Culture defeats motivation. And culture is distributed and rarely happens all at once. Culture is a system’s way of defending itself, and if we’re to build a system, we should be mindful of the culture we create.

The tension and stress of talking about a decision before we make it is real. Yet it’s far less than the tension and stress that goes with living with a poor decision we made yesterday.

The system probably isn’t open to changing how it sees opportunity cost, so you’re going to need to dance with it.

Cheaper means less expensive, or less complicated, or more convenient.

What matters is customer traction. Not everyone, someone. If the customers stick around, that’s good. If they bring their friends and colleagues, it’s likely to be a success.

be a meaningful specific, not a wandering generality.

6. The Elegant Path is the Most Useful Way Forward

The opportunity is to see the risks, understand the game, and build our expectations and responses about risk into the project.

Convenience and efficiency—even though systems aren’t perfect, they offer participants outputs that encourage them to support it •