Reality Based Decisions

/

I just read this in Seth's Godin's new and free ebook - which I think is fantastic by the way - and my only complaint is that it is in a PDF and as such it is really hard to share ideas like the one below, which I cut, pasted and reformatted to get here.

"How many times have you paid your taxes? Ever get a receipt back telling you what you bought? You’re paying for something, right? Why is everybody arguing about taxes and deficits when they don’t know how their money is being spent?

What if you went to Lowe’s, and paid to improve your home, then Lowe’s did work but didn’t tell you what they did. Would you notice if they fixed faulty wiring?

It is time for us to rationalize the debate. Let’s parse the data and free the facts.

Imagine if we organized around meaningful data instead of vapid rhetoric. What if you could see how much you spent on your commute to work this year, or defending your country, or keeping your neighbor healthy?

What if there was as much data about John Barrow (D- GA) as there was about Manny Ramirez (LF-Dodgers). There are 750 players in Major League Baseball, and only 535 Members of Congress. Most of the data exists and what doesn’t we need to demand. The answer to healthy democracy lies not in rhetoric, but in our data.

Clay Johnson is the Director of Sunlight Labs for the Sunlight Foundation. He tweets at cjoh."

So often we move to debate when we have no idea what the facts are and this example of the tax debacle is a perfect example. How easy would it be if we the purchasers of government could understand exactly what it is we are buying and what the costs are? Imagine if all parties could agree on the reality of the situation, devoid of emotional verbs and blame games, and consider how powerful it would be if we then discussed not what the problem of the situation is but rather the goal that we would like to achieve as it relates to the situation? In other words we all recognized and agreed upon what we want and we understood exactly what we have and from that position we could agree on the discrepancies and the actions that we would like to take to eliminate them.

Imagine if life worked like this in your home, at your work and in your government.

I love unruly lots

/

I think there are three types of teams and probably a million more in between, but for this purpose let's look at the two extremes and one in the middle. At the worst extreme is a team that is dysfunctional. They don't like what their doing and who their doing it with. They don't like where the team is going. They are along for the ride for as long as it takes them to get off. This situation sucks for everyone. The people involved, the funder, users, clients, everyone. No one wants to be in a team situation like this.

In the middle of the curve you have a team that works on the surface. People have signed up because they don't mind the people their with, they don't mind what the team is doing and they didn't have anything better to do anyways. They show up on time, wait in line to be told what to do and generally like cruising along with everyone else, and oh yeah, every now and then they will look up and consider the overall objectives and throw their thoughts in on how to get there if anyone asks.

At the other end of the extreme we have the third type of team. They are an unruly lot. Barely manageable. Usually rude. The only thing they all have in common is they all love the outcome that everyone is after and they don't give a damn about what it will take to get there. They are constantly giving advice, making decisions and asking for forgiveness later and no one who has half a brain cares cause these people get things done -  they are goal focused. Notice I didn't say that they question the goal. They are 100% on board with where this team wants to end up. They just question why it is taking so long to get there and why everyone else is holding them back. They have allot of opinions on how to get there faster.

If you belong to, fund or are counting on one of the first two team types, well let's just say life is too short to hang out there for long, and if you managed to land yourself in the midst of the unruly lot, prepare to be amazed and hang on, what a ride it will be.

Seth's Blog: How to be a great client

/

This has got be one of my favorite Seth posts to date. I'm sure it won't be my last. Highly recommend the read!

Simplify the problem relentlessly, and be prepared to accept an elegant solution that satisfies the simplest problem you can describe.

...

Demand thrashing early in the process. Force innovations and decisions to be made near the beginning of the project, not in a crazy charrette at the end.

via Seth's Blog: How to be a great client.

What's wrong with I don't know?

/

What's wrong with I don't know? We don't like the vacuum it creates. The uncertainty it leaves us with. It makes us nervous. So we make stuff up. And then we make all sorts of assumptions and plans around the made up stuff.

What a waste of time and what a waste of energy to keep convincing yourself and others to believe in something you made up. "I don't know" may be uncomfortable but it sure is easier and allot more reliable than pretending.