Move Fast and Kill People

When we stagger out of bed and get ready for work, we often follow a routine. We have a "process" we use over and over again. One of the most powerful parts of modern management is how we develop and rely upon processes to perform functions over and over again. While some people attempt to circumvent such processes and processes do need to be rethought on a regular basis, destroying a process can destroy the organization. When people's lives are at stake, following a well thought out process can be essential to survival.

Back in 2011, JC Penney was struggling and the board brought in a new CEO. This person, Ron Johnson, came from Apple where he had built the Apple stores and previously had been at Target. He proceeded to make massive changes to JC Penney stores and merchandise. Customers fled. JC Penney still hasn't recovered from that disaster. Coming in and making massive changes without understanding what people are actually doing is a recipe for disaster, not for cost savings.

Creating a process takes a lot of thought, the more critical the process, the more thought needs to be used. Changing a process takes at least as much thought as creating it. Doing such changes well involves deep understanding of the goals and purposes of the organization.

Creating and rethinking a process needs to be done with the input from the people closest to it. The best practices happen when we involve in the planning and execution of the changes those who know what is being done. The people closest to the issue know the special details needed to properly create processes or to make the plans in an emergency. The US Army tries to educate the lowest person so that they can make decisions on the battle field appropriate to the situation. Yes, this takes a lot more time, but the results are far better than "taking a chainsaw to the process."

Every time a process is created or changed by centralized authority, things do not work as well and often, people get hurt. A study found that the more that emergency responses were planned and run by centralized authority, the more people died in the emergency.

Many technology companies have operated on the phrase, "move fast and break things." That is fine when everything they do is just in the cloud. But when people's lives are at stake, it is the wrong way to go. Tesla released their "self-driving" capability before it was ready and it caused a number of auto crashes. People died.

The Apollo moon program used computers that were small by today's standards, but the programming was done under strict control. The review process was very intense. At the end, they had almost no computer bugs. They could bring people back home after an accident.

Yes, a single person can make great changes, but few positive changes that last. Lasting change almost always needs many people supporting it.

Build the team that can create something that will last.

Turn Problems Around

Does singing a country song backwards bring back your pickup and dog? While humorous to think that it might, this saying is about looking at problems from the other end. Many times, we get caught up in one way of thinking and turning the problem around is a great way to see our problem in a new light. When we look at the potential failures of investments, we might be able to see things we missed when full of enthusiasm.

Charlie Munger is reported to say that many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backwards. Instead of looking at how to make an investment happen, look at why it will fail. Find all the ways that the investment won't work out and avoid those ways. To make a lot of money, it is far better to avoid losing large amounts than to chase high returns.

When trying to solve a physics class problem, being focused on one way that things could be seen yielded the wrong answer. The correct answer came by approaching the problem from the other end. Turning the problem around is a solid technique in science, technology, and when trying to solve numerous human problems.

Imagining failure is a great exercise. If we can find the ways that what we are about to do will cause failure, we are more likely to be able to avoid many bad calls, bad investments, bad business choices. If we can't find a way that this would fail, then it is likely to be a good choice.

Falling in love with our ideas is a sure fire way to lose. Writers learn to kill their best lines so that the whole piece works better.

Turn the problem around, but don't expect the dog and truck to come back simply by singing backwards.

Risky World

Due to an input field being automatically filled with zeros and not cleared out when entering the amount to transfer, a Citibank customer was briefly credited with 81 trillion dollars. At a 3% interest rate, that would accrue millions of dollars of interest during the 90 minutes in his account.