Point Lookout: a free weekly publication of Chaco Canyon Consulting
Volume 16, Issue 13;   March 30, 2016: Still More Things I've Learned Along the Way

Still More Things I've Learned Along the Way

by

When I have an important insight, or when I'm taught a lesson, I write it down. Here's another batch from my personal collection.
An example of a Weaver's Pathway

An example of a "Weaver's Pathway" in a Navajo rug. A "Weaver's Pathway," or "Spirit Line", is a small line of contrasting color that passes from the inner field of the piece, penetrating the borders, until it reaches one edge. When non-Navajos notice it, they often see it as an imperfection, because it violates all the symmetries of the pattern. But to Navajos, it's a path that enables the weaver's spirit to free itself from the piece.

We can view imperfections in anything we create as pathways to places worth exploring. For more on the Weaver's Pathway, see "The Weaver's Pathway," Point Lookout for May 7, 2003.

When I learn something, I sometimes wish I had learned it long ago. If it could have saved me trouble, or led me somewhere I find appealing, I write it down. Here's another installment from my growing collection.

  • If your workload is totally unreasonable, better time management won't help much.
  • If you work for a jerk, striving for superior performance is worse than a waste of time. It keeps you from finding another job.
  • Multitasking is a hoax. What we really do is task switching, which drains energy and wastes time. [Weinschenk 2012]
  • If my success depends on yours, but yours doesn't depend on mine, I might be in big trouble.
  • Creating great ideas from scratch is really hard and really rare. Many great ideas are clever combinations of other great and less-than-great ideas.
  • Organizations and their people either succeed together or fail together.
  • Risk-averse organizations risk stifling creativity and innovation.
  • Threats work in the short run, but they drive people away in the long run.
  • If you decide to give up, you'll never know whether you could have done it.
  • You can't trust everything you find on the Internet, but some Internet communities and Web sites are very reliable. Find some you trust.
  • Perfection isn't achievable, but with practice, you can make the imperfections insignificant.
  • Cherish imperfections. They can sometimes lead to wonderful, exciting places.
  • If a difficult decision gets easier when you pretend you're deciding it for somebody else, the difficulty is probably about you, not the decision.
  • When all your choices are bad, choosing usually isn't the hard part. The hard part is accepting that you must choose the least bad choice.
  • To get more choices, try letting go of dogma and ideology.
  • When people suddenly renege on commitments, they could be just untrustworthy, or maybe somebody powerful ordered them to do it. Some people would let you believe the former before they would ever acknowledge the latter.
  • You can't When I learn something that
    I wish I had learned long
    ago, I write it down
    solve problems you don't realize you have.
  • You can't use assets you don't realize you have.
  • The Development orientation focuses on figuring out how to break the mold. The Operational orientation focuses on using the mold more perfectly.
  • Creativity and Freedom are partners. You can't have much of one without help from the other.
  • I've forgotten so many great ideas that I'm sure some must have been better than any idea I've pursued. So now when I get an idea I write it down (or type it in). Now if only I can figure out how not to lose what I've written down (or typed in)…
  • Outsourcing risk management is risky. Something about having to live with the consequences of risks makes people better risk managers.
  • The easiest way to offend somebody is to disparage something personal they can't change.
  • If all you know is where you don't want to go, you'll get there faster.

If you have a personal collection, maybe some of these might suggest an addition or two. If you don't yet have a collection, maybe you can start one. First in this series  Go to top Top  Next issue: Irrational Deadlines  Next Issue

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Footnotes

Comprehensive list of all citations from all editions of Point Lookout
[Weinschenk 2012]
Susan Weinschenk. "The True Cost Of Multi-Tasking," PsychologyToday.com, September 18, 2012. Available here. Psychologists have studied multitasking in detail. This is a survey of the latest thinking. Back

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          human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

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Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

A meeting in a typical conference roomComing April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
Franz Halder, German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.

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