Decision-Making

Get Good At Things By Being Bad First

May 2, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Your first attempts are going to be bad

A technique used by many a brilliant inventor:

Make something. Get it functional. Get it adequate. It’s okay if it’s subpar.
Then, stumble around. Iterate until it’s good.

Now, that’s a better creative process than making something good on the first go.

Start, even if you’re bad at it

Case in point: Write bad first drafts quickly. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. Let it all pour out. Let it romp all over the place. No one’s going to see it. You can shape it up later. You can gradually polish the thought flow and enrich the choice of words.

If you aren’t willing to be bad initially, you’ll never get started on anything new.

It’s vastly easier to revise your way into a cut above than drum up brilliance out of thin air.

The way you create something good is by launching into it and then iterating gradually rather than by going into your cave and trying to create that perfect masterpiece.

Essentially, this is agile development. The best programmers write functional code to prove some concept. Along the way, they’ll get a better understanding of the business need for the software and the workflow. Bit by bit, they rework snippets of code and improve continuously.

Idea for Impact: Just start. Do a bad first job.

The bad is the precursor to the good. Bad will get you started. It’ll move you forward. Pressing on, you’ll get illuminated, enlightened, and informed.

Momentum is everything. Don’t put off any contemplated task thinking, “This is hard. I don’t know how to do this well. I’m going to have to do it perfectly. Or I need to wait till I have enough time.” The instant you stop cold and put something off, momentum starts the other way.

Motivation is often the result of an action, not its cause. Taking action—even in small, sloppy ways—naturally produces momentum. It’s a better solution than trying to do it right the first time.

Intellectual Inspiration Often Lies in the Overlap of Disparate Ideas

January 20, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

From David Chapman’s instructive essay ‘How to Think Real Good,’

Learn from fields very different from your own. They each have ways of thinking that can be useful at surprising times. Just learning to think like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a philosopher will beneficially stretch your mind.

I’ve always been an admirer of the “Renaissance Man”—the notion that one should try to embrace multiple streams of knowledge and develop one’s own faculties as broadly as possible. An archaeologist who studies only material culture will think similar thoughts to a second archaeologist who studies only material culture. However, an archaeologist whose studies include anthropology, biology, geology, and metallurgy has the wherewithal to pursue her curiosity down disparate channels and synthesize multiple perspectives.

Idea for Impact: Dabble in multiple disciplines from time to time and try to understand the basic thinking model of each discipline. You’ll think more broadly, redefine problems outside of normal boundaries, and reach solutions anchored in a unique understanding of complex situations.

Making Tough Decisions with Scant Data

January 18, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Yesterday’s New York Times article highlights the complex tradeoff leaders must often make between indecision and acting on insufficient information:

The Omicron variant is pushing the CDC into issuing recommendations based on what once would have been considered insufficient evidence, amid growing public concern about how these guidelines affect the economy and education. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has been commended for short-circuiting a laborious process and taking a pragmatic approach to manage a national emergency, saying she was right to move ahead even when the data was unclear and agency researchers remained unsure. The challenge now for Dr. Walensky is figuring out how to convey this message to the public: “The science is incomplete, and this is our best advice for now.”

The smartest people I know are the ones who understand that they don’t know—can’t know—everything. Yet, they’re ready to act on imperfect information, especially when being slow will be costly.

Idea for Impact: Being able to analyze information is insufficient if you can’t reach decisions.

Knowing you’ll never know everything shouldn’t prevent you from acting. The ability to reason and reconsider your position on something is an integral part of rational thought.

Is Dave Ramsey Wrong? Pay Off Your Mortgage as Quickly as You Can?

November 29, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Sure, personal finance guru Dave Ramsey’s advice has encouraged thousands of devoted followers to get out of debt and stop living paycheck to paycheck. Yet, depending on your circumstances, he may be dead wrong on paying off your mortgage early.

A generation ago, mortgage rates were 6–10%. With interest rates that high, paying off your mortgage was a no-brainer. Today, however, interest rates are 2.5–4%, making a different story. You could pay off your mortgage quicker if you’d like. But with the low-interest rates today, you may want to consider investing instead of paying off the low-interest debt. The average stock market return for buy-and-hold investors over the long term is about 7% annually, even after considering inflation.

In sum, Dave Ramsey’s advice just doesn’t make as much sense today with how low-interest rates are comparatively.

But some nuance is in order: Ramsey promotes financial stability. He accepts the risk of missed investment returns in exchange for the guarantee of reduced financial obligations. On balance, investing in the market while carrying a mortgage is tantamount to leveraging debt.

Idea for Impact: Ramsey measures opportunity cost as the difference between paying down your mortgage and the worst-case stock market investment scenario. So, unless you’re extraordinarily risk-averse and can’t take the risk in the market, you shouldn’t pay off your mortgage early. Invest in a low-cost index fund, and don’t let short-term movements sway your decisions.

Even the Best Need a Coach

November 22, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

As the saying goes, it’s what you learn after you know it all.

Top athletes rely on coaches to push their performance to new heights. Even Tiger Woods had a swing coach at the top of his game.

Many corporate executives seek out several advisors who help frame ideas for them and play a point of critical thinking. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch worked with Ram Charan, the eminence grise of business advisors, for many years.

“It’s not how good you are now; it’s how good you’re going to be that really matters”

In a TED2017 speech, the American surgeon Atul Gawande—author of such well-received books as The Checklist Manifesto (2011)—emphasized how coaching helps individuals and teams execute better on the fundamentals:

Having a good coach to provide a more accurate picture of our reality, to instill positive habits of thinking, and to break our actions down and then help us build them back up again.

There are numerous problems in “making it on your own.” You don’t recognize the issues that are standing in your way—or, if you do, you don’t necessarily know how to fix them. And the result is that somewhere along the way, you stop improving.

That’s what great coaches do—they are your external eyes and ears, providing a more accurate picture of your reality. They’re good at recognizing the fundamentals. They’re breaking your actions down and then helping you build them back up again.

Sometimes you can be too close to things to see the truth.

Blind spots are less obvious when things are going well. It is very easy for you to become inward-looking, particularly when you’ve been very successful. However, these blind spots can become destructive when performance moves in the other direction.

A third-party, fresh-eye assessment is an obvious reality check. Coaching is a whole line of way that can bring value to what you do and excel at it.

If you’re successful and want to get better, you’ll need to look at your situation as an outsider might. Coaching can help you get perspective and see things in a more detached manner.

It’s Lonely at the Top

Executives need a valuable ally and a resource for professional growth. They hire coaches to help explore their strengths and vulnerabilities.

Coaches are also valuable allies in decision-making. Many executives find it helpful to talk important decisions over with a trusted coach—just the process of talking can help sort out and clarify thoughts and feelings. Not to mention how another person’s views may illumine aspects of a problem that you may have missed.

Besides, many a coach’s specific arena is one of interpersonal relationships, office politics, and corporate culture. To be effective in our work, you must be effective in building relationships with your bosses, subordinates, peers, and other organizational stakeholders such as customers and suppliers. Management and leadership are all about influence.

Idea for Impact: Coaching is how people get better at what they do

You too should consider a coach to look at things with a fresh eye, improve your performance, and help with interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

Decision-Making Isn’t Black and White

October 30, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Most decisions aren’t “good” or “bad;” most fall somewhere in the middle.

Coming to terms with this reality is a big part of allowing yourself to trust your decisions, especially when dealing with uncertainty. Besides, more thinking can’t always be better thinking.

Let go of decisions you made in the past that you weren’t entirely satisfied with. Don’t let them haunt you in the present. Don’t let them second-guess yourself after a decision has been made.

Idea for Impact: When decisions don’t work out as expected, give yourself a break. Not all bad outcomes result from bad decisions. There are positive and negative implications to everything. And that’s OK.

Don’t Demonize Employees Who Raise Problems

October 21, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of the traps of successful leadership is being surrounded with “yes men.” Your team could hesitate to challenge your decisions, no matter how bad or mistaken they may be.

Hearing what others rally think can give you a valuable perspective. Nevertheless, it’s not really in human nature to invite others to inform you how—and why—you’re wrong. Human nature is such that we all want to hear nice things about ourselves and be reassured that we’re on the right track.

“When in doubt, keep your mouth shut,” indeed

Employees are terrified to speak up owing to the need for self-preservation. The apparent risks of speaking up are very personal and immediate, especially in comparison to some potential benefits to your organization someday. Employees impulsively play it safe.

Even if your employees are more knowledgeable, they may think twice before giving you candid feedback, especially if you’ve demonstrated tendencies of being vindictive, penalizing—even reprimanding publicly or sacking—anybody with a dissenting view.

Disciplining employees who raise problems only exacerbates the problematical frame of mind around a successful leader. It promotes the toxic culture of unquestioned power. As the American general and diplomat Colin Powell reminded in a famous speech at Sears headquarters, “The day your people stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either is a failure of leadership.”

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a culture in which psychological safety thrives.

Create a work environment where your employees aren’t afraid to speak up and express their concerns. People will stick their neck out only if they sense a low psychological threat level.

Compartmentalize and Get More Done

September 16, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One way you can achieve “living in the moment” is by putting your emotional issues into “compartments” within your head and your heart. You can deal with those feelings on your own when you need to.

Many aspects of life can get you sidetracked and distraught. Finding a place to retreat within yourself can be challenging. By compartmentalizing, you can put your feelings where they belong, and you can earmark one challenge to tackle another challenge.

You can focus on the one task at hand and deal with the rest when appropriate.

Mental compartmentalization has a darker side, however. Psychologists identify extreme compartmentalization as a major defense mechanism by which some evade the acute anxiety that can spring from the clash of contradictory values or conflicting emotions. (A very pious scientist, for instance, could hold opposing beliefs about the Judeo-Christian and scientific notions of life’s origins. Compartmentalizing, she may live different value sets depending on whether she’s at church or her laboratory.) Some individuals also fall back on compartmentalization to cope with the lingering trauma of childhood abuse, neglect, and other emotional conflicts.

The day-to-day compartmentalization I’m talking about isn’t denial or avoidance. It isn’t evading conflicts and sidestepping problems—instead, it’s putting things out of the way for the moment and not letting them impede the rest of your life.

You can’t just ignore your issues and expect them to go away, but obsessing on them won’t help either.

Idea for Impact: Compartmentalize and get more done. Putting away the things that hurt or upset you, even if just for a short time, can also help you gain valuable perspective on dealing with them.

The Solution to a Problem Often Depends on How You State It

August 25, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Consider a family with four drivers and one car. Being a one-car family isn’t always convenient or even pleasant. Creative solutions can’t emerge if the family asks, “How could we make the car available to everybody who needs it when they need it?” If, instead, they ask, “How can we each meet our needs without using the car?” Mom can join a carpool to work. Dad can combine his trips when he runs errands once a week. The kids can ride their bikes whenever the weather favors. If the family needs to be in two places at the same time, somebody can Uber. Coordinating can be annoying, but with a bit of flexibility and communication, getting by with one car can easily be pulled off.

Defining a problem narrowly (“How can we create a better mousetrap?”) will only get you restricted answers. When you define the issue more broadly (“How can we get rid of mice?,”) you open up a whole range of possibilities.

Idea for Impact: Revisit and redefine the problem if you can’t get through the tensions inherent in conflicting expectations. The fresh perspective can open your mind to alternative interpretations.

Many Hard Leadership Lessons in the Boeing 737 MAX Debacle

August 24, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The U.S. House committee’s report on Boeing’s 737 MAX disaster makes interesting reading on contemporary leadership, particularly the pressures of rapid product development.

The rush to market and a culture of contributory negligence and concealment conspired to ensure that a not-yet-airworthy plane carried passengers into service, resulting in two fatal accidents and a long grounding.

Boeing’s design and development of the 737 MAX was marred by technical design failures, a lack of transparency with both regulators and customers, and efforts to downplay or disregard concerns about the operation of the aircraft.

Of particular importance are the “management failures,” “inherent conflicts of interest,” and “grossly insufficient oversight” at both Boeing and its regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA.) Boeing failed to offset the design limitations and cost- and schedule-pressures in favor of attention to customer safety. Leadership was fixated on fending off the runaway success of the Airbus A320neo program.

The company relied on too many technical assumptions—and they couldn’t make themselves the space and time to be reasonable about any of this. Boeing’s “culture of concealment” and an “unwillingness to share technical details” are the report’s most damning indictment. Employees spoke but went unheard; indeed, their voices were suppressed.

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Decision-Making

Your first attempts are going to be bad

Start, even if you’re bad at it

Idea for Impact: Just start. Do a bad first job.

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Being able to analyze information is insufficient if you can’t reach decisions.

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

“It’s not how good you are now; it’s how good you’re going to be that really matters”

Sometimes you can be too close to things to see the truth.

It’s Lonely at the Top

Idea for Impact: Coaching is how people get better at what they do

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

“When in doubt, keep your mouth shut,” indeed

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a culture in which psychological safety thrives.

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?