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You have to split the title, which is marketing mumbo jumbo, from the article, which is fundamentally talking about decision making. Smart decision making and

You have to split the title, which is marketing mumbo jumbo, from the article, which is fundamentally talking about decision making. Smart decision making and persistent work is the X and Y axis of achievement. Decision making (which broadly includes subjects like efficiency, policy, systems, problem solving, and design thinking) is the heart of efficiency gains for large organizations (not necessarily individuals, although there really shouldn't be a separation between the two). Generally speaking, decision making falls into 2 categories - prioritization and policy. Prioritization is deciding what best to do out of the given options, and while policy (systems building) is building ecosystems that enable activity or work output. 2nd order thinking is the necessary requirement for policy/systems building. However, there's a lot more skills needed to enact good policy decisions, so this is just scratching the surface on the subject.

ignoramous 8y ago
I humbly presume that you are familiar with topic at hand, and so, if you please, can you elaborate more on 'scratching the surface' part? I'm genuinely curious about other aspects of policy/systems-building, as it were. Pointers to blog posts or books should be enough, as well. Thanks.
- poushkar 8y ago
  +1, really would love to learn more
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  The seven habits of highly effective people. The Peter Principle Books or articles on "planning backwards." Gantt charts get used a lot in, for example, construction. You need certain things to precede certain other things. You set a goal and end date and then start asking "What has to happen just before that? And just before that?" It is the reverse of asking "So, then what?"
  - gota 8y ago
    Backward state-space planning in classical AI/automated planning
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- spyckie2 8y ago
  Sorry for the late reply. Many people have recommended and I agree, Thinking in Systems is a great primer. Here's an excerpt from the intro of that book: > So, what is a system? A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world. > The system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior! An outside event may unleash that behavior, but the same outside event applied to a different system is likely to produce a different result. > Think for a moment about the implications of that idea: > • Political leaders don’t cause recessions or economic booms. Ups and downs are inherent in the structure of the market economy. > • Competitors rarely cause a company to lose market share. They may be there to scoop up the advantage, but the losing company creates its losses at least in part through its own business policies. > • The oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil price rises. Their actions alone could not trigger global price rises and economic chaos if the oil consumption, pricing, and investment policies of the oil-importing nations had not built economies that are vulnerable to supply interruptions. > • The flu virus does not attack you; you set up the conditions for it to flourish within you. > • Drug addiction is not the failing of an individual and no one person, no matter how tough, no matter how loving, can cure a drug addict—not even the addict. It is only through understanding addiction as part of a larger set of influences and societal issues that one can begin to address it. Once you start to understand the principle, you'll see systems everywhere. Good case studies in business are studies of systems. Annual reports are windows into the systems companies build to run effectively. Everything is a system, really. Losing weight is no longer an extended act of willpower, it's building a system into your schedule and habits that produces the outcome of less weight (well, to be fair it's a bit of both). Writing a book is a series of behaviors sustained over time, induced through scheduling. A lot of traits of people are systems induced, and instead of blaming a culture for a negative trait, a system (usually just looking at income level) can explain a lot of it. For example - why do Chinese people copy western IP so much? Before getting into "it's part of chinese culture", which is a slippery slope, consider how much can be explained by systems - just look at the national income average and compare education levels to see how little skilled labor they actually have to work with, and how much economic growth the country needs. In Thinking Fast and Slow, there's a great little section that talks about professors wanting to write a book and budgeting 2 years, only later to find out that the it took anyone in the history of the school 8-10 years to write of a book of similar scope. They indeed ended up taking 10 years to write the book. There's a system hidden in there too.
chrisbro 8y ago
Agreed with ignoramous' reply - interested in reading more literature here around what you're describing.
scotch_drinker 8y ago
I'm reading Gerald Weinberg's general systems book and it talks about second order thinking. Also, thinking in systems by Meadows is a great primer

ignoramous 8y ago

I humbly presume that you are familiar with topic at hand, and so, if you please, can you elaborate more on 'scratching the surface' part? I'm genuinely curious about other aspects of policy/systems-building, as it were. Pointers to blog posts or books should be enough, as well. Thanks.

poushkar 8y ago
+1, really would love to learn more
DoreenMichele 8y ago
The seven habits of highly effective people. The Peter Principle Books or articles on "planning backwards." Gantt charts get used a lot in, for example, construction. You need certain things to precede certain other things. You set a goal and end date and then start asking "What has to happen just before that? And just before that?" It is the reverse of asking "So, then what?"
- gota 8y ago
  Backward state-space planning in classical AI/automated planning
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
spyckie2 8y ago
Sorry for the late reply. Many people have recommended and I agree, Thinking in Systems is a great primer. Here's an excerpt from the intro of that book: > So, what is a system? A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world. > The system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior! An outside event may unleash that behavior, but the same outside event applied to a different system is likely to produce a different result. > Think for a moment about the implications of that idea: > • Political leaders don’t cause recessions or economic booms. Ups and downs are inherent in the structure of the market economy. > • Competitors rarely cause a company to lose market share. They may be there to scoop up the advantage, but the losing company creates its losses at least in part through its own business policies. > • The oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil price rises. Their actions alone could not trigger global price rises and economic chaos if the oil consumption, pricing, and investment policies of the oil-importing nations had not built economies that are vulnerable to supply interruptions. > • The flu virus does not attack you; you set up the conditions for it to flourish within you. > • Drug addiction is not the failing of an individual and no one person, no matter how tough, no matter how loving, can cure a drug addict—not even the addict. It is only through understanding addiction as part of a larger set of influences and societal issues that one can begin to address it. Once you start to understand the principle, you'll see systems everywhere. Good case studies in business are studies of systems. Annual reports are windows into the systems companies build to run effectively. Everything is a system, really. Losing weight is no longer an extended act of willpower, it's building a system into your schedule and habits that produces the outcome of less weight (well, to be fair it's a bit of both). Writing a book is a series of behaviors sustained over time, induced through scheduling. A lot of traits of people are systems induced, and instead of blaming a culture for a negative trait, a system (usually just looking at income level) can explain a lot of it. For example - why do Chinese people copy western IP so much? Before getting into "it's part of chinese culture", which is a slippery slope, consider how much can be explained by systems - just look at the national income average and compare education levels to see how little skilled labor they actually have to work with, and how much economic growth the country needs. In Thinking Fast and Slow, there's a great little section that talks about professors wanting to write a book and budgeting 2 years, only later to find out that the it took anyone in the history of the school 8-10 years to write of a book of similar scope. They indeed ended up taking 10 years to write the book. There's a system hidden in there too.

chrisbro 8y ago

Agreed with ignoramous' reply - interested in reading more literature here around what you're describing.

scotch_drinker 8y ago

I'm reading Gerald Weinberg's general systems book and it talks about second order thinking. Also, thinking in systems by Meadows is a great primer