Leading while sleepwalkingthe same dayTalking with one of my colleagues, we arrived at this interesting insight.…Something will get optimized

Nudging Embodied Strategy2022The whole concept of the cone of embodied strategy is a bit…Gravity and water2023I have been lucky enough to be part of the process of…Complex adaptive systems tend to make it difficult to make guesses about precise shifts and movements. Unlike in complicated systems, accurate call shots are rarely a thing. However, if we pay close enough attention, we can spot patterns (events that keep repeating) or forces (tendency to move toward certain kinds of outcomes). In a conversation with my colleagues, we uncovered this possible pattern. It appears that in an organization of technically-minded people (like an engineering team), there’s an almost impossible-to-overcome force toward optimization.

Aircraft Carriers and Zodiac Boats2024An insightful conversation with a colleague inspired me to articulate the distinction…Engineers tend to love to hang out in complicated spaces. Writing code feels like this perfect mix of unconstrained creativity within fairly stable constraints. It feels like flying, because there’s enough unchanging laws of physics to support the flight. Optimization is the zenith of the complicated space (can you make it go faster? in fewer lines of code? using less memory?) and optimization work tends to emerge spontaneously all over the place.

Vision-oriented and impact-oriented mindsets2022Impact-minded folks tend to fall into the trap of opportunism. When I…Organizing and sensing connections2021Tucked away in a couple of paragraphs of the brilliant paper by…Settled and “not settled yet” framings2021I was working on decision-making frameworks this week and had a pretty…Unfortunately, in complex spaces, it is very hard to tell what needs to be optimized. So the emergence of optimization efforts tends to be guided by the surrounding forces. Folks who are happy in complicated spaces will look for constraints that are stable and optimize around them — sometimes to ill effect.

Cutting or highlighting?2021Talking with one of my wise colleagues, we arrived at this neat…The ghost of unclear theory of changeseven days afterThe unclear theory of change often haunts conversations about strategy — especially…Weak opinions, strongly heldlinks here, 2021In my experience, this pattern pops up more often in teams that…Veering toward first-order effectslinks here, 2021A common symptom of forgetting to counter-steer toward second-order effects is the…Separating cargo from the trainlinks here, 2023The lens that really helps here is “something will get optimized”. When…For example, if I direct my team to embrace innovation and encourage novel thinking, but forget to adjust performance management structure, I might be unpleasantly surprised that the stream of innovations comes as a barrage of tactical tweaks rather than a few bold ideas. It’s helpful to remember that the gravity-like force of optimization is always there and worth reflecting on where it’s propelling your engineering team.