Episoder
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Survivorship bias is unavoidable. By default, we see what survives and not what doesn't. This is OK but it creates the risk that we take the wrong lessons from the survivors.
In this episode, we talk about how we might mitigate the downsides of survivorship bias. We touch on a bunch of topics:
rejecting simplistic Sinekismstheory-informed praxis, rather than copy-pasting patterns across contextschallenges to Estuarine Mappingzero-sum gamesbounded applicabilty – asking when something doesn't apply, or who shouldn't use a thingDouble DiamondsShiny FrameworksPortfolio of small bets in parallel – as a way to optimise for survivalAnd an invitation to you: what are we missing? How do you handle survivorship bias?Linky Goodness
Bounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306
Trigger Strategy website: https://triggerstrategy.com/
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We recorded this one on a whim and we didn't have our microphone with a little hat on it, so the wind noise makes a guest appearance. Apologies – return to quality sound soon.
Corissa grabbed a snippet from an article:
Over at one of my favourite blogs, Common Cog, Cedric Chin writes that there is a style of thinking that is reliably exhibited by successful entrepreneurs. It is called effectual thinking, and it's the type of improvisatory, reality based thinking that follows the question, what effects can be produced with the spread of resources in front of me? He contrasts this with causal thinking, which is the opposite pattern, looking towards an ideal outcome and then trying to work backwards to derive the actions required to eventually bring about that future.And this inspired us to talk through effectual thinking. We go on a blustery journey through chefs in high-end experimental kitchens, John Boyd's Snowmobiling, Mr Beast, Steve Jobs, Estuarine Framework and Small Bets.
The big question: can effectual thinking give you a happier, healthier way to operate, or is it just the case that, as Andrew Wilkinson put it, "most highly successful people are “just a walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity”?
Linky goodness:
Sasha Chapin's article: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/our-perfume-line-is-here
Cedric Chin's Common Cog: https://commoncog.com/when-action-beats-prediction/
Vaughn Tan's Uncertainty Mindset: https://uncertaintymindset.org/
Snowmobiling podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/072-granularity-part-2-snowmobiling
Do 100 Thing podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thing
Innovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10
Small Bets: https://smallbets.com/
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Manglende episoder?
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A live thinking through of the next chunk in our series of articles about the Vision Chasm – that gulf between the glorious future people are talking about and the reality of where you are today.
In this episode we look at situations where a Vision is unreachable because it's actually deceptive – either deliberate deception to keep everyone looking the other way while people deploy a secret strategy; or accidental self-deception because your reality has shifted but your narratives haven't caught up.
We talk through a few stories from our past.
1) A company workshop where trying to crystallise a vision of the future fell apart - because nobody was ready/able to be honest about the true direction of the company. Still clinging to a cultural heritage that was no longer a fit for their market position?
2) A deep misunderstanding between a C-suite and design team – talking past one another because we were operating in fundamentally different worlds. A third party was able to show us why we were stuck in loggerheads. Looking back, we can see how daft we were being. But could we have done things differently at the time?
3) How the misunderstanding played out when the C-suite brought in an external agency. In one way, it was a disaster that made a mess and broke some hearts. In another way, it was a success that broke the deadlock and massively moved things forward for the company.
References:
Vision Chasm Part I: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasmVision Chasm Part II: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/066-feeling-the-edges-of-the-vision-chasm2D Comparison / Card Sifting method:Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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All credit to friend of the pod Pete Shaw for the "Founder mode sounds like brat summer" observation.
Founder Mode triggered a beefstorm on LinkedIn, so we take a little stroll around the topic and share our takes. 3 parts nuance, 2 parts spicy, 1 long run-on sentence where Tom gets lost and forgets what he was trying to say.
Topics include alignment, coherence, intuition, taste and more.
References:
Paul Graham's Founder ModeOur article We need to talk about AirbnbHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, we zoom back in time to a situation when a load of meetings were frustrating people at this one company. Tom used Snowmobiling with a small team to break down the meetings into smaller pieces and then remix those pieces in a new way. We share some of the details and pitfalls along the way.
This same decompose/recombine approach can be used in lots of different situations where you need to find something new. Because everything new is really just novel recombinations of existing stuff.
We read out the steps on the Snowmobiling card (Innovation Tactics) – the exact instructions you can follow to harness the power of the remix.
References:
Everything is a RemixAustin Kleon's Keep GoingJohn Boyd's Destruction and CreationSnowmobiling card from Innovation Tactics: Front | BackInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Today, we start by adding some corrections to terminology we used in episode 70, which will be confusing if you haven't listened to that one. But it doesn't take long, and then we get into our main topic, which is granularity. When you work with too coarse a granularity, you can find yourself stuck or confused about what to do. When you work with too fine a granularity, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed, drowning in data, paralysed by too many options. The magic is to find the sweet spot, where you break things down just enough to create good options for action.
We talk through ASHEN as a typology for decomposing people or roles to a more legible and actionable level of granularity, and Corissa tries it out for real with one of her old bosses.
Links
ASHEN on the Cynefin wiki: https://cynefin.io/wiki/ASHEN
Article about stages of companies vs different people's natural propensities: https://newsletter.thewayofwork.com/p/stage-fright
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Q. What do these three situations have in common? Taking a friend for a lobster dinner, business strategy workshops, and personal coaching.
A. They all feature in this episode as examples of how constraints, constructors and actants play out.
The main chunk of this session is us talking through Tom's personal experience being 1:1 coached using Estuarine Mapping. We found this enormously enlightening, and we're excited to share.
If you've been looking for definitions or examples of constraints, constructors and actants, then you're in the right place.
Links and resources:
The article about unfolding: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/unfoldingCoach Mushfiqa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mushfiqajamaluddin/More about Estuarine Mapping: https://triggerstrategy.com/estuarine-mapping-2-half-day-pre-strategy-workshop-for-execsHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In which we coin the word "bungus" ...
If you've ever complained about misalignment, or rallied people with the cry that "we need to get aligned", then this one's for you. Of course the feeling of alignment is a pleasant one, but what if you're in one of the situations where seeking alignment is actually hurting you?
Corissa and Tom unpack the concept of alignment, including some discussion about different kinds of alignment and misalignment, some stories from the real world about situations where strategic misalignment can be good, and some references to our episode about the bees (episode 44: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/044-the-one-with-the-bees)
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In which Corissa and Tom explore more nuances and wrinkles to do with vision and strategy, with examples, metaphors and practical tips.
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Tom had a coaching call with someone who had been on the hook to run a one day workshop. A one day workshop that was expected to both work as a team building exercise AND deliver a complete new concept to go ahead and build. And it was sorta vague what that concept would be. What could go wrong?
Sometimes, you can get a clear, crispy brief. But often, you can't. It's more of an "I'll know it when I see it" situation. It's tempting to try asking more questions, trying to pin people down to get a clear brief before you start making anything. But that doesn't work. Often people can't tell you exactly what they want, until you give something to them and they can tell you, "not that".
One of the issues is about the tricksiness of language. You can't satisfactorily constrain creative work using adjectives. We share one of our favourite exercises for handling this.
Another issue is that you can't get people to predict what's going to make them say, "that's it!". We share some thoughts for how you can quickly and efficiently share ideas for them to react to.
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This is one of our "thinking about things in real time" episodes. Tom & Corissa talk through the next part of the Vision Chasm blog series. For nearly an hour!
We talk about when visions are good actually, as well as when they aren't, and when we could hold many visions lightly instead. And we explore the challenges of doing that.
We look at the squickiness of emergent strategy through lots of examples and stories.
We refer to a post by Stephanie Leue that does a great job of capturing what it feels like when you're in the weird reality distortion of the Vision Chasm: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
... but we don't agree with her prescription for fixing the problem.
We criticise the common approach to strategic "wisdom" that won't say this out loud but implies, "if you don't know what to do, then just try knowing what to do instead!"
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When something that starts small becomes bigger and bigger, we can lose sight of what we were trying to do in the first place. We talk through some examples: from workshops, from designing flyers for dance classes, and from Lego bridges.
The trick is subtraction. The knack is knowing what to subtract.
"When putting on accessories, take off the last thing you've put on." – Coco Chanel
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Tom & Corissa talk about how understanding and tackling problems requires more than just a linear approach, like is often inferred through something like the Double Diamond. A bunch of metaphors, real world examples and other fun in this one. We also offer practical tips for engaging with solution-oriented colleagues and suggest some methods and recipes to see and solve more problems differently. Plus: a somewhat tortured supermarket metaphor.
00:00 Welcome to Trigger Strategy Podcast
00:11 Dental adventures
00:31 Exploring problems and solutions
02:09 The arrogance of designers
02:54 The horse poo problem
06:12 The Double Diamond design process
13:32 The Iron Triangle and trade-offs
14:37 Abductive logic and interconnected systems
19:49 The over-reach of the Enlightenment
20:13 The secret life of trees
21:12 Complex vs. complicated problems
22:33 Problem "validation"
24:16 The supermarket metaphor
28:34 Be more Cal Newport by putting solution recipes first?
33:25 What to do with solutionizing colleagues
38:34 Wrapping up in utopia
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We talk about the good and the bad sides of stress. We tend to treat stress as a negative, but sometimes stress is helpful, and sometimes you want to provoke stress deliberately. But be careful.
References:
Happiness Lab with Dr Laurie Santos
The Experience Machine by Andy Clark
Estuarine Mapping – find links and resources at triggerstrategy.com
That clip from Apollo 13: https://youtu.be/ry55--J4_VQ?si=FV3l_OZJklkmm-aS
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We explore the story of a classic zombie project: where the team had the evidence they needed to know that a project was doomed, but carried on with it for 6 months anyway. These happen all the time, and we spend a few minutes unpacking the dynamics behind the trap. We also share some thoughts for how to ease open the jaws of the trap.
We also reference Annie Duke's book Quit
And Set Your First Pivot Triggers, available via a link here: https://pivot-triggers.com/
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Strap in for some high-quality sleep deprived thinking out loud.
We talk about the standard approach towards vision and strategy in organisations, and we challenge it. With some stories of past triumphs and pratfalls based on setting vision and suggest of alternative ways to go about Doing Strategy.
We refer to some LinkedIn posts during this chat ... here they are!
Dr Jabe Bloom's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jabebloom_scanning-the-future-requires-a-diversity-activity-7211396177232060417-kCeb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Stephanie Leue's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
John Cutler's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnpcutler_theres-a-big-thing-missing-in-most-it-starts-activity-7212101683579953153-55qS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
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Today, we talk about the appendix, fences, SaaS for lawyers, putting Shoggoth in a box ... and more.
Some links we mentioned:
Why aren't smart people happier and how that relates to well-defined problems: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/why-arent-smart-people-happier
Explainer on LLMs and why they probably won't take your job: https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/a-hallucinogenic-compendium
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This one's quite focused on business and building products ... OR IS IT?
In this one we respond to a question that Tom's received from several people recently. We'll call one of them Dave. Dave has a friend who has a big product idea they want to build, or big business project they want to do. The plan Dave's friend has landed on is to do the whole thing (how hard can it be anyway?) and then receive the (as yet unspecified) rewards. And Dave wants to know: how can I help them see that's not the only way, that they'll probably fail, and that there's a better way ... without being preachy or lecturing them?
We talk about the impossibility of reasoning someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and share a few ideas for thought exercises that can help Dave figure out what flavour of situation he's dealing with.
For example, the "I'm going to A even if it means I never B" exercise and the Time Machine selling manoeuvre.
We also talk about "the inherent bigness of ideas", about dogfooding when you're not actually a dog, and the shocking distribution of returns for start up entrepreneurs.
Beans and noses: https://articles.centercentre.com/beans-and-noses/
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This is kind of a follow-up to our previous episode that was recorded before the UX London conference. With the whirlwind of travel and baby-care, this was the first chance Tom & Corissa have really had to talk about the conference, and we captured it for the podcast too.
In our longest episode yet, we touch on Pitch Provocations, Multiverse Mapping, Zenko Mapping, rewilding, research repositories, behavioural design, regulations, stories, metaphor, communication, collaboration, validation, information architecture, design systems AND MORE. Whew.
Also lots of shout outs and thanks to folks who gave talks and workshops, including Serena Verdenicci, Luke Hay, Emma Boulton, Dr Harry Brignull, Ben Sauer, John V Willshire, Tshili Ndou, Alicia Calderón, Stéphanie Walter, Peter Boersma and Brad Frost ... and the folks who curated, helmed and scaffolded a great few days: Jeremy Keith, Louise Ash, and many other awesome folk from Clearleft.
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This is one of those where you walk along with Tom and Corissa while we're trying to figure something out. This time, Tom's giving a conference talk next week (which is last week from the podcast's perspective). He knows what he's talking about, but there's TOO MUCH of it! We try to figure out the one point he wants to make and why someone should care. Do we manage to tame this unruly topic or does it get away from us? You be the judge ...
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