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The thing that brought the same idea home for me is the idea that optimization is a destructive process. A business is a complex thing with many, many variables
by wenholmes 4y ago
The thing that brought the same idea home for me is the idea that optimization is a destructive process. A business is a complex thing with many, many variables influencing its success. If you truly optimize "customer value" then you must give up everything else. A much more nuanced approach is to do what you did, and balance off various values against each other. Unfortunately this is very difficult to measure or "logic," it requires appreciating things like complexity, uncertainty, and indirection. But ultimately it produces better outcomes, and I'll take a manager who thinks like that over one that doesn't every time.
P.S. Recommended reading on this topic, "Obliquity" by John Kay is excellent.
- kqr 4y agoSorry, I keep coming back to this comment. "Optimisation is a destructive process" is such a good way to put it. We frequently focus on the thing being optimised, not enough on all the things being sacrificed.
- Xcelerate 4y ago> the idea that optimization is a destructive process > balance off various values against each other This is still optimization. It’s just better optimization because it’s longer-term and considers more variables and their interaction effects.
- kqr 4y agoThank you for that recommendation! It ends up quite high on my to-read list!