March 23, 2025 • 23 mins
Implementing changes – especially irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes – requires humility and understanding. In this conversation, we discuss Chesterton's fence and the art of mindful change-making.
Show notes:
- The Thing by GK Chesterton
- Chesterton’s fence
- Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
- Systemantics by John Gall
- Gall’s law
- Christopher Alexander
- Drift Into Failure by Sidney Dekker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Harry (00:00):
Tearing a fence down without understanding what its
utility is and why it was putthere in the first place and
what problems it was trying tosolve feels so terribly foolish
to me.
Narrator (00:18):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging in to get results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:29):
Hey, Harry, it's good to see you.
Harry (00:30):
Hey, that's great to see you again, Jorge.
Thanks for making time today.
Jorge (00:34):
I'm always, grateful for the time that I get to spend
with you.
What have you been up to sincewe last talked?
Harry (00:40):
Man.
I'm excited.
I got a new client, a reallyexciting new client.
I can't, it's one of those Ican't talk about.
If I did, they'd have to killme.
But I so enjoy being called todo the kind of work that I feel
like I'm uniquely suited to doand do work with people who
value in me what I value inmyself, really utilizing the
(01:04):
diagnostic skills, utilizing myproduct design information
architecture, background, andalso being a real hands-on
product leader and so, bringingall of that to a coaching and
consulting relationship in acompany that I respect with a
(01:26):
leader that I admire, justbrings me a lot of joy.
What about yourself?
Jorge (01:34):
I've just wrapped a big project that's kept me busy for
the first few weeks of the year.
And I'm working on, on a productactually that hopefully brings
to bear some of the things thatI've been writing about regards
to information architecture andartificial intelligence, which
(01:56):
is consuming so many people'sthinking these days, right?
Harry (02:00):
Yeah, no doubt.
Excellent.
Good luck on that.
Let me know if there's anythingI can do to help.
Jorge (02:05):
I'll let you know when the time is right.
Harry (02:09):
Excellent.
Did you happen to bringsomething to share today?
I know we've been going back andforth on this.
Jorge (02:15):
Yeah.
I have a reading that I wantedto share with you.
And before I read this, I'llrephrase it by saying that this
is from the early 20th century.
So some of the language mightbe...
might sound odd, I'll just saythat.
(02:39):
But I think it's very relevant.
So here goes.
Harry (02:43):
Okay.
Jorge (02:44):
"In the matter of reforming things as distinct
from deforming them, there isone plain and simple principle,
a principle which will probablybe called a paradox.
There exists in such a case, acertain institution or law, let
(03:05):
us say for the sake ofsimplicity, a fence or gate
erected across a road.
The more modern type of reformergoes gaily up to it and says,'I
don't see the use of this.
Let us clear it away.'"To whichthe more intelligent type of
reformer will do well to answer,'if you don't see the use of it,
(03:26):
I certainly won't let you clearit away.
Go away and think.
Then, when you can come back andtell me that you do see the use
of it, I may allow you todestroy it.' This paradox rests
on the most elementary commonsense.
The gate or fence did not growthere.
(03:49):
It was not set up bysubnambulists who built it in
their sleep.
It is highly improbable that itwas put there by escaped
lunatics who were, for somereason, loose in the street.
Some person had some reason forthinking it would be a good
thing for somebody.
And until we know what thereason was, we really cannot
judge whether the reason wasreasonable.
(04:12):
"It is extremely probable thatwe have overlooked some whole
aspect of the question.
If something is set up by humanbeings like ourselves seems to
be entirely meaningless andmysterious.
There are reformers who get overthis difficulty by assuming that
all their fathers were fools,but if that be so, we can only
say that folly appears to be ahereditary disease."
Harry (04:39):
Oh.
Oh man.
Talk about striking a nerve Icannot guess where that came
from, but boy does it remind meof...
you,Youommended a book to me awhile back called Seeing Like a
(05:01):
State, and I'm pretty surethat's not from that book, but
boy oh boy, talk about, similarthemes.
Jorge (05:13):
I'll tell you what the book is, for the sake of folks
who might wanna follow this up.
So this is GK Chesterton, andit's a book called The Thing,
it's a book of essays aboutChesterton's religion.
But this is, I think, the mostfamous part of it, which is
where the idea of Chesterton'sFence comes from, which is I
(05:35):
think, an important concept,especially nowadays.
Harry (05:38):
This is new to me, I have to say, and I'm delighted and
always a little embarrassed whensomething that I should probably
know, I don't know and haven'tencountered.
Too many thoughts came to mindstarting with the book I
mentioned a minute ago about notunderstanding why things are the
(05:59):
way they are and, not lookingfor the utility and history
behind things and notunderstanding that things don't
just grow there, mostly.
Everything gets designed andbuilt pretty much.
Maybe the tree just grows there,but even that's probably second
(06:21):
growth or third growth.
I'm so curious, what promptedyou to...
like, did you dig this upspecific for this conversation?
Were you reading it and did itjump out at you?
Like, what brought this into theforeground?
Jorge (06:38):
I became aware of the idea of Chesterton's fence
because of my interest insystems thinking.
There's another book that hasinfluenced me there called
Systematics, where this notionof Gall's law appears, and I'm
not gonna do it justice rightnow.
I'm just gonna paraphrase bysaying that the gist of it is
(06:58):
that you can't institute acomplex system from the top
down.
It kinda has to emerge that way.
And whenever I see someonestepping into a position of
leadership and taking theapproach that things that their
(07:21):
predecessors built are to bescrapped so that they can start
over, I get a little nervousbecause I feel like there's a
violation of Gall's lawhappening.
And studying Gall's law led meto this notion of Chester's
fence because this passage thatI read articulates why it's so
(07:43):
dangerous to do that, right?
To just say,"Let's do away withthe old and in with the new, and
we're just gonna do things over.
We're gonna do it over."
Harry (07:53):
Yeah.
As if we're so much wiser, andwe're not.
That wisdom comes fromreflection on what's worked and
what hasn't worked and whywhat's worked and why what
hasn't worked has revealeditself over time.
And to fences, good fences makegood neighbors right?
(08:15):
But it also, thinking aboutinformation architecture, I
think about our, friends whofounded Adaptive Path and the
concept behind Adaptive Path,adaptive pathing and adaptive
paths, that the lines of utilityget created.
You make some things easier.
You make some things harder.
(08:37):
The things you make easier,hopefully, are the things you're
trying to incent, behaviorsyou're trying to incent, because
they make things better.
And the things you make harderare things you're trying to
dis-incent and trying to createmore friction.
And this notion of fences andpaths and doorways and
thresholds and it cuts to theheart of Christopher Alexander's
(09:01):
work in what are you tryingto...
what paths are you trying toclear so that people can move
from one place to another withgrace and low friction and low
conflict.
And tearing a fence down withoutunderstanding what its utility
(09:25):
is and why it was put there inthe first place and what
problems it was trying to solvefeels so terribly foolish to me.
It points directly to theconcept that I've been talking
about with many, people for along time of stupidity, which is
deceiving oneself while tryingto achieve outcomes that are the
(09:49):
opposite of what your behavioris likely to lead to.
Jorge (09:53):
Wow.
Can you repeat that?
That feels like one that bearslistening to again.
Harry (09:58):
Sure.
Let me back up'cause I'm notgonna repeat it perfectly, but
I'll tell you where it camefrom.
and I worked for a lot of reallygreat people in my career.
I'm incredibly fortunate.
And then, I worked for somebodywho wasn't so great.
I'm not gonna mention who thatwas or what company it was, but
I became fascinated with theconcept of stupidity.
(10:21):
And I wanted to write a bookabout it.
And in fact, ultimately that'swhere the book on prioritization
came from.
But the idea was that there's nosuch thing as a stupid person in
this worldview.
And that stupidity is actually aresult of a series of actions
that lead to an outcome that'sthe opposite of what you say you
(10:43):
want under conditions ofself-deception.
And so, if it's notself-deception, it's either a
calculated risk or it's an errorin judgment, or it's gambling or
it's addiction or any number ofthings.
But in situations where you'rewillfully ignorant or actively
(11:05):
deceiving yourself and sayingyou want one thing and pursuing
a set of actions and decisionsand behaviors and conversations
that are likely to lead to theopposite of what you say you
want, and in all probabilitygonna harm other people and harm
yourself potentially without anyreal gain.
(11:27):
You cut right to the heart ofwhat I think stupidity is.
Jorge (11:32):
The word stupidity sounds a little judgy.
Harry (11:36):
It is totally judgy.
Jorge (11:39):
I like the word unskillfulness because it speaks
to a similar idea but it...
Your face leads me to believethat you're not convinced.
Harry (11:50):
I'm not at all convinced.
And I think the reason for that,and I don't want to get all
high-horsey about this, becauseI'm my own best student of
stupidity, let me tell you.
And I think that's partly why Igot so interested in it is, I'm
trying to take the negativevalence or the pejorative out of
the term.
(12:11):
And it's not possible, right?
You hear the term stupidity andyou immediately think of all the
negatives, and that'sunavoidable and it's partly why
I've never really pushed thisidea as hard as I'm probably
sounds like I'm pushing it righthere, right now.
Because unskillfulness doesn'tnecessitate self-deception being
(12:34):
an active contributor to theoutcome.
Jorge (12:37):
That makes sense.
It sounds like the judginess iscalled for, in some ways.
To try to be pragmatic aboutthis, the idea of Chesterton's
fence is a nice mnemonic toremember that you might not have
all the facts, right?
Like when you're in a positionto do something about something,
(12:59):
right?
If, I don't know, you're a newleader, you're brought into
manage a team that necessitateschange.
So that's, the first thing,right?
There's change that needs tohappen somehow, either because
it does need to happen orbecause the leader has deemed it
necessary.
I think that the first thing issome degree of humility in
(13:22):
understanding that you don'thave perfect understanding and
that your first job should be toget as clear a read of the
situation as possible.
Harry (13:33):
Mm-hmm
Jorge (13:34):
And of course, that might not be possible under all
circumstances.
Sometimes you're dealing with asituation that needs quick
action, and you don't have timeto do the research, you don't
have time to develop nuancedunderstanding.
But, particularly forirreversible changes, it
(13:56):
behooves you to be a littlehumble and to acknowledge that
you don't have all the answersright off the bat.
Harry (14:05):
Yeah, I think ignorance, is defensible.
I think willful ignorance is notdefensible.
And when you go out of your wayto dismiss people who are better
informed or have a betterunderstanding of the dynamics of
the information of the systems,of the facts, and you go about
(14:28):
intentionally ignoring them forthe purposes of maintaining your
own sense of self-importance oryour own sense of rightness, I
think that's where you startpushing into this zone that I'm,
very judgy about.
And the fact that I'm judgyabout it starts to call into
(14:48):
question my humility, because Ifind it hard to be humble when I
see that stuff going on.
It makes me angry.
It makes me frustrated.
It makes me irritated.
One of my instructors many yearsago used to say,"If you wanna
figure out where you're anartist, look at what disgusts
you." And so, perhaps it's myinterest in design and my
(15:10):
interest in informationarchitecture, my interest in
building useful things, thatallows me to make a lot of fine
distinctions when it comes tolooking at the facts and doing
the best job I can to interpretwhat is and is not there, and
synthesizing that into somesensible understanding before
(15:33):
committing to and promotingdecisions and actions that are
likely to have, as you said aminute ago, irreversible and
potentially catastrophicresults.
Jorge (15:44):
Another point that came to mind when I was thinking
about this in preparation forthis conversation was, I think,
implied in what you said whenbringing in Adaptive Path into
the conversation, the notion ofpaths.
if you think about paths andfences, the role of the one is
(16:07):
connecting; the role of theother is dividing.
They're both structuralelements, right?
And systems, organizations,teams, products, what have you,
systems have structures.
Long-running systems havestructures that have emerged
over time, and there isknowledge that is explicitly
(16:35):
articulated about those systems.
But then there's also knowledgethat is in implicit in the
structures of the system thathas not been captured anywhere.
And part of the humility thatsomeone has to have when facing
these kinds of challenges isknowing that while you might not
(16:59):
understand the reason for thestructure, the structures are
there for reasons.
Now, it might be that thosereasons are not valid, or not
valid anymore.
They might have been valid whenthey were put in place.
And one of the tough calls thatyou have to make as an agent of
change is developing thecriteria, the...
(17:24):
maybe taste is not the rightword to use in this context, but
developing the means to tellwhich structural elements are
there and no longer serving thefunctions that they were put
into place for.
Or perhaps they're serving thosefunctions, but those functions
(17:45):
are no longer relevant.
They were designed for adifferent world, right?
And I think that's one of thetoughest things there.
But, anyway, I think this is allpointing to a more thoughtful
and nuanced approach to dealingwith these changes than coming
in and hacking about.
Harry (18:03):
Totally.
And perhaps, at least in mywork, I'm probably accused of
being too thoughtful at times.
There are people that would,maybe on the far side of that,
claim that I take a morebureaucratic approach or a more
top-down, a moreoverview-oriented approach,
because I really wannaunderstand what it is we're
(18:28):
dealing with before we go andstart messing with it.
Because it seems to me, at leastin my experience over the years
that I've been working, thatwhat's most likely to show up
that's gonna cause problems orthe unintended negative
consequences of seemingly gooddecisions that were made with
(18:51):
insufficient information or theassumptions behind them were
never challenged, and it justdoesn't take all that much time
and energy to slow down a littlebit and to think about the
possible implications of what itis you're about to embark on
(19:17):
before pushing headlong intosomething that you can't undo.
And we're living in a verycomplex world, and so it's not
like we're ever gonna know allof the ramifications and all of
the positive, unexpectedoutcomes and negative unintended
(19:38):
consequences of anything thatwe're gonna do.
But we can certainly decreasethe likelihood that we're going
to make decisions in a localcontext that have a broader
global set of considerations.
It makes me think of Sidneykecker's book Drift Into
Failure, which I read many yearsago, and then reread just a
(20:01):
short few years ago, and thisidea that it's possible to make
decisions in a local context andreally miss the broader, more
systemic context in which thosedecisions are being made, can
lead to disastrous outcome.
His book really focuses on thekinds of cost-cutting decisions
(20:25):
that were made at Boeing.
He really focuses on the airlineindustry and on the kind of
decisions that get made tocontinually cost-cut.
And what happens is thesedecisions get made with a
decreasing contextual awarenessof the situation in which they
(20:46):
never should have happened.
Because in a larger, longertemporal frame, if you look at a
longer period of time, then youmight do some of them, but you
wouldn't do all of them.
But when you shorten thattimeframe up and you're making
decisions in that tightertimeframe, to make these
(21:08):
decisions without consideringwhat's happened before it and
why they were made and whatspecifications mattered, why the
thing was there, and what it wassupposed to do, that's what
causes planes to fall out of thesky,
Jorge (21:25):
So I'm gonna try to bring it to a close on a kind of
practical note, because itsounds like we've discussed
three things to be aware of whenfacing these kinds of changes
these kinds of potentiallytraumatic structural changes,
right?
The first is having somehumility, enough humility to
(21:45):
know that you don't know whatyou don't know, and doing at
least a minimal baseline amountof research to get understanding
on the situation.
The second is respecting theidea that there is knowledge
that is inherent to thestructure of the current system.
It might not be articulatedexplicitly, but just the fact
(22:07):
that the system is structured inthe way it is, is information.
And the third, what I'm hearingyou say there, is to ensure that
you are doing the changes forthe right reasons.
That you're clear on the goalsand how those goals either
support or don't support yourultimate goals.
Harry (22:32):
Absolutely that.
That's a hundred percent right.
Jorge (22:35):
Alright, that seems like a potentially good place to wrap
this up.
Thank you as always.
I'm going to look up Dekker'swork.
I was not familiar with that,but it sounds like it's highly
relevant to this.
Harry (22:48):
Yeah, and he's written a lot of good stuff, but I'm a
ginormous fan of Drift IntoFailure because it does such a
compelling job of making thecase for really understanding
the facts and the context aroundthe kinds of changes that you're
trying to make.
Jorge (23:06):
All right.
I'm also gonna put a pin (23:06):
we did not talk about Seeing Like a
State, and I'll say that'sintentional because that was one
of my books that I was hoping tobring in to our conversation, so
we, might do that in a futureconversation, but as always, it
was such a treat, talking withyou, Harry.
Harry (23:25):
This was a good one.
Thanks Jorge.
Narrator (23:33):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the shownotes@tractionheroes.com and if
you enjoyed the show, pleaseleave us a rating in Apple's
podcasts app.
Thanks.
Tearing a fence down without understanding what its
utility is and why it was putthere in the first place and
what problems it was trying tosolve feels so terribly foolish
to me.
Narrator (00:18):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging in to get results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:29):
Hey, Harry, it's good to see you.
Harry (00:30):
Hey, that's great to see you again, Jorge.
Thanks for making time today.
Jorge (00:34):
I'm always, grateful for the time that I get to spend
with you.
What have you been up to sincewe last talked?
Harry (00:40):
Man.
I'm excited.
I got a new client, a reallyexciting new client.
I can't, it's one of those Ican't talk about.
If I did, they'd have to killme.
But I so enjoy being called todo the kind of work that I feel
like I'm uniquely suited to doand do work with people who
value in me what I value inmyself, really utilizing the
(01:04):
diagnostic skills, utilizing myproduct design information
architecture, background, andalso being a real hands-on
product leader and so, bringingall of that to a coaching and
consulting relationship in acompany that I respect with a
(01:26):
leader that I admire, justbrings me a lot of joy.
What about yourself?
Jorge (01:34):
I've just wrapped a big project that's kept me busy for
the first few weeks of the year.
And I'm working on, on a productactually that hopefully brings
to bear some of the things thatI've been writing about regards
to information architecture andartificial intelligence, which
(01:56):
is consuming so many people'sthinking these days, right?
Harry (02:00):
Yeah, no doubt.
Excellent.
Good luck on that.
Let me know if there's anythingI can do to help.
Jorge (02:05):
I'll let you know when the time is right.
Harry (02:09):
Excellent.
Did you happen to bringsomething to share today?
I know we've been going back andforth on this.
Jorge (02:15):
Yeah.
I have a reading that I wantedto share with you.
And before I read this, I'llrephrase it by saying that this
is from the early 20th century.
So some of the language mightbe...
might sound odd, I'll just saythat.
(02:39):
But I think it's very relevant.
So here goes.
Harry (02:43):
Okay.
Jorge (02:44):
"In the matter of reforming things as distinct
from deforming them, there isone plain and simple principle,
a principle which will probablybe called a paradox.
There exists in such a case, acertain institution or law, let
(03:05):
us say for the sake ofsimplicity, a fence or gate
erected across a road.
The more modern type of reformergoes gaily up to it and says,'I
don't see the use of this.
Let us clear it away.'"To whichthe more intelligent type of
reformer will do well to answer,'if you don't see the use of it,
(03:26):
I certainly won't let you clearit away.
Go away and think.
Then, when you can come back andtell me that you do see the use
of it, I may allow you todestroy it.' This paradox rests
on the most elementary commonsense.
The gate or fence did not growthere.
(03:49):
It was not set up bysubnambulists who built it in
their sleep.
It is highly improbable that itwas put there by escaped
lunatics who were, for somereason, loose in the street.
Some person had some reason forthinking it would be a good
thing for somebody.
And until we know what thereason was, we really cannot
judge whether the reason wasreasonable.
(04:12):
"It is extremely probable thatwe have overlooked some whole
aspect of the question.
If something is set up by humanbeings like ourselves seems to
be entirely meaningless andmysterious.
There are reformers who get overthis difficulty by assuming that
all their fathers were fools,but if that be so, we can only
say that folly appears to be ahereditary disease."
Harry (04:39):
Oh.
Oh man.
Talk about striking a nerve Icannot guess where that came
from, but boy does it remind meof...
you,Youommended a book to me awhile back called Seeing Like a
(05:01):
State, and I'm pretty surethat's not from that book, but
boy oh boy, talk about, similarthemes.
Jorge (05:13):
I'll tell you what the book is, for the sake of folks
who might wanna follow this up.
So this is GK Chesterton, andit's a book called The Thing,
it's a book of essays aboutChesterton's religion.
But this is, I think, the mostfamous part of it, which is
where the idea of Chesterton'sFence comes from, which is I
(05:35):
think, an important concept,especially nowadays.
Harry (05:38):
This is new to me, I have to say, and I'm delighted and
always a little embarrassed whensomething that I should probably
know, I don't know and haven'tencountered.
Too many thoughts came to mindstarting with the book I
mentioned a minute ago about notunderstanding why things are the
(05:59):
way they are and, not lookingfor the utility and history
behind things and notunderstanding that things don't
just grow there, mostly.
Everything gets designed andbuilt pretty much.
Maybe the tree just grows there,but even that's probably second
(06:21):
growth or third growth.
I'm so curious, what promptedyou to...
like, did you dig this upspecific for this conversation?
Were you reading it and did itjump out at you?
Like, what brought this into theforeground?
Jorge (06:38):
I became aware of the idea of Chesterton's fence
because of my interest insystems thinking.
There's another book that hasinfluenced me there called
Systematics, where this notionof Gall's law appears, and I'm
not gonna do it justice rightnow.
I'm just gonna paraphrase bysaying that the gist of it is
(06:58):
that you can't institute acomplex system from the top
down.
It kinda has to emerge that way.
And whenever I see someonestepping into a position of
leadership and taking theapproach that things that their
(07:21):
predecessors built are to bescrapped so that they can start
over, I get a little nervousbecause I feel like there's a
violation of Gall's lawhappening.
And studying Gall's law led meto this notion of Chester's
fence because this passage thatI read articulates why it's so
(07:43):
dangerous to do that, right?
To just say,"Let's do away withthe old and in with the new, and
we're just gonna do things over.
We're gonna do it over."
Harry (07:53):
Yeah.
As if we're so much wiser, andwe're not.
That wisdom comes fromreflection on what's worked and
what hasn't worked and whywhat's worked and why what
hasn't worked has revealeditself over time.
And to fences, good fences makegood neighbors right?
(08:15):
But it also, thinking aboutinformation architecture, I
think about our, friends whofounded Adaptive Path and the
concept behind Adaptive Path,adaptive pathing and adaptive
paths, that the lines of utilityget created.
You make some things easier.
You make some things harder.
(08:37):
The things you make easier,hopefully, are the things you're
trying to incent, behaviorsyou're trying to incent, because
they make things better.
And the things you make harderare things you're trying to
dis-incent and trying to createmore friction.
And this notion of fences andpaths and doorways and
thresholds and it cuts to theheart of Christopher Alexander's
(09:01):
work in what are you tryingto...
what paths are you trying toclear so that people can move
from one place to another withgrace and low friction and low
conflict.
And tearing a fence down withoutunderstanding what its utility
(09:25):
is and why it was put there inthe first place and what
problems it was trying to solvefeels so terribly foolish to me.
It points directly to theconcept that I've been talking
about with many, people for along time of stupidity, which is
deceiving oneself while tryingto achieve outcomes that are the
(09:49):
opposite of what your behavioris likely to lead to.
Jorge (09:53):
Wow.
Can you repeat that?
That feels like one that bearslistening to again.
Harry (09:58):
Sure.
Let me back up'cause I'm notgonna repeat it perfectly, but
I'll tell you where it camefrom.
and I worked for a lot of reallygreat people in my career.
I'm incredibly fortunate.
And then, I worked for somebodywho wasn't so great.
I'm not gonna mention who thatwas or what company it was, but
I became fascinated with theconcept of stupidity.
(10:21):
And I wanted to write a bookabout it.
And in fact, ultimately that'swhere the book on prioritization
came from.
But the idea was that there's nosuch thing as a stupid person in
this worldview.
And that stupidity is actually aresult of a series of actions
that lead to an outcome that'sthe opposite of what you say you
(10:43):
want under conditions ofself-deception.
And so, if it's notself-deception, it's either a
calculated risk or it's an errorin judgment, or it's gambling or
it's addiction or any number ofthings.
But in situations where you'rewillfully ignorant or actively
(11:05):
deceiving yourself and sayingyou want one thing and pursuing
a set of actions and decisionsand behaviors and conversations
that are likely to lead to theopposite of what you say you
want, and in all probabilitygonna harm other people and harm
yourself potentially without anyreal gain.
(11:27):
You cut right to the heart ofwhat I think stupidity is.
Jorge (11:32):
The word stupidity sounds a little judgy.
Harry (11:36):
It is totally judgy.
Jorge (11:39):
I like the word unskillfulness because it speaks
to a similar idea but it...
Your face leads me to believethat you're not convinced.
Harry (11:50):
I'm not at all convinced.
And I think the reason for that,and I don't want to get all
high-horsey about this, becauseI'm my own best student of
stupidity, let me tell you.
And I think that's partly why Igot so interested in it is, I'm
trying to take the negativevalence or the pejorative out of
the term.
(12:11):
And it's not possible, right?
You hear the term stupidity andyou immediately think of all the
negatives, and that'sunavoidable and it's partly why
I've never really pushed thisidea as hard as I'm probably
sounds like I'm pushing it righthere, right now.
Because unskillfulness doesn'tnecessitate self-deception being
(12:34):
an active contributor to theoutcome.
Jorge (12:37):
That makes sense.
It sounds like the judginess iscalled for, in some ways.
To try to be pragmatic aboutthis, the idea of Chesterton's
fence is a nice mnemonic toremember that you might not have
all the facts, right?
Like when you're in a positionto do something about something,
(12:59):
right?
If, I don't know, you're a newleader, you're brought into
manage a team that necessitateschange.
So that's, the first thing,right?
There's change that needs tohappen somehow, either because
it does need to happen orbecause the leader has deemed it
necessary.
I think that the first thing issome degree of humility in
(13:22):
understanding that you don'thave perfect understanding and
that your first job should be toget as clear a read of the
situation as possible.
Harry (13:33):
Mm-hmm
Jorge (13:34):
And of course, that might not be possible under all
circumstances.
Sometimes you're dealing with asituation that needs quick
action, and you don't have timeto do the research, you don't
have time to develop nuancedunderstanding.
But, particularly forirreversible changes, it
(13:56):
behooves you to be a littlehumble and to acknowledge that
you don't have all the answersright off the bat.
Harry (14:05):
Yeah, I think ignorance, is defensible.
I think willful ignorance is notdefensible.
And when you go out of your wayto dismiss people who are better
informed or have a betterunderstanding of the dynamics of
the information of the systems,of the facts, and you go about
(14:28):
intentionally ignoring them forthe purposes of maintaining your
own sense of self-importance oryour own sense of rightness, I
think that's where you startpushing into this zone that I'm,
very judgy about.
And the fact that I'm judgyabout it starts to call into
(14:48):
question my humility, because Ifind it hard to be humble when I
see that stuff going on.
It makes me angry.
It makes me frustrated.
It makes me irritated.
One of my instructors many yearsago used to say,"If you wanna
figure out where you're anartist, look at what disgusts
you." And so, perhaps it's myinterest in design and my
(15:10):
interest in informationarchitecture, my interest in
building useful things, thatallows me to make a lot of fine
distinctions when it comes tolooking at the facts and doing
the best job I can to interpretwhat is and is not there, and
synthesizing that into somesensible understanding before
(15:33):
committing to and promotingdecisions and actions that are
likely to have, as you said aminute ago, irreversible and
potentially catastrophicresults.
Jorge (15:44):
Another point that came to mind when I was thinking
about this in preparation forthis conversation was, I think,
implied in what you said whenbringing in Adaptive Path into
the conversation, the notion ofpaths.
if you think about paths andfences, the role of the one is
(16:07):
connecting; the role of theother is dividing.
They're both structuralelements, right?
And systems, organizations,teams, products, what have you,
systems have structures.
Long-running systems havestructures that have emerged
over time, and there isknowledge that is explicitly
(16:35):
articulated about those systems.
But then there's also knowledgethat is in implicit in the
structures of the system thathas not been captured anywhere.
And part of the humility thatsomeone has to have when facing
these kinds of challenges isknowing that while you might not
(16:59):
understand the reason for thestructure, the structures are
there for reasons.
Now, it might be that thosereasons are not valid, or not
valid anymore.
They might have been valid whenthey were put in place.
And one of the tough calls thatyou have to make as an agent of
change is developing thecriteria, the...
(17:24):
maybe taste is not the rightword to use in this context, but
developing the means to tellwhich structural elements are
there and no longer serving thefunctions that they were put
into place for.
Or perhaps they're serving thosefunctions, but those functions
(17:45):
are no longer relevant.
They were designed for adifferent world, right?
And I think that's one of thetoughest things there.
But, anyway, I think this is allpointing to a more thoughtful
and nuanced approach to dealingwith these changes than coming
in and hacking about.
Harry (18:03):
Totally.
And perhaps, at least in mywork, I'm probably accused of
being too thoughtful at times.
There are people that would,maybe on the far side of that,
claim that I take a morebureaucratic approach or a more
top-down, a moreoverview-oriented approach,
because I really wannaunderstand what it is we're
(18:28):
dealing with before we go andstart messing with it.
Because it seems to me, at leastin my experience over the years
that I've been working, thatwhat's most likely to show up
that's gonna cause problems orthe unintended negative
consequences of seemingly gooddecisions that were made with
(18:51):
insufficient information or theassumptions behind them were
never challenged, and it justdoesn't take all that much time
and energy to slow down a littlebit and to think about the
possible implications of what itis you're about to embark on
(19:17):
before pushing headlong intosomething that you can't undo.
And we're living in a verycomplex world, and so it's not
like we're ever gonna know allof the ramifications and all of
the positive, unexpectedoutcomes and negative unintended
(19:38):
consequences of anything thatwe're gonna do.
But we can certainly decreasethe likelihood that we're going
to make decisions in a localcontext that have a broader
global set of considerations.
It makes me think of Sidneykecker's book Drift Into
Failure, which I read many yearsago, and then reread just a
(20:01):
short few years ago, and thisidea that it's possible to make
decisions in a local context andreally miss the broader, more
systemic context in which thosedecisions are being made, can
lead to disastrous outcome.
His book really focuses on thekinds of cost-cutting decisions
(20:25):
that were made at Boeing.
He really focuses on the airlineindustry and on the kind of
decisions that get made tocontinually cost-cut.
And what happens is thesedecisions get made with a
decreasing contextual awarenessof the situation in which they
(20:46):
never should have happened.
Because in a larger, longertemporal frame, if you look at a
longer period of time, then youmight do some of them, but you
wouldn't do all of them.
But when you shorten thattimeframe up and you're making
decisions in that tightertimeframe, to make these
(21:08):
decisions without consideringwhat's happened before it and
why they were made and whatspecifications mattered, why the
thing was there, and what it wassupposed to do, that's what
causes planes to fall out of thesky,
Jorge (21:25):
So I'm gonna try to bring it to a close on a kind of
practical note, because itsounds like we've discussed
three things to be aware of whenfacing these kinds of changes
these kinds of potentiallytraumatic structural changes,
right?
The first is having somehumility, enough humility to
(21:45):
know that you don't know whatyou don't know, and doing at
least a minimal baseline amountof research to get understanding
on the situation.
The second is respecting theidea that there is knowledge
that is inherent to thestructure of the current system.
It might not be articulatedexplicitly, but just the fact
(22:07):
that the system is structured inthe way it is, is information.
And the third, what I'm hearingyou say there, is to ensure that
you are doing the changes forthe right reasons.
That you're clear on the goalsand how those goals either
support or don't support yourultimate goals.
Harry (22:32):
Absolutely that.
That's a hundred percent right.
Jorge (22:35):
Alright, that seems like a potentially good place to wrap
this up.
Thank you as always.
I'm going to look up Dekker'swork.
I was not familiar with that,but it sounds like it's highly
relevant to this.
Harry (22:48):
Yeah, and he's written a lot of good stuff, but I'm a
ginormous fan of Drift IntoFailure because it does such a
compelling job of making thecase for really understanding
the facts and the context aroundthe kinds of changes that you're
trying to make.
Jorge (23:06):
All right.
I'm also gonna put a pin (23:06):
we did not talk about Seeing Like a
State, and I'll say that'sintentional because that was one
of my books that I was hoping tobring in to our conversation, so
we, might do that in a futureconversation, but as always, it
was such a treat, talking withyou, Harry.
Harry (23:25):
This was a good one.
Thanks Jorge.
Narrator (23:33):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the shownotes@tractionheroes.com and if
you enjoyed the show, pleaseleave us a rating in Apple's
podcasts app.
Thanks.
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