13 ms·

This insight is huge: Had I been goal-oriented instead of system-oriented, I imagine I would have given up after the first several failures. It would have

by milesf 13y ago

This insight is huge: Had I been goal-oriented instead of system-oriented, I imagine I would have given up after the first several failures. It would have felt like banging my head against a brick wall. But being systems-oriented, I felt myself growing more capable every day, no matter the fate of the project that I happened to be working on.

calinet6 13y ago
Truth right here. His systems thinking advice is phenomenal. Love this quote too: "Throughout my career I've had my antennae up, looking for examples of people who use systems as opposed to goals. In most cases, as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways." He's talking about success as simply a single point in the statistical sampling that is your life. This is an extremely correct, scientific, and most importantly helpful way to look at the world and your work.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  It sounds good, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to apply it. I realize this article couldn't contain everything that will be in his book and so I hope that there is more practical advice regarding systems other than "have a system" in the book. For example, the guy that was always looking for a new job... isn't that just a repeating goal? On a personal note, I need to lose weight. I've done it before: I lost 74 lbs, but now several years later I've gained back just over 90 lbs. I reached my goal, and lost all motivation for eating healthy, and steadily gained it all back and more. I'm trying to structure my life around doing healthier things (better food, more exercise). How can I systemize that? Or have I already? I have "goals" of walking X times per week for Y distance. Is that the wrong approach? Should it be "after having walked, walk again as soon as possible but not sooner than 1 day?" I guess I could use an example of some systems that were not just repeating goals.
  - ImprovedSilence 13y ago
    >>I guess I could use an example of some systems that were not just repeating goals. Don't go to the gym or workout or eat good just because you want to lose weight. Do it as a habit. Be motivated by the good feeling you get post workout everyday, not because you want to lose 10lbs or bench 200... Don't weight yourself, don't set a "goal". Just go. five times a week. Just keep going. Find a running club, and run because it's a good way to hang out with friends twice a week. Play a sport. Eat vegetables. But don't force them down, experiment with ways to integrate them into tasty meals. Then keep playing with recipes, and suddenly you're eating super healthy just because it's fun to try cooking some crazy plant from the store and you're making all these cool dishes.
  - mden 13y ago
    I'm guessing that a system is just a repeatable goal. So perhaps in your case, the repeatable goal wouldn't be to lose weight as that would invariably lead you to dying, but rather to do something that makes you healthier every day. That could be something like eating healthier everyday or exercising for 15 minutes. This way you shifting from the goal of being X pounds lighter, to a system of being healthy.
    - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
      The beauty of a systems approach is that it takes vastly less willpower. It is very counter-intuitive to most people: "Gee, doing that every day, that sounds so hard. I can barely get exercise twice a week; therefore exercising every single day must be much harder." Nope. Quite the opposite. Hard is deciding every day whether you feel like going for a walk by arguing with yourself over whether you will feel better afterwards. That is effort spent with no satisfying payoff.
      - cJ0th 13y ago
        True. As so often, Linux gives a great analogy. When you start using it chances are you find working with it pretty inefficient and many things seem hard. But the more you learn about the system (which only really works when you do it every day)the better you get at solving your problems whereas people who rely solely on out-of-the box software improve rather little.
- RogerL 13y ago
  Hmm, I find it extraordinarily bizarre. My life has been filled with people charging down the wrong path because they have elevated system/process over goals. For example: Agile/Yourdon/waterfall/XP/ISO9001/whatever. Our goal is a working system on time and budget (or whatever your goals are). The strategy is, perhaps, iterative waterfall, or agile, or more likely, some hybid approach (hint: how likely is small scale scrum to work to build a new Boeing, and how likely is the ideal Boeing process likely to create a great social web app). Systems are based on a number of assumptions about your goals; assumptions that may not apply, or that may change over time. If you aren't continually testing your chosen strategy (I prefer strategy over system, but I more or less mean the same thing here) against your goals, you are likely to be anywhere from sub-optimal to completely wrong. So I live in a world where everyone is currently chasing Agile, without questioning whether it even fits the problem, or what its weaknesses are (even if it fits, it has weaknesses, and you should be aware of it so you can mitigate them). I live in a world where people grind through business processes, without questioning whether this is taking us where we actually need to go, or whether things have changed and our goals, which inform the system, still apply. To use the example in the article, it makes no sense to search for another job if you are retiring in a year. If the externals change and system does not, you are in trouble.
  - tieTYT 13y ago
    Good post, but I just want to point out that it hinges on your strategy = his system. The more comments I see, the more confused I am about what his definition of a system is.
    - Zancarius 13y ago
      I'm not sure I do either, but the first analogy that popped in my head when I read about Mr. Adams' approach was one of weight loss. I don't think it's a particularly good analogy, but it's the best I can come up with as an illustration of his "system-oriented" approach. In a goal-oriented system, someone might choose to lose 30 pounds as their goal, then they'll work toward that goal through exercise or diet. Upon achieving it, they'll either continue (setting another goal) or fall off the wagon (going back to previous habits and gaining the weight right back). I've known enough people who have tried to diet repeatedly--and have succeeded in their weight loss--only to fail miserably and gain the weight back within a few weeks. In a system-oriented approach (or maybe you could call it a habit-oriented system?), you focus on building up or improving your habits so that they meet whatever goals you set. Using the example of losing weight, you'd focus on diet and exercise by making fundamental lifestyle changes to your behavior and eating habits that simply happens to produce weight loss as a byproduct. People who exploit this system by changing their habits consistently keep the weight off because their day to day behavior has fundamentally changed. To put it another way, their habits would have to be dramatically altered in order to go back to putting on the weight they lost as a consequence of this approach. Now, what I'm at a loss on is how this might apply to businesses, software development, or the likes other than to suggest it's a matter of developing good habits. To use his restaurant example: Instead of focusing on income goals, focus on making the best food in town and serving customers quickly. On second thought, maybe there isn't anything more to it other than habits? Maybe there's no "secret?" Develop good habits and plod along until something falls into your lap as a byproduct.
mason55 13y ago
It's a lot like playing poker. If you look at the results of a hand it's very likely you'll get the wrong idea of how you were supposed to play it. Even when you make the right play you still expect to lose some amount of time. Or when you're buying stock, you might expect the stock to go up by 100 points 10% of the time and down by 3 points 90% of the time. Just because the stock lost 3 points doesn't mean you were wrong to buy it (you expect to make 7.3 points in the long run). See also: Expected Value
themodelplumber 13y ago
I wish he could have given better examples of this phenomenally performant system-oriented mindset. I came away with more questions than answers, the biggest question being "why can't we substitute one extremely general term (system) with, say, an amalgam of three descriptive ones?"
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Because then he might accidentally say something he would have to defend.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  If he explained it all in the article, how could he sell his book?
vowelless 13y ago
I have been thinking about a similar approach for the past month or so (I call it the framework-oriented approach). There was an HN post in which a sports coach was quoted describing how a system consisting of good habits lead to consistent successes, as opposed to a goal-based approach that lead to non-consistent, one-off successes. The idea is that you create a framework of good habits that keeps you focused on a task at hand, and that also forms as a mental safety-net in case of failure (thus, not pushing you off the wagon). Using a habitual process, you can make incremental progress overall (keep improving the framework) and you keep adding or removing features (goals) depending on the demands from your system. This is in contrast to having a goal-based approach where your entire framework is hinging on one goal/feature. > For example, you often hear them say that you should "follow your passion." That sounds perfectly reasonable the first time you hear it. Passion will presumably give you high energy, high resistance to rejection and high determination. Passionate people are more persuasive, too. Those are all good things, right? Related to this is a great book by Cal Newport "So Good They Can't Ignore You" (http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912...) where he lays the case against "follow your passion" in a very methodical way. Here is a talk he gave at Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwOdU02SE0w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwOdU02SE0w
- raldu 13y ago
  Story about the sports coach along with other similar ones are mentioned in the best-selling book, "The Power of Habit[1]", which is an excellent read describing exactly an example of what you have called the framework-oriented approach. Recommended. 1: http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/1400069289/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/14000...
Swizec 13y ago
What about using goals as MVP's for frameworks/systems? For instance I recently decided to read an academic paper every week. It is posed as a challenge, but if the results are good I will simply continue reading an academic paper every week and voila, a system. I've used a similar approach for pretty much every good habit I keep. Start with a goal, then just don't stop. This has worked for everything from working out 3 times a day, to writing and programming. Start with a goal, end up with a system.
- larrys 13y ago
  Your idea is good (52 papers a week). Let me give you a tip to increase your luck. Put some more info about you on your site. I'm not seeing it. If it's there it's to hard to find. Important people might stop by and think "who is this guy and what can he do for me". There is no way to know what exactly you know or are good at. Make it easy for people to connect or bring opportunity to you. Be more like Dan Shipper. ( see http://danshipper.com/ http://danshipper.com/ I don't know him but I know who he is and what he can do ..)
- phillipnazarian 13y ago
  SWIZECCCCCCC!!!!
ritchiea 13y ago
Also: "In hindsight, it looks as if the projects that I was most passionate about were also the ones that worked. But objectively, my passion level moved with my success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success"
danso 13y ago
Wow, that's great...this is exactly how I feel. In the last year, I spent much less time thinking about the cool projects I wanted to build, and much more time learning all the things I've skipped: testing frameworks, devops, command-line toolsets...even just how to properly organize a codebase. It's been far, far more rewarding...Projects that I wanted to do a year ago seem so trivial now...I can't overstate how much of an impact making the development process easier and less of a strain on your real life can really pay off...being able to accomplish bigger goals with better results ends up being a very nice side effect
brandoncor 13y ago
This is in line with thinking of startups as a career: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/are-you-in-a-startup-career-path-or-are-you-one-and-done.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/are-you-in-a-sta...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ripter 13y ago
This is the reason I love the app Lift so much. It has literally changed my life. You setup daily habits and it encourages you to keep doing those habits every day.
dockd 13y ago
This sounds a lot like the message from the book "MindSet" by Carol Dweck. Her premise is people have a "fixed" mindset or a "growth" mindset. (I'm not sure of the terms; the book isn't here with me.) The main difference is the growth mindset sees everything as a learning opportunity (like Adams talking about putting the manure in a garden and hoping the cows come back) whereas the fixed mindset sees everything as a test of ones abilities.
MichaelRoderick 13y ago
That's my experience. When I was first trying to raise money on Broadway the number of times I failed was astronomical. Being consistent and just going out there and continuing to ask and learn from my experiences is what got me through. I can't stress this enough: Consistent effort creates data that you can use to improve and can help you find what works.

by milesf 13y ago

calinet6 13y ago

Truth right here. His systems thinking advice is phenomenal. Love this quote too: "Throughout my career I've had my antennae up, looking for examples of people who use systems as opposed to goals. In most cases, as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways." He's talking about success as simply a single point in the statistical sampling that is your life. This is an extremely correct, scientific, and most importantly helpful way to look at the world and your work.

DigitalJack 13y ago
It sounds good, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to apply it. I realize this article couldn't contain everything that will be in his book and so I hope that there is more practical advice regarding systems other than "have a system" in the book. For example, the guy that was always looking for a new job... isn't that just a repeating goal? On a personal note, I need to lose weight. I've done it before: I lost 74 lbs, but now several years later I've gained back just over 90 lbs. I reached my goal, and lost all motivation for eating healthy, and steadily gained it all back and more. I'm trying to structure my life around doing healthier things (better food, more exercise). How can I systemize that? Or have I already? I have "goals" of walking X times per week for Y distance. Is that the wrong approach? Should it be "after having walked, walk again as soon as possible but not sooner than 1 day?" I guess I could use an example of some systems that were not just repeating goals.
- ImprovedSilence 13y ago
  >>I guess I could use an example of some systems that were not just repeating goals. Don't go to the gym or workout or eat good just because you want to lose weight. Do it as a habit. Be motivated by the good feeling you get post workout everyday, not because you want to lose 10lbs or bench 200... Don't weight yourself, don't set a "goal". Just go. five times a week. Just keep going. Find a running club, and run because it's a good way to hang out with friends twice a week. Play a sport. Eat vegetables. But don't force them down, experiment with ways to integrate them into tasty meals. Then keep playing with recipes, and suddenly you're eating super healthy just because it's fun to try cooking some crazy plant from the store and you're making all these cool dishes.
- mden 13y ago
  I'm guessing that a system is just a repeatable goal. So perhaps in your case, the repeatable goal wouldn't be to lose weight as that would invariably lead you to dying, but rather to do something that makes you healthier every day. That could be something like eating healthier everyday or exercising for 15 minutes. This way you shifting from the goal of being X pounds lighter, to a system of being healthy.
  - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
    The beauty of a systems approach is that it takes vastly less willpower. It is very counter-intuitive to most people: "Gee, doing that every day, that sounds so hard. I can barely get exercise twice a week; therefore exercising every single day must be much harder." Nope. Quite the opposite. Hard is deciding every day whether you feel like going for a walk by arguing with yourself over whether you will feel better afterwards. That is effort spent with no satisfying payoff.
    - cJ0th 13y ago
      True. As so often, Linux gives a great analogy. When you start using it chances are you find working with it pretty inefficient and many things seem hard. But the more you learn about the system (which only really works when you do it every day)the better you get at solving your problems whereas people who rely solely on out-of-the box software improve rather little.
RogerL 13y ago
Hmm, I find it extraordinarily bizarre. My life has been filled with people charging down the wrong path because they have elevated system/process over goals. For example: Agile/Yourdon/waterfall/XP/ISO9001/whatever. Our goal is a working system on time and budget (or whatever your goals are). The strategy is, perhaps, iterative waterfall, or agile, or more likely, some hybid approach (hint: how likely is small scale scrum to work to build a new Boeing, and how likely is the ideal Boeing process likely to create a great social web app). Systems are based on a number of assumptions about your goals; assumptions that may not apply, or that may change over time. If you aren't continually testing your chosen strategy (I prefer strategy over system, but I more or less mean the same thing here) against your goals, you are likely to be anywhere from sub-optimal to completely wrong. So I live in a world where everyone is currently chasing Agile, without questioning whether it even fits the problem, or what its weaknesses are (even if it fits, it has weaknesses, and you should be aware of it so you can mitigate them). I live in a world where people grind through business processes, without questioning whether this is taking us where we actually need to go, or whether things have changed and our goals, which inform the system, still apply. To use the example in the article, it makes no sense to search for another job if you are retiring in a year. If the externals change and system does not, you are in trouble.
- tieTYT 13y ago
  Good post, but I just want to point out that it hinges on your strategy = his system. The more comments I see, the more confused I am about what his definition of a system is.
  - Zancarius 13y ago
    I'm not sure I do either, but the first analogy that popped in my head when I read about Mr. Adams' approach was one of weight loss. I don't think it's a particularly good analogy, but it's the best I can come up with as an illustration of his "system-oriented" approach. In a goal-oriented system, someone might choose to lose 30 pounds as their goal, then they'll work toward that goal through exercise or diet. Upon achieving it, they'll either continue (setting another goal) or fall off the wagon (going back to previous habits and gaining the weight right back). I've known enough people who have tried to diet repeatedly--and have succeeded in their weight loss--only to fail miserably and gain the weight back within a few weeks. In a system-oriented approach (or maybe you could call it a habit-oriented system?), you focus on building up or improving your habits so that they meet whatever goals you set. Using the example of losing weight, you'd focus on diet and exercise by making fundamental lifestyle changes to your behavior and eating habits that simply happens to produce weight loss as a byproduct. People who exploit this system by changing their habits consistently keep the weight off because their day to day behavior has fundamentally changed. To put it another way, their habits would have to be dramatically altered in order to go back to putting on the weight they lost as a consequence of this approach. Now, what I'm at a loss on is how this might apply to businesses, software development, or the likes other than to suggest it's a matter of developing good habits. To use his restaurant example: Instead of focusing on income goals, focus on making the best food in town and serving customers quickly. On second thought, maybe there isn't anything more to it other than habits? Maybe there's no "secret?" Develop good habits and plod along until something falls into your lap as a byproduct.

mason55 13y ago

It's a lot like playing poker. If you look at the results of a hand it's very likely you'll get the wrong idea of how you were supposed to play it. Even when you make the right play you still expect to lose some amount of time. Or when you're buying stock, you might expect the stock to go up by 100 points 10% of the time and down by 3 points 90% of the time. Just because the stock lost 3 points doesn't mean you were wrong to buy it (you expect to make 7.3 points in the long run). See also: Expected Value

themodelplumber 13y ago

I wish he could have given better examples of this phenomenally performant system-oriented mindset. I came away with more questions than answers, the biggest question being "why can't we substitute one extremely general term (system) with, say, an amalgam of three descriptive ones?"

CamperBob2 13y ago
Because then he might accidentally say something he would have to defend.
danmaz74 13y ago
If he explained it all in the article, how could he sell his book?

vowelless 13y ago

I have been thinking about a similar approach for the past month or so (I call it the framework-oriented approach). There was an HN post in which a sports coach was quoted describing how a system consisting of good habits lead to consistent successes, as opposed to a goal-based approach that lead to non-consistent, one-off successes. The idea is that you create a framework of good habits that keeps you focused on a task at hand, and that also forms as a mental safety-net in case of failure (thus, not pushing you off the wagon). Using a habitual process, you can make incremental progress overall (keep improving the framework) and you keep adding or removing features (goals) depending on the demands from your system. This is in contrast to having a goal-based approach where your entire framework is hinging on one goal/feature. > For example, you often hear them say that you should "follow your passion." That sounds perfectly reasonable the first time you hear it. Passion will presumably give you high energy, high resistance to rejection and high determination. Passionate people are more persuasive, too. Those are all good things, right? Related to this is a great book by Cal Newport "So Good They Can't Ignore You" (http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912...) where he lays the case against "follow your passion" in a very methodical way. Here is a talk he gave at Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwOdU02SE0w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwOdU02SE0w

raldu 13y ago
Story about the sports coach along with other similar ones are mentioned in the best-selling book, "The Power of Habit[1]", which is an excellent read describing exactly an example of what you have called the framework-oriented approach. Recommended. 1: http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/1400069289/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/14000...

Swizec 13y ago

What about using goals as MVP's for frameworks/systems? For instance I recently decided to read an academic paper every week. It is posed as a challenge, but if the results are good I will simply continue reading an academic paper every week and voila, a system. I've used a similar approach for pretty much every good habit I keep. Start with a goal, then just don't stop. This has worked for everything from working out 3 times a day, to writing and programming. Start with a goal, end up with a system.

larrys 13y ago
Your idea is good (52 papers a week). Let me give you a tip to increase your luck. Put some more info about you on your site. I'm not seeing it. If it's there it's to hard to find. Important people might stop by and think "who is this guy and what can he do for me". There is no way to know what exactly you know or are good at. Make it easy for people to connect or bring opportunity to you. Be more like Dan Shipper. ( see http://danshipper.com/ http://danshipper.com/ I don't know him but I know who he is and what he can do ..)
phillipnazarian 13y ago
SWIZECCCCCCC!!!!

ritchiea 13y ago

Also: "In hindsight, it looks as if the projects that I was most passionate about were also the ones that worked. But objectively, my passion level moved with my success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success"

danso 13y ago

Wow, that's great...this is exactly how I feel. In the last year, I spent much less time thinking about the cool projects I wanted to build, and much more time learning all the things I've skipped: testing frameworks, devops, command-line toolsets...even just how to properly organize a codebase. It's been far, far more rewarding...Projects that I wanted to do a year ago seem so trivial now...I can't overstate how much of an impact making the development process easier and less of a strain on your real life can really pay off...being able to accomplish bigger goals with better results ends up being a very nice side effect

brandoncor 13y ago

This is in line with thinking of startups as a career: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/are-you-in-a-startup-career-path-or-are-you-one-and-done.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/are-you-in-a-sta...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ripter 13y ago

This is the reason I love the app Lift so much. It has literally changed my life. You setup daily habits and it encourages you to keep doing those habits every day.

dockd 13y ago

This sounds a lot like the message from the book "MindSet" by Carol Dweck. Her premise is people have a "fixed" mindset or a "growth" mindset. (I'm not sure of the terms; the book isn't here with me.) The main difference is the growth mindset sees everything as a learning opportunity (like Adams talking about putting the manure in a garden and hoping the cows come back) whereas the fixed mindset sees everything as a test of ones abilities.

MichaelRoderick 13y ago

That's my experience. When I was first trying to raise money on Broadway the number of times I failed was astronomical. Being consistent and just going out there and continuing to ask and learn from my experiences is what got me through. I can't stress this enough: Consistent effort creates data that you can use to improve and can help you find what works.