Don’t do work for people in another department or grab people from another department to do work for you unless you speak to the person responsible for overseeing the other department. If there is a dispute about this, it needs to be resolved at the point of the pyramid.
My approach was to immerse myself in a business until I got to a point where I felt that the strategies I was handing off were the ones I would use were I running the company myself.
I also punched my boss in the face. Not surprisingly, I was fired.
There is almost always a good path that you just haven’t figured out yet, so look for it until you find it rather than settle for the choice that is then apparent to you.
Many people have emotional trouble doing this and block the learning that could help them make better decisions. Remind yourself that it’s never harmful to at least hear an opposing point of view.
Unattainable goals appeal to heroes”, he once told me. “Capable people are those who sit there worrying about the future. the unwise are those who worry about nothing. If conflicts got resolved before they became acute, there wouldn’t be any heroes.
For me, not telling people what’s really going on so as to protect them from the worries of life is like letting your kids grow into adulthood believing in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
When offered the choice of being fair with you or taking more for themselves, most people will take more for themselves.
Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognize that your ability to deal well with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you do know.
Closed-minded people block others from speaking. If it seems like someone isn’t leaving space for the other person in a conversation, it’s possible they are blocking. To get around blocking, enforce the “two-minute rule” I mentioned earlier.
Some people want to change the world and others want to operate in simple harmony with it and savor life. Neither is better.
Over the decades since, I’ve repeatedly seen policymakers deliver such assurances immediately before currency devaluations, so I learned not to believe government policymakers when they assure you that they won’t let a currency devaluation happen. The more strongly they make those assurances, the more desperate the situation probably is, so the more likely it is that a devaluation will take place.
A lot of people vest their blind faith in machine learning because they find it much easier than developing deep understanding. For me, that deep understanding is essential, especially for what I do.
The key is to fail, learn, and improve quickly. If you’re constantly learning and improving, your evolutionary process will look like the one that’s ascending.
In thoughtful disagreement, both parties are motivated by the genuine fear of missing important perspectives. Exchanges in which you really see what the other person is seeing and they really see what you are seeing – with both your “higher-level yous” trying to get to the truth – are immensely helpful and a giant source of untapped potential.
Reality is optimizing for the whole – not for you. Contribute to the whole and you will likely be rewarded.
It seems to me that if you look back on yourself a year ago and aren’t shocked by how stupid you were, you haven’t learned much. Still, few people go out of their way to embrace their mistakes. It doesn’t have to be that way.
It doesn’t matter what you do with your life, as long as you are doing what is consistent with your nature and your aspirations.
People interested in making the best possible decisions are rarely confident that they have the best answers.
Helping people acquire skills is easy- it’s typically a matter of providing them with appropriate training. Improvements in abilities are more difficult but essential to expanding what a person can be responsible for over time. And changing someone’s values is something you should never count on. p422.