Principles: Life and Work

An idea meritocracy requires people to do three things: 1) Put their honest thoughts on the table for everyone to see, 2) Have thoughtful disagreements where there are quality back-and-forths in which people evolve their thinking to come up with the best collective answers possible, and 3) Abide by idea-meritocratic ways of getting past the remaini

it’s nearly impossible to change a behavior without practicing it.

Effective managers pay attention both to imminent problems and to problems that haven’t hit them yet. They constantly feel the tug of the strategic path because they worry about not getting to their ultimate goal and they are determined to continue their process of discovery until they do.

Remember that a good plan should resemble a movie script. The more vividly you can visualize how the scenario you create will play out, the more likely it is to happen as you plan. Visualize who will do what when and the result they’ll produce. This is your mental map of your machine. Recognize

The third biggest reason for failure is to not connect what one is learning in one diagnosis to what was learned in prior ones.

The most common mistake I see people make is dealing with their problems as one-offs rather than using them to diagnose how their machine is working so that they can improve it.

Making sure that little problems don’t exist is important because, if they’re allowed to continue, they will grow into big problems.

Having this kind of anxiety about what can go wrong is extremely useful. It is what drives one to develop systems and metrics for monitoring the outcomes your machine is producing and motivates those who manage well to constantly taste-test the outputs of the system and to look for problems in its nooks and crannies.

Don’t undermine your progress in pursuit of a pat on the back; celebrate finding out what is not going well so you can make it go better.