If you and I play a game of cards, the winner will largely be decided by luck. Get good cards and you come out ahead.
If you and I play 100 games of backgammon, the better player will win, because the luck of the dice regress to the mean, evening out over time, leaving skill as the dominant factor.
Good game design involves creating the conditions where early luck doesn’t destroy the rest of the game. A good roll or a good first hand shouldn’t eliminate the opportunity for other players to have a chance. This is why Monopoly is a more accurate social commentary than it is a good game.
When people talk about life and say, “there’s no such thing as luck,” they might be referring to the fact that in the long run, people who are prepared, persistent and granted the benefit of the doubt often do okay. But what they’re missing is that life (and our culture) isn’t constructed as a game that doesn’t reward early luck.
Early luck has a massive impact. Where you’re born, the caste society puts you in, whether or not you were appropriately precocious in various early ranking systems–these all get compounded. Malcolm Gladwell has written about birth month having a significant factor in who gets to play in the NHL–because where a Canadian kid plays hockey when he’s six adds up over the decades.
[If you’re a sports fan, that means we could create a second NHL, with just as many star players, simply by creating a different farm system for kids born six months later].
Compounding early luck is generally fine with people who have early luck. What a surprise. But it’s unfair and it’s also a talent-utilization problem that hurts everyone. When we fail to create the conditions for people to persist with resilience until the luck comes along, we all lose.
Organizations have the opportunity to invest in the long haul. They can take profits from early luck and apply them to areas where upsides will eventually appear. This is the secret of successful VCs like Brad Feld and Fred Wilson. A portfolio is a simple way to reduce the impact of luck (good or bad) over time.
But we’re all in organizations. We have a chance to not confuse early luck with skill, and take the steps to build enough resilience into our journey that we’re more likely to get where we’re going.
June 30, 2022
We’re not very good at predicting the future.
We’re very good at being aware of the urgency of the moment, and familiar with our need to deal with emergencies.
Before we react, though, it might be worth asking “and then what happens,” five times.
Five steps from here to there…
If any of the steps involve, “and then a miracle happens,” or “we’ll deal with that later,” it might be worth taking a few more moments to reconsider the first step.
June 29, 2022
This is a very different task than snake charming.
The first is far more common, but it requires heavy equipment and is often dangerous…
On the other hand, if you have empathy and patience, it’s possible to learn to charm the snakes instead.
June 28, 2022
Malpractice by one of us is malpractice by all of us.
When a calling turns into an industry, that can change.
In an industry, it’s buyer beware. It’s us against the rest. It’s a quiet line of self-preservation.
But in a profession, it’s clear that a service is on offer, and that standards and trust matter.
June 27, 2022
It’s possible to create a life where we only perform tasks when we feel like it.
More likely, though, we end up with commitments. Commitments require us to do work when they feel like it, regardless of whether we do or not.
And the best sorts of commitments create a positive cycle. We end up changing our attitude and our energy precisely because we said we would.
This is one reason why a long vacation can leave us in a torpor. Left to our own devices, we skid to a halt.
June 26, 2022
This can be an uncomfortable question. Not because any of us have unlimited time and unlimited money, but because it puts us on the spot in a few ways:
- Are you able to understand the project well enough to put boundaries around it? If you don’t, are you aware enough to announce what you will need to learn so that you can?
- Are you willing to be on the hook for managing the work so that you will be on time and on budget?
- Are you comfortable enough with your vendors and your team to accept responsibility for work you’re asking them to do?
- Are you a perfectionist, unwilling to ship the work until someone is finally so frustrated, cornered or broke that they pry it from your hands?
- The flip side: can you embrace the fact that no project is perfect and that by creating a budget, you’re leaning into boundaries that make you a professional when you do this work?
Too often, we’d rather say, “I’ll know it when I see it, it’s too important to compromise, you’re sucking all the fun out of it, the contractors won’t work with a budget and–don’t you want it to be good?”
But the best work regularly ships on time and on budget.
June 25, 2022
“Please be kind” sounds like a moral imperative. And in some ways, it is.
But behind the theory of the firm and a key building block of successful communities is the idea that kind interactions are significantly more productive.
When people feel seen and respected, they’re more likely to focus on what needs to be done, instead of taking umbrage or being defensive.
When we leave opportunities and pathways for others, they can move forward with less friction.
And when we’re enjoying our days, we’ve created a posture that spreads.
Hockey games aren’t supposed to be kind. But just about everything else works better when we don’t throw elbows.
June 24, 2022
Three words that open the door for insight, understanding and improvement.
Gratitude isn’t in question. Neither is acceptance of the situation. It’s not unpatriotic or disloyal to talk about how something could be improved. Instead, when we care enough to say, “could be better,” we’re putting ourselves on the hook to create. You need to care enough to describe an improvement.
Because once you’ve announced how something can be better, you get the chance to show that it can be done.
June 23, 2022
When you’re trying to make an argument in a scientific journal or a history monograph, you’ll need footnotes. Show your work. Make it clear who came before and what you’re basing your thesis on.
But it seems as though when we’re nervous and afraid, we don’t need any footnotes. “No,” is all we have to offer.
Show your work. It’s a good way to demonstrate that your decision isn’t based on fear alone.
June 22, 2022
For half the planet, today is the longest day of the year. For the rest of us, the shortest.
There was a solstice before there were people. All of our other holidays don’t fit that definition. They’re invented. Short-lived. Worldwide, it’s a moment to realize that this is the only planet in the known universe that can sustain human life.
And the planet is changing. We’re changing it.
It’s worth knowing how it’s changing, understanding the implications and deciding to work for systemic change. Because it’s not too late, but we need to see the change that’s happening, right now.
Many believe that it’s worth understanding and sharing the information. We can’t make things better if we can’t see what’s going on.
Do you want to know?
Today was going to be the pub day for The Carbon Almanac, but we pushed it back two weeks because of global supply chain issues. The Dutch edition is out today, with editions for Italy, China, Korea, Japan, the UK and the Czech Republic coming soon. The US print run is smaller than we (the hundreds of volunteers who created this book) hoped for, so I hope you can pre-order before it sells out.
Numbers and charts and tables are only part of the story of our world. We can see the changes with our own eyes. We worked with Getty to collect the work of photographers and artists to capture this moment in pictures. Download and share a free copy here.
Systemic change requires sharing. Sharing information, sharing connection and sharing the work. You can make an impact simply by understanding and then teaching someone else.
June 21, 2022
