Failure.
There lies, in current media attempts to describe the behavior of our economy, a gross intentional oversimplification of one of the most complicated things in the entire man-made world. In reality, nobody truly understands why we’re here now or how we get back to a better place. Why? Because a million tiny little things had to align for underemployment rates to skyrocket to almost 20%. Because a million tiny little things have to align for us to replace that gaudy number with one that gets Americans back to work; and not just back to work but back to work in the jobs they deserve.
Externality. For every
decision you make as a manager, these consequences will eventually show
themselves. Firing low performers leads
to an immediate increase in productivity.
Two months later your numbers are worse than they ever were before. Maybe it’s because morale is low; maybe it’s because
you fired the wrong low performers. In
either case, you certainly never intended to murder your productivity. It doesn’t matter anymore. It happened.
How do you avoid these things? You don’t.
How do you at least mitigate them? You play the odds.
What odds? The odds hidden in the numbers of business. It doesn’t particularly matter what business you’re in. There are numbers. You’ve just got to find the right ones; to filter out all of the white noise. No matter what business you’re in, there will be people above you, telling you which numbers are the right ones. Have the courage to figure it out for yourself. Figure out if those are the right numbers or if they are merely symptoms.
I realize this is reading more like a monologue than an econ blog but I’m just not sure how to better convey the seriousness of the topic than with a little bit of passion. You cannot be afraid of the externalities of your business decisions if you know the decisions you’re making are the correct ones. Good decision making doesn’t produce success. Conviction and consistency produce success. Trying to make the right decision every single time will only lead to knee jerk reactions, more hard decisions and more externalities. Why is consistency so important? Because consistent decision making leads to consistent results which leads to fewer unexpected consequences which leads to a reduction in variation. If you reduce your variation you’re going to find yourself with a reliable product whether we’re talking about HR processes or widget making.
And so this is supposed to be a discussion. What do you think? Can we take something as mind-blowingly complicated as the US Economy or even just a small business and simplify them just by finding a way to make consistent decisions? If we play the odds long enough and endure the losing streaks, won’t the numbers eventually turn in our favor? Don’t they have to?
How do you avoid these things? You don’t.
How do you at least mitigate them? You play the odds.
What odds? The odds hidden in the numbers of business. It doesn’t particularly matter what business you’re in. There are numbers. You’ve just got to find the right ones; to filter out all of the white noise. No matter what business you’re in, there will be people above you, telling you which numbers are the right ones. Have the courage to figure it out for yourself. Figure out if those are the right numbers or if they are merely symptoms.
I realize this is reading more like a monologue than an econ blog but I’m just not sure how to better convey the seriousness of the topic than with a little bit of passion. You cannot be afraid of the externalities of your business decisions if you know the decisions you’re making are the correct ones. Good decision making doesn’t produce success. Conviction and consistency produce success. Trying to make the right decision every single time will only lead to knee jerk reactions, more hard decisions and more externalities. Why is consistency so important? Because consistent decision making leads to consistent results which leads to fewer unexpected consequences which leads to a reduction in variation. If you reduce your variation you’re going to find yourself with a reliable product whether we’re talking about HR processes or widget making.
And so this is supposed to be a discussion. What do you think? Can we take something as mind-blowingly complicated as the US Economy or even just a small business and simplify them just by finding a way to make consistent decisions? If we play the odds long enough and endure the losing streaks, won’t the numbers eventually turn in our favor? Don’t they have to?
