Once you accept that you'll always waste a little work, you'll unlock way better outcomes.

· Bits and Bobs 6/15/26
  • Once you accept that you'll always waste a little work, you'll unlock way better outcomes.
    • Organization leaders spend so much time trying to "avoid wasted work."
    • Going from 20% wasted work to 10% wasted work requires 10x the effort.
      • You need to create legibility, which gets fractally more expensive as you go into the details.
        • Especially in a fast-moving organization!
      • Also, it will likely be faux clarity that kills the aliveness in the system.
      • Especially in any kind of domain that isn't crystal clear and well known.
    • Some portion of that "wasted effort", especially if the team is high-autonomy people who are acting like owners and expect to be sitting in the same seat in two years, will actually be acorns.
      • That is, seeds of greatness that just haven't grown yet.
    • Instead of making sure no wasted work happens, how do you make sure that great things are happening?