6 ms·
I made this mistake once, albeit with Newtons second law instead. I was explaining my estimations for changing some key processes in a company. As a kind of men
by playeren 4y ago
I made this mistake once, albeit with Newtons second law instead. I was explaining my estimations for changing some key processes in a company. As a kind of mental aid, I used 'F' as the total effort needed to make the change, while 'm' represented the size of the organization, and 'a' would represent the speed we wanted to perform the change with. F = m * a. A simple way of illustrating the exponential relationship between these factors.
But it blew their mind. It took on 'mystical' properties, as if we had distilled change management into pure Newtonian motion. I started seeing not only F = ma in memos on other issues, but also other equations like E = mc^2, trying to wrestle management lingo into relativistic conservation of energy.
Lesson learned, I guess.
- mjburgess 4y agoI hope one day to possess an explanation of why that behaviour is sometimes good. Since, like you, I am alarmed/concerned by it. But clearly, largely, its what makes "a lot of the world go round". This emotion, "wonder", is profoundly suspicious to me; and I'm often hostile to it. I am sure I'm missing something...
- philipov 4y agoWonder is what drives people to be interested in and want to learn about how the world works. It's a very important emotion to let thrive. But, like all good things, too much of it can become harmful. Wonder is best when tempered with rigor. It is a starting point, but it must not also be the ending point.
- roenxi 4y agoPeople are trying to copy the smartest person in the room, but don't themselves have a good way of evaluating how smart an idea is. When that strategy produces a miss, it produces a rather absurd one (like in this anecdote). But the strategy itself is good, particularly if the group correctly identifies who has the best ideas. Copying smart people works if you can find them.
- ouid 4y ago>The strategy itself is good. You cannot factor the strategy from its implementation here. I think that was trying to be your point but then you contradicted yourself. I must encourage you to commit. A dumb person who tries to find smart people will find only con-artists. Its the law of lemons.
- roenxi 4y agoA strategy doesn't have to work every time to be good. "Dumb people" can and do find people smarter than themselves and put in an effort to copy them. Usually that is a good idea - better than trying to go it alone, any way.
- ouid 4y agoMy brother in christ, most of the people who voted for donald trump did so because they think he's smart. Its a good goal. its a terrible strategy.
- roenxi 4y agoThat is a slightly different situation though, isn't it? The US presidential elections are a choice between 2 options, usually both bad. The results suggest all 3 candidates in the last 2 US elections are borderline unelectable and both parties are engaged in a bizarre war to find the worst candidate people will vote for. Which is not at all the same as the fairly typical group dynamics.
- marcosdumay 4y ago> Copying smart people works if you can find them. Well, works more often than not (I hope your downside risks are low). While understanding what they are doing works almost every time. Besides, it works more often than not, in a simple setting where there is no antagonistic communicator. In a word with propaganda and politics, it fails almost every time.
- 4y ago
- noSyncCloud 4y agoIf you can't experience wonder, that must make you history's most recent example of someone who's basically figured everything out. That must be very nice for you, but you are assuredly wrong about many things that you know you know.
- delusional 4y agoIt could also be depression or just cynicism.
- drewcoo 4y agoSo you claimed "total effort equal orgs size times the speed you wanted change in?" And that that was equivalent to F = m * a? That's not mind-blowing so much as jaw-droppingly wrong. Org size is an exponential factor for things like that. And speed of change isn't the issue for orgs so much as changing direction under the current momentum, if we're using a physical model. No wonder it wasn't met with widespread acceptance. It was a vast oversimplification that mapped badly to the situation but delivered, no doubt, with confidence, so of course it was adopted by copycats. Simplicity and overconfidence sells.
- cycomanic 4y ago> I used 'F' as the total effort needed to make the change, while 'm' represented the size of the organization, and 'a' would represent the speed we wanted to perform the change with. F = m * a. A simple way of illustrating the exponential relationship between these factors. Am I missing a certain insight or did you mean the linear relationship not exponential?
- wolfram74 4y agoNo one uses expontential correctly in colloquial contexts, it gets slapped on any super linear curve, or in this case even a linear equation.
- colechristensen 4y agoWhat is your definition of exponential then?
- igorkraw 4y agoYour variable goes into exponent position. If X is your variable, a^x is exponential, x^a is a-tic
- kittiepryde 4y agoy=x^a would be an example of an exponential equation; I guess applied to the metaphor, F=a^m
- orbital223 4y agof(x) = x^a is a polynomial of degree a. f(x) = a^x would be an exponential function.
- kittiepryde 4y agoYou are right. Thanks for correcting me.
- 4y ago