Category: Notes

• People want to work for organizations with a “Just Cause”
• A Just Cause must be:
  • For something—affirmative and optimistic
  • Inclusive—open to all those who would like to contribute
  • Service oriented—for the primary benefit of others
  • Resilient—able to endure political, technological, and cultural change
  • Idealistic—big, bold, and possibly unachievable
• Milton Friedman: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.”
• The pillars of an infinite company:
  • Advance a purpose: Offer people a sense of belonging and a feeling that their lives and their work have value beyond the physical work.
  • Protect people: Operate in a way that protects the people who work for us, the people who buy from us, and the environments in which we live and work.
  • Generate profit: Money is fuel for a business to remain viable so that it may continue to advance the first two priorities.
• “Part of safety,” said Professor Robin Ely, coauthor of the Harvard Business Review article about the URSA, “is being able to admit mistakes and being open to learning—to say, ‘I need help, I can’t lift this thing by myself, I’m not sure how to read this meter.’”
• Leaders are not responsible for the results; leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.
• Use disruption to clarify your cause, not cloud your vision

These are from my second reading

• “Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out a way for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.” Jeff Bezos
  • When people are synchronized, they do not need as much communication

Failure is often seen as a bad thing. When we fail in school, we cannot progress. When we fail a driving test, we are not permitted to drive. When we fail to deliver as work, we are often dismissed. Signs of the fear of failure pervade our culture. From crafting intricate lies hiding our failures to

For almost as long as I have had a job, I have watched people use metrics to gauge performance. Many bosses live by the adage, “If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” For almost as long as I have had a job, I have struggled with the notion that everything of value can be measured and thus improved.

Muller’s book puts that sentiment into writing. Sourcing detailed accounts of how articulate measurements often go awry from their intention. Muller quotes Marilyn Strathern’s paraphrase of Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

In our race for efficiency, we often expect metrics to manage things rather than people, assuming metrics never lie but neglecting the fact metrics also only tell a very narrow piece of the story.