’t be wedded to your initial view as the situation develops. Don’t suffer from confirmation bias, where you interpret each new piece of evidence according to your fancy. Worse, if new data diverges from your initial hypothesis, don’t keep waiting for the next set of data points to arrive and prove you right, prepare a new response, and begin executing its lighter components. Course correction does not mean wildly veering from one solution to another. It’s just an exhortation to recognize data correctly as it streams in. Think of a counter that you set initially to a certain value, say 1,000 or 10,000 and each incoming data point is a +1, -1, +10, -10, +100, or -100. Don’t be afraid to adjust or even reverse course when it becomes necessary.

Many brilliant people let their egos get in the way when it comes to discarding their strongly held views. Often, they are afraid to contradict themselves publicly. This is a common reason why management fails in modern corporations. Instead of a continuous stream of experiments and business adjustments there are grand plans and grander prognostications, with great shame and loss of prestige attached to correcting course. Sure, employees dislike whiplash and stress from course correcting all the time, but an agile organization should be able to absorb a fair amount of change, provided it is complemented with trust and great communication, instead of the autocratic style found at most large companies.

The brightest people I know have strong opinions, weakly held. This concept was cemented in my mind at an Alliance of CEO’s meeting where Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future quoted work from Paul Satto. Then, there is the classic story of how George Soros changes his mind about things when he gets new data.

There are situations where continuous application of force at a point of attack yields results, e.g. in a military campaign or a user acquisition campaign. But even within those umbrella campaigns are a series of micro or large adjustments based on incoming data. Big data makes the data gathering, and information extraction process more powerful, allowing even more strongly opinions, weakly held.

Are there other situations where you recommend this formulation?

Proximate Cause vs. Root Cause

Mon, 15 May 2023 09:39:51 GMT

If you have two potential solutions to a problem, a simple rule of thumb is: if executing one of the solutions repeatedly does not solve the problem, it was not addressing the root cause, and was at best, an interim solution, and at worst, a waste of time. It was just addressing a proximate cause.

If executing a solution “kills dead” the problem, it addressed the root cause. Why it was not readily apparent that it was the best solution: A mix of fear, inexperience, incompetence, politics, cost, time to implement, and so on.

When faced with a range of solutions, SWOT analysis is commonly used, but it often yields similarly weighed options. Use the test outlined above to eliminate options “If I repeated this solution over and over again, would it kill dead the problem?”

Where to use this: If you have to get back to a customer while you are busy fixing their problem, do you focus on informing your management and the customer, or on deep troubleshooting unknown unknowns?

The best answer is both. But if you had to choose only one due to time constraints? Obviously, if the customer is an external, paying customer, keep them informed. Customer satisfaction and revenue are the larger problems here.

If the time to solution is long, send regular updates as you keep working.

If the customer is internal, and the demand for frequent updates is more due to a middle manager or gopher trying to suck up to his management, trying to add “value” by showing he “drives” projects? Politely point him to this post on proximate cause vs root cause. Frequent updates, no matter how many, will not fix the problem. Troubleshooting will.(Exceptions do apply where updates yield additional expertise or resources)

Time, Dollars, Energy, and Emotion

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:24:49 GMT

The E=mc2 of humanity

Einstein’s equation E=mc2 dictates that matter and energy are inter-convertible and applies well to matters that are astronomically large, or matters that are microscopically small. On a more human scale though, in all human endeavors, we find that we are endowed with only finite amounts of time, dollars, energy, and emotion (TDEE). These are the four biggest assets you have, the four most precious commodities which you can apply to build a career, a life, and a legacy.

Realizing that TDEE are inter-convertible just like mass and energy, it is important to be judicious in their use, always expending the one appropriate for the situation at hand, dispensing it in the right quantity, never wasting any of them, and finding means to extend your reserves of each of these.

Every one of us have all four, just in varying amounts and proportions. A high school student has ample energy but little money. A millionaire has ample money, but little time.

For some, the inter-convertibility is easy, for others, it is harder. A person with no higher education is usually less able to convert time to money. A person with a lot of money can usually create more time for themselves if they choose to. However, a 70 year old billionaire might not be able to expend physical energy as easily as a teen. Know for your situation how much of each you have, and how easy it is for you to convert any one of the four to another.

It is important to assess what amount of each is demanded by our current situation in life. Children, parents, relatives, bosses, friends, work, hobbies, chores, vacations, all place demands on our TDEE. Young children might place a bigger demand on time than older ones, but a cancer stricken spouse might have bigger emotional needs.

Most people create household money budgets. Some even create schedules for their own time and as a family. Very few actually create a comprehensive budget plan that encompasses all four, time, dollars, energy and emotion.

Realize that some demands on your TDEE are mandatory, others are convertible. If you have a lot of money, and your kids demand a lot of time, you can create more time by hiring a nanny, but there is a basic level of support and interaction that must be had with your own children, you cannot build a relationship by proxy. Likewise, if you lack fitness and fitness knowledge, but have ample time, you can read up, learn, and apply the knowledge to your fitness goals, but if you have less time and more money, hire a professional health coach, a personal trainer, or even a personal chef if you are that wealthy. However, there is a minimum commitment of time to health that you cannot pay someone else to do for you, and no amount of emotional support from a spouse reduces your own time needed to go work out. After all, money can buy you good healthcare and extend your life, but not even a billionaire can avoid death.

You can increase your reserves of TDEE by rigorous effort. An education and intelligent hard work give you more dollars. Taking care of your health gives you more energy. Eliminating (unnecessary) distractions or outsourcing lower value tasks give you more time. Meditation, spiritual practice, and giving unconditional love give you bigger emotional reserves.

Money is the easiest one to trade to other forms, but emotional needs are the hardest to fix with money.

So assess all the demands on your TDEE. Decide your necessary and desired commitments to each judiciously. Be prudent about where you can trade and your ability to inter-convert TDEE. Create a comprehensive TDEE budget. Defend attacks on it zealously but accept interesting deviations. Continuously increase your TDEE reserves in each of the four areas, not just one of them.

On Authenticity

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 09:06:07 GMT

Heard someone quoting someone “The most important thing in life is authenticity and if you can fake that, you will be successful”.

This is not a cynical construct though, it’s about entering new fields of endeavor and mastering them so that even though you were not authentic at the outset, you end up being so. It is like a method actor deeply embedding themselves into the role and becoming the character they need to be.

Stat Fortuna Domus Virtute

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 11:41:12 GMT

The fortune of the house is defined by its excellence

Our mission is to make workers happier, and companies more productive.

Giving and receiving gratitude and recognition is the most fundamental of human mental desires and rights, just one level above basic animal life support functions, and below conscious or directed thought; even apes and dogs feel unfair treatment.

Yet, these desires and rights are squashed by our subjective, reductionist, and proxy methods of measuring a person’s contributions: grad school and college application essays, SAT scores, GPAs, resumes, company HR files, and bland testimonials and “endorsements” on career social networking sites.

We believe that the true measure of a worker, whether a student, corporate employee, or freelancer, is the value that they continuously and constantly bring to people around them, as best evidenced by a system of frequent, authentic feedback.

With this truly human-to-human feedback recorded for posterity, accessible beyond school and corporate firewalls, groups of workers with complementary work styles, values and know-how can converge in a state of “flow”, resulting in happier workers, and higher productivity for their institutions.

Blame, like water

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 09:03:31 GMT

Finds its way to the most permissive layer

Accept blame when you deserve it, own up to your mistakes, even take one for the team when it’s appropriate. But guard zealously against blame flowing downwards and sideways towards you.

If you are put in charge of new responsibilities, document the risk factors at the outset, discuss them with your management.

If someone else’s responsibilities are transferred over to you, document the initial state, the risks, and get sign off from the assigner and management.

If you are transferring responsibilities to someone else, document the end state, get written sign off from management and the newly assigned.

For a reasonable period of 30-90 days, have regular meetings with management, the assigner or the assigned.

The responsibility for documenting, securing sign off and understanding, identifying risk factors, and other due diligence to prevent blame lies with you. Corporate blame is a source of mental, relationship, and health stress, and is one of the biggest productivity killers.

Blame can come in torrents and floods, or slowly eat into you even at a trickle. Take the necessary steps to prevent yourself from being “the most permissive layer”.

Thoughts ‘pon a Winter Eve

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 10:04:20 GMT

Your dreams and true visions will be crushed by people that “care”, but think they are somehow sick because your visions doesn’t match theirs.

If you are not disciplined, focused, and driven, the people closest to you can hurt your dreams the most.

The noise generated by hangers-on, self-serving well wishers, and self-important busy bodies just drains you.

Beware of drugs like success, money, loneliness, praise, and adrenaline …as much as heroin.

If you are not doing things you love, you will have to keep energizing yourself falsely to just “get through the show.”

Don’t shelve your dreams and things you love. Putting them aside, and not focusing on things that need care and nurture will kill them.

Your dreams that died will eat at you like maggots digging into your flesh. Your demons will turn you into an unrecognizable monster.

Until you tear away all that was left of the false you that others created while you were half-asleep.

Your hallucinations of failure are worse than actual failings & self-delusions get worse the longer you dont move under your own volition.

When the wiser, more mature you emerges after youthful dreams, adolescent turbulence, carelessness, intermediate success and failure, soul-searching, and tearing away layers of falsehood, be careful not to turn into the very dictators you loathe

BROBDINGNAGIAN DATA. WHAT COMES AFTER A ZETTABYTE?

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:00:30 GMT

You can’t even plot the above without taking the log of the number of bytes!

1024 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte

1024 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte

1024 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte

1024 Zettabyte = 1 Yottabyte

1024 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte

1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geobyte

1024 Geobytes = 1 Zotzabyte

1024 Zotzabyte = 1 Nimcbyte

1024 Nimcbyte = 1 Chamsbyte

1024 Chamsbyte = This will be defined after we are just reaching the Zotzabye scale