The title of this post is a quote from Thomas Sowell, one of my favorite contemporary thinkers, who said that in the context of economics (his actual expertise). I use it quite often as an ongoing reminder of the complexity of the world and to acknowledge that we are not always going to find an actual solution.
The other day I wrote something related to that overarching idea (see below) on my LinkedIn page and thought it would be worth a slightly deeper take here…
"Started wrangling with something in my own head (unfortunately at the cost of some sleep)... It’s not a definite model by any stretch of the imagination, it’s contextual, but I believe the reframing can often be useful (again, in context).
Seeing some things as trade-offs can be useful in some situations. But quite often they aren’t much of real trade-offs, rather choices we are making (yes, and I’m aware the difference is nuanced but exists, not a topic for today though).
So a more useful model can be to see those things as “dynamic steering”. You are continuously, and hopefully deliberately, balancing things out. Doing a bit more of one side when signals lead to do so, and vice versa.
I do believe that model would often fall short. Not only because the signals may be hard to see, if not in retrospect, but also because they may lead to an endless conflict of incentives.
So, what could be an even more useful way to look at it? I’ve thought about framing it as shifting from limiting to enabling. Maybe a better way of calling it will emerge later on. But for the time being, that alludes well to the concept.
An example might come in handy for how I’m seeing that interplay and evolution. Take Quality vs Speed as the two dimensions we want to hustle with…
A framing of trade-off is to say, for instance, that sometimes we will speed up at a compromise of quality (that will get to back when the time is right). It may be the thing you have to do in a given moment, so there is some utility in the model, but I have not seen that paying off in the long run.
Alternatively, some would look at those as dynamically steering between the two, sometimes speeding up a bit but consciously getting back to prioritizing quality (hopefully) before things get too problematic. Again, obviously more useful. But getting that balance right can be rather difficult.
That’s where I thought about the evolution towards shifting from limiting to enabling. And what I essentially mean by that is to deliberately prioritize the side that would tend to better enable the other. In the example, continuously ensuring quality* will tend to enable speed better in the long run, but not the other way around.
By the way, I have seen John Cutler doing something along those lines, but from the perspective of a person’s experience. So there’s likely a correlation there that it takes experience to shift that way of looking at things.
I think Rob England 🦓 could have some interesting insights on this.
* There’s an overdoing version of it, so it’s important to properly define quality as being fit for current purpose."
It turned out that Rob indeed had an interesting take on it by referring to "polarity tension" as a concept. It surely has to do with it, perhaps one could say that the underlying issue at hand will often be of such a nature: problems that are ongoing and unsolvable, where factors depend on each other and must be managed together for success.
But what I was alluding to with my take was a possible frame that will sometimes lead to a bigger chance of success in dealing with that tension in the long run. And more importantly, how that can be translated into useful heuristics, practices or whatever might be useful, to better distribute decision authority, thus accelerating it.
Let's stick to the example at hand (may come back to the theme in a later post with more examples) for the time being. What kind of useful "things" could emerge to help better distribute and accelerate decision-making in line with a clear principle (in this case, that quality enables speed in the long run)? Here are a few examples:
To take a zero-tolerance stand on detected quality issues, prioritizing (or expediting) their solving over other things on an ongoing basis.
To have a practice (turned into a followed-through ongoing habit) of "flagging" where we know upfront we only made something precisely fit to current purpose and that we expect a need to evolve (that the expectation is likely to change in some meaningful way), so that you can proactively manage that**.
In case we'd have to do only the bare minimum analysis now, like when fixing something critical that's not working as expected, followed by a deeper analysis and more structural fixing as/if needed.
Now, to be clear, and as a good practice of being upfront about known limitations, I am not at all convinced that this is always going to be the case in any polarity tension issue out there. There are situations that don't meet the criteria of one side having a clear tendency to enable the other. Just to name one, I don't think that would work for something like Autonomy vs Alignment. It's not quite clear how one has a bigger chance to enable the other.
That is a case where "dynamic steering" is a better framing. It's also, I believe, one of the fundamental problems any organization needs to hustle with: to what extent and when (implying to adapt in context) to favor autonomy to nurture more innovation and when to favor alignment to ensure more coordinated effort execution. Slightly off-topic, but worth mentioning here.
** What I am also alluding to here is to use more precise definition than the often vaguely defined (as a bunch of somewhat different things) concept of “technical debt".
By Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect, I'm happy to engage and interact. If I can be of further utility to you or your organization in getting better at working with product development, I am available for part-time advisory, consulting or contract-based engagements.