boz.

Ideas Over Implementation

People tend to get attached to a specific concept of what they are trying to accomplish rather than the idea it represents

Prioritize Relatively

It is not enough to assess whether an idea is good or not but rather necessary to compare it to all other ideas you could be pursuing

Love What You Do

Instead of pursuing what you love you should pursue what you are good at as the success will compound which is what will really keep you engaged. This goes for hobbies as well as work and keeping them in balance is key.

Think of Pavlov

almost all interactions are repeat games

The Gift of Naïveté

Organizations only improve when people are brave enough to question normalized nonsense and others are humble enough to listen.

Find Space

People tend to all pursue the same opportunity but the greater impact is often had by pursuing the opportunity nobody else sees

Positraction

Conflict feels costly but keeping systems at tension can sometimes be the key to consistent results

Emotional Economy

You should only let the opinions of others affect your self worth insofar as you have made an intentional decision to do so

You Are How You Act

You are the sum of your behaviors not your intentions

Honesty is the Best Policy

There is a compounding value in being honest

Self Actualization

So tell the story you want to be true. Eventually, it will be.

Look For Yes

the conflict between groups tasked with managing risk and those tasked with making progress is legendary but both sides need to play a role in moving forward

Two Things Can Be True

Sometimes it is necessary to criticize both sides in an argument and challenge each to consider the other.

Product Innovation is Discovery not Creation

people tend to reverse causality when talking about products, tending to believe the product causes a behavior. More likely the opposite is true, a behavior (or desire for the behavior) causes the product to exist.

Inbox ten

my system for productivity

Unit of Work

There is wisdom in old code and it is expensive to recreate

Incentives and the Cobra Effect

It is surprisingly common for an incentive intended to create one outcome to create the exact opposite.

Bottlenecks vs Bandpass

Bottlenecks are famous for slowing things down but did you know they are also terrible at ensuring attention is put in the areas it is most needed?

Get It Done

Too often people do the best they can with what they have when they should instead get it done

Focus On Impact

When a slogan becomes a target, it ceases to become a good slogan

Focus

The best time to stop a distraction is before it starts. The second best time is now.

Theory of Mind

It is not enough to make a decision, you need to explain the process by which you arrived at it.

Cycle Time

An examination of the way organizational structure and process affects the rate at which you iterate

Limits of Service Leadership

Delegating, empowering, and supporting your team is great but if it goes so far as deference then it is an abdication of your job as manager.

Overfitting

Once a cat jumps on a hot stove, it never jumps on a cold one. People make that same mistake all the time to their own detriment.

Curves

On managing projects at different stages of maturity

On Sarcasm

I could do without sarcasm

On Humility

Humility, Civility, and balancing the expression of ideas

Etiquette

Maybe table manners really do matter after all

Harness Selection Bias

Sometimes you need an army of the willing

Half Staffed is Unstaffed

The alternative to ruthless prioritization is failure

Be Plainspoken

Operations

People overestimate the value of strategy relative to execution

Information and Effort

The burden of reducing context collapse cannot be entirely on the author, but also on the audience

Context and Conspiracy

An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure when it comes to context collapse

Humility and Hyperbole

It is tempting to communicate with rhetorical flourish but it is more optimal over the long term to communicate humbly

The Paradox of the Heap

A change in degree is not necessarily a change in kind

Redemption

On the inequitable distribution of second chances

On Experts and Critics

Listen to experts and critics but be cautious not to give them more weight than they are due as most people are neither.

Asimov and Emotion

Taking responsibility for someone else backfires. You can only take responsibility for your own behaviors.

Runaway Selection

Success can make it hard to identify failures

The Streetlight Effect

Motivated thinking can cause us to pursue improbable paths

Which Self

An exploration of consciousness

Free Trade

Sometimes getting the thing you want untethers you economically from people you would be better of intertwined with

The Problem with Proximate Cause

Simple cause an effect explanations are attractive but often wrong, it is important to dig deeper

Second Order Anxiety

Being mad or sad is rarely a problem. But being mad about being mad or being sad about being sad gets to a bad place really fast.

Finding The Line

People often focus on avoiding failure rather than achieving success.

Know Thyself

Identity and motivation are powerful forces we often fail to understand well enough in ourselves and in others.

Failure Theory

While the rate of failure can be reduced over time that often comes at the expense of introducing the possibility of more catastrophic failures. It can be helpful to model failure as a fixed sum which will be released either in a large number of small increments or a small number of large ones.

Manage Your Manager

Having a manager is not a passive engagement