3. Finally, you have an accurate understanding of how culture works.
The shape of the expertise is like this: you design through a step-by-step unfolding. Over time, you design policies, shape culture, and nudge behaviour through meetings, one-on-ones, and actions.
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The most important nuance is to recognise bad behaviours early and nip them in the bud by course-correcting.
It is useless to talk about the cobra effect, or about Goodwin's law, or about skin in the game if you don't have these skills pinned down.
In fact, it is not necessary.
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Because you are able to model the behaviour of the humans you are dealing with, you understand the system you are modifying, and you understand how to mould culture, none of these issues will come up.
These are just frameworks that sound intelligent but are not useful.
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"Wait, but Cedric, Goodwin's law is a thing! Other intelligent people talk about it!"
Yes, but the way you defeat Goodwin's law is not by talking about Goodwin's law. Bloom talks about Amazon in his tweet thread. Amazon actually deals with Goodwin's law quite well.
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In Working Backwards, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr dedicated an entire chapter to how they think about metrics.
The number of times they mention Goodwin's Law: 0.
Amazon has a process they call DMAIC. The book tells the story of the step-by-step unfolding that led them to it.
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Bryar and Carr are extremely believable, by the way. They were in the room when the 6-pager was designed, when the decentralised org in Amazon was built, and when Amazon's approach to metrics was still being built out.
DMAIC enables them to sidestep Goodwin's law.
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Most people, with no org design background, would read Working Backwards as a 'manual of techniques to apply'.
Org designers read Working Backwards as an accounting of the step-by-step unfolding that LED Amazon to design those systems.
My summary:
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Novice org designers would read stories of misaligned incentives and go "Ha! What a bad idea! Use these frameworks!"
Experienced org designers would read stories of misaligned incentives and ask: "How did they get there and what processes did they try after that incident?"
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I spend a lot of time talking about believability. I said that you should not pay attention to ideas from people who:
- Have not had at least 3 successes in the domain, and
- Have a coherent explanation when probed.
This is not my idea, it's Ray Dalio's:
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Replying to
How do coaches fit into the idea of believability?
Jim Collins never ran a company. But he is highly knowledgeable on mgmt principles
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Replying to
Michael Mauboussin has a useful idea here: he thinks that Collins is useful because he gives managers benign myths. I buy this framing.
There is a large literature on Collins's failings, so I won't go into that.
joincolossus.com/episodes/13228
This is why I like to learn from practitioners rather than observers.
But practitioners don't publish. At best it is by secondary sources (journalists and authors).
It is easy to talk about org design, decision making...but while working on it, it is always hazy and messy
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Cedric what you think about this?
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Replying to @patrick_oshag and @maxolson1/ Jim Collins in Good To Great:
"Picture a huge, heavy flywheel... Now imagine your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible..." medium.com/evergreen-busi
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And of this:
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Jim Collins — How to Master Time, Optimize Sleep, and Be Useful
Listen to my interview with Jim here: tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim
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