This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)

Metadata

• Title: This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)
• Author: Seth Godin
• Book URL: https://amazon.com/dp/B0CXWV8G29?tag=malvaonlin-20
• Open in Kindle: kindle://book/?action=open&asin=B0CXWV8G29
• Last Updated on: Friday, May 16, 2025

Highlights & Notes

Strategy is difficult to see and not easy to talk about, because it happens over time. To find a better strategy, we need to be prepared to walk away from the one we’ve defaulted into.

Strategy is often an unseen option, apparently too sophisticated, expensive, or elitist for most of us. But once we see it, our next steps become clear. We have what we need to make better plans.

Strategy is the soil, the seed, and the gardener working together over time. Strategy is our chance to make an impact.

Who will we become, who will we be of service to, and who will they help others to become This is strategy. A strategy isn’t a map—it’s a compass. Strategy is a better plan. It’s the hard work of choosing what to do today to make tomorrow better.

Once our basic needs for food, shelter and health are met, most people dance with three conflicting desires: •  Affiliation •  Status •  Freedom from fear

If you want to understand why someone makes a choice, look for what people actually want, not only the proxies and substitutes they say they want.

Don’t surrender your agency and revert to the numbing day-to-day grind of compliance. You can make things better.

Elegance is simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness. It’s not only a solution that gets a result. It’s arguably a better solution—the least complex and clearest way forward.

Elegant strategies use systems. Even when they set out to change the system, they don’t fight it directly but use the system as a tool to change the system.

The strategy gets better as you grow. Anyone can sprint, but elegant strategies are something that you can maintain. •  Systemic advantage defeats heroic effort. Heroic effort is thrilling, but long-term elegant strategies rarely require miracles on a daily basis. •  They’re simple to explain and difficult to stick to. Over time, the pressures to vary from the elegant strategy increases—a thousand little compromises that eventually lead to mediocrity.

If parts of the system are unseen, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. As they say, gravity isn’t just a good idea—it’s the law.

Systems have nodes (buildings) and connections (roads). Those roads have conventions that we all need to understand to stay safe. Buildings (and people) get replaced all the time. Roadways (and the rules of systems) fight like crazy to stay the way they are.

Better waves make better surfers. A useful skill in surfing is picking the right place and time to go surfing. The systems in our lives are like waves, making our work easier or more difficult.

The alternative is to dig a small channel that helps a river to go where it was going anyway. When you make it easier for the current to flow, the current will respond. A small channel quickly becomes a torrent, and then the river itself.

Systems are everywhere humans engage to fill a need. Sometimes they persist longer than we’d like. Sometimes they move in directions we don’t appreciate. Often, they’re cultural, invisible, and hard to notice. But systems define our lives.

You can’t step in the same river twice, because your footprint the first time turned the river into a different river. And it changed you as well.

But we’re not powerless. Individuals organizing others with persistence and generosity change the world, and do it every day. With the right strategy and resources, we can make an impact. Sometimes.

It’s unlikely anything we build is going to be built from scratch. But with time and focus, we can find the leverage to alter systems we care about.

Complex systems create unexpected and unpredictable outputs. They’re probabilistic and unstable, not deterministic the way we expect.

Decisions may feel as though they’re voluntarily made. But the system exerts influence on each participant through each decision. Each decision is the sum total of all the expectations, feedback loops, and invisible and visible rules that we adhere to.

A more resilient and leveraged path is to work with systems instead of fighting them outright.

DNA tests, passports, digital surveillance, rankings, membership lists, and SAT scores are all transformative because they surface data and turn it into information. Information changes systems.

Some of the houses had their electric meter in the basement. Others had the meter in the entrance hall, where residents couldn’t help but notice the power usage every time they entered or left their home. All other things being equal (and they were), the houses with visible meters used one-third less electricity than their neighbors.

The movies need heroes. Corporations need CEOs. Inventions need inventors. And yet, culture is the driver of most systems, and culture is the result of the interactions between and among people. Strategies stumble when they depend on someone with power dictating how things will occur. If you want to grow a garden, you’ll need to plant seeds, but it’s the ecosystem and the climate that will determine what happens after that. Our job is to find a plan and then create the conditions for our project to spread from person to person, within and across the systems that already exist.

Serious games are all around us, whether we choose to play them or not.

The seeds you plant today won’t grow for weeks or months. The systems we support, the people we dance with, the ruckus we create—it’s not for today, it’s for tomorrow. We’re here, now, but we live in the future. We are making history. If you could have tomorrow over again, would you do it differently?

30. Seeing Time

Time is simply nature’s way of making sure everything doesn’t happen all at once.

Perhaps we’re here because of everything that happened in the past. Or perhaps it’s more useful to realize that the future is counting on us to create what comes next. There’s the world right outside our window, the world of here and now. But we also remember yesterday. Who we were and what happened. And we also know there is tomorrow. If we take action today, something will happen soon. We can invest (or withdraw) from the days ahead. We can pay the price or enjoy the benefits of the work we do today.

Strategy is the hard work of choosing what to do today to improve our tomorrow.

A series of 17 questions shines a light on the work to be done. It brings tomorrow forward to today, right here and right now, allowing us to articulate a strategy. •  Who are we here to serve? •  What is the change we seek to make? •  What are our resources? •  What is the genre we’re working in? •  Who has done something like this before me? •  What systems are in play? •  Am I changing someone’s status? •  Why would anyone voluntarily choose to be part of this work? •  What will they tell their colleagues? •  Who gains in status, affiliation and power by supporting this work? •  Will early support translate into more support later? •  Where is the network effect? •  What do I need to learn to make this work? •  Who do I need to work with? •  Where is the dip and when should I quit? •  What will I do if it doesn’t work out? •  How much is enough?

there. Too often, we pick a job we want to do and work backward to answer the questions, but that’s arrogant and insulates us from the reality of the systems we need to dance with in order to reach the people we’d like to serve.

Plenty of kids in Cleveland dream of being a pro baseball player, yet few say that their passion is to grow up to be a blacksmith. We’re not born with a specific passion, it is produced based on what we encounter and what’s expected, even if we can’t put the strategy into words. It might be that our actual purpose is simply to be of use, to be productive and to make a difference. In other words, to have an elegant strategy.

Life without a project fades to gray.

“Simple” doesn’t mean that you’re making a smaller impact or settling for less. It means choosing a strategy that puts you on the hook. It’s a chance to be a meaningful specific, not a wandering generality. A strategy that’s worth talking about and improving. A strategy that’s easy to describe and difficult to stick with. Falling in love with an outcome often prevents us from doing the work we’re capable of contributing.

We often have more agency than we’d like to admit. Hiding is easy, but our project demands that we show up and make an impact.

A strategy is the set of choices we make (and stick with) as we seek to compete. Hard choices are easy to hide from, since choices feel risky. And competition is challenging. It’s easier to have a meeting about our mission statement than it is to get serious about choosing and persisting with a strategy.

When the deal falls apart, the team loses the game, or a partnership hits the rocks, it’s easy to focus our energy on the most recent event. “What if they had called a different play?” This overlooks the real issue. It’s the first move, or the fifth, that led to this problem, not what happened at the last moment. Creating the conditions for success is a very different project than finding a heroic move that saves the day.

Tactics require skill in the moment and can consume us. Strategy is easy to skip, because we’ve trained our whole life for tactics. Strategy is a philosophy, based on awareness of our goals and our perception of the systems around us. Tactics are the hard work we do to support our strategy. But great tactics don’t help if the strategy is working against us.

His strategy was correct, and the tactics were good enough to support it.

There are three ways to put effort into a project: •  Chores and tasks •  Leverage •  Emotional labor

We can choose where we provide leverage, or we can put as much time as we like into tasks or chores.

43. You Might Need a Strategy To •  Get into the college of your choice •  Find a new job •  Increase sales of your new product •  Decide where to live •  Get your neighbors to come to the local block party •  Pass the school board budget •  Get married without spending more than you should •  Change the bullying culture at work •  Help a new kid feel welcome •  Have enough savings to retire with

As a system matures, a small head start can lead to more assets, allowing investment, patient decisions, and the building of trust. The feedback loop amplifies small advantages. People want to buy from the market leader, giving that leader even more of an advantage.

These small changes get deep into the workings of how the nodes in the system make decisions. System changes are more permanent and resilient than the more satisfying broad strokes we often embrace. Important solutions aren’t the work of right now. They are the persistent yet impatient work of building a strategy that’s effective.

Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you… Those ten people need what you have to sell or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find ten more people (or a hundred, or a thousand, or perhaps as few as three). Repeat. If they don’t love it, you need a new product or more insight about the ten people you choose. Begin again. When you serve the smallest viable audience, your idea spreads. Your business grows. Not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine. This approach changes the posture and timing of everything you do.

You can only market to people who are willing participants, like this group of ten.

Effective marketing isn’t about hype or hustle or even about getting the word out. Instead, it focuses on engaging with people who seek to engage with us. Our job is to find a resilient path forward by helping people get to where they hope to go.

The system works because it fools us into believing that we’re voluntarily making a decision—that our choices are actually our choices. But this is often an illusion. The system (whichever system we’re captured by) has limited our choices. We can “pick any card,” but we rarely see the entire deck. Yet we have a chance to see the system instead of merely being part of it. Every strategy depends on being conscious of the change we seek to make and the systems that can amplify or impede our progress.

When we get compensated for creating value in a way that enables us to do it again, we’ve found a business model.

A useful business model has a few attributes: •  It gets easier over time. Past success makes future success more likely. •  It’s a welcome contribution to the lives and projects of the people who are paying (in time or money) for the work. •  It’s resilient. When the world changes, the model adjusts and persists or even thrives. The tools of the internet have encouraged people to try to turn hobbies into jobs. We invest our heart and soul into a podcast or a movement, and hope that one day, it’ll turn into a business. The journey to a business model is an investment, it doesn’t work the first day. We find a strategy, and then spend time and money to go from an idea to a generative, persistent and scalable engine of growth. While it doesn’t work the first day, it needs to work eventually. Time is the unseen driver of strategy.

• Importante

Time is fuel. Without time there’s no point. Our experience of time determines our choices.

A few years ago, Lisa Nichols was sitting with her 87-year-old grandmother. “Lisa,” her grandmother said, “when you’re my age, your job is to sit in a rocking chair and tell people the stories and lessons of a life well lived.” Then she looked at Lisa and said, “and at your age, your job is to live a life worth talking about.”

When we do our work as a professional, we show up to solve a problem for people who know they have a problem and who have the means to pay to solve it. Some of our work is unpaid. It builds an asset. Our reputation, our experience, our network of trusted partners. Some of our work is directly related to our business model, and we charge a fair price for it. And often, we create value without regard for whether it matches our model. A healthy career and a useful project will have countless moments where we’re not getting paid. Optimizing for the business model isn’t the point. Creating a project with a solid business model, though, gives us the freedom to find even more passion in our work.

Strategy helps us see that now is also easily extended. We can include yesterday and tomorrow in our experience of what’s right in front of us. As we grow up, we learn that investing in tomorrow is smarter than always insisting that we get something today.

Strategy challenges us to make each circle bigger. The circle of us can grow and include the people we interact with and the community we hope to lead. And the circle of now embraces our relationship with time. Effort in the short run creates the conditions for the long run we’d like to live with. Who do we want as leaders, neighbors, or co-workers? Selfish tantrums are for toddlers. When we expand our circles, we are able to step into the possibility of better. While the smallest circle of now is this instant, some people plan a week ahead while others imagine their life or the life of their kids. The difficult part around long-term change is simple: that sort of effort is not now enough for most people.

Our strategy is to use systems, alter systems, and build systems that expand our circles in ways each of us couldn’t do on our own.

Most overnight successes, aren’t.

The strategy is not a procedure. The strategy is not a to-do list or even a guarantee.

Our work is a method, but there isn’t a checklist. The method is to see time and systems and to find a resilient path forward. In the words of Cleo, the mysterious math genius, “You are not locked into a single axiom system. You may invent your own, whenever you wish—just use your intuition and imagination.” Hope is not a plan.

Strategy is a flexible plan that guides us as we seek to create a change. It helps us make decisions over time while working within a system. Strategy is interesting because of the complexity of its two companions: time and systems. Time resets each day, bringing with it new chances to make new decisions. And systems involve the interconnections of multiple people (and their interests) over time.

A key aspect of strategic planning is understanding opportunity costs, which are the benefits foregone by choosing one option over another. Strategy demands humility, because accurately predicting the future is impossible.

Successful people figure out how to trade their time and their effort for the change they seek to make in the world.

63. Sharing Your Strategy: The Modern Business Plan

I’d divide the modern business plan into six sections: 1.   Truth 2.   Assertions 3.   Alternatives 4.   People 5.   Money 6.   Time

Successful hunches might have been enough in the past. But for the work that lies ahead, for the changes we seek to make, we need to talk about it. Show your work.

But it’s the discomfort of articulating and altering our strategy that pays the biggest dividends. Working on the right things is the way forward. And writing them down is one way to confirm you’re working on the right things.

But going faster is useless if you’re running in the wrong direction. Strategy is a commitment to seeing the race course before we begin. Your effort is up to you. Surfing is better when we see and understand the waves.

If the customers stick around, that’s good. If they bring their friends and colleagues, it’s likely to be a success. Inevitably, the project will change in response to those that use it. But without customer traction, nothing happens.

The secret of successful product development isn’t an innovation that bursts forth as a polished and finished product. Instead, it’s sticking with something that is almost useless and nurturing, sharing, and improving it until we can’t imagine living without it. The goal at the start is traction with a few, not perfection for the masses.

People who are finding traction rarely feel burned out. Burnout comes when our goals don’t align with our strategy. We hope for something that doesn’t arrive, waiting, apparently powerless, for the world to bring it to us.

The system didn’t want to kill all the whales. All the system wanted was to make a profit by solving the problem of darkness. When it found a cheaper and more efficient way to do that, it did. There are countless conspiracies. They’re not a secret. We simply need to see the systems.

Players in these free-flowing competitions don’t repeat plays by rote. They flow, in sync, with a mixture of practiced movements and improvisation.

“We do this not because it is easy…but because we thought it would be easy.”

74. Some Reasons We Avoid Having a Strategy •  We’re not able to see the system •  We see the system but we can’t choose between working with it or on it •  We’d prefer to get the benefits of our actions sooner rather than later •  It’s often more satisfying to be picked by a powerful system than to alter it •  We’re concerned that our strategy won’t work and we don’t want to fail •  We’re concerned that our strategy will work and we hesitate to embrace the responsibility that would come with that •  We’ve been indoctrinated to follow instructions and ask for tactics •  It’s easier to go along with the crowd than to persuade them of a more effective but arduous path •  Sunk costs are difficult to ignore •  Projects are intimidating to manage It’s tempting to daydream about the future, but we’re not sure we’re ready to live there.

75. A Framework for a Strategy

People don’t do things because you want them to. They change because they want to. The same is true for complex systems.

Culture defeats tactics every time, which is why strategy is often about creating culture.

Skiing works better if there’s snow and you’re headed downhill. Too often, we blame our lack of effort or skill when the real problem is that we went to the wrong hill. It’s still our mistake, but a different sort of error.

Both insights involve traction. The first recognizes the traction needed to make forward motion so you can get to where you’re going. And the other recognizes that traction is always easier when your strategy is aligned with the world you live in.

Our strategy sets us up for success when it’s based in the reality of the systems all around us, the desires of those we need to work with, and the insight to embrace resilience instead of insisting that the world align with our needs at all times.

What do we talk about when we talk about strategy? Consider these building blocks: •  The future is an unvisited city, but we can see it from a distance •  The audience can be chosen •  Don’t play games you can’t win •  Projects can be managed •  We make decisions •  A difference can be made •  Assets can be built •  Networks can be created •  Traction is the way forward •  Sunk costs can be ignored •  Organizations change •  You’re not sitting in traffic—you are traffic

Unseen systems conceal and undermine our agency. They fool us into believing we have fewer choices than we do.

The first step is seeing the system, and the second step is to commit to a strategy for change. Our blueprint begins with three questions: •  Who is it for? •  What is it for? •  What is the system? We can’t change everyone, and we can’t change everything, but if we’re specific, generous, and persistent, we might be able to change enough. All human interactions live in systems, and we can either work within the system or work to change it. Tasks fill our days, but strategies determine whether we’ve wasted our effort. Effort is often part of our work, but effort by itself is not a strategy.

80. Strategic Marketing

Marketing is the art of building a product or service that tells a story. A true story—one that resonates and changes the person who experiences it. The first job of the marketer is to find a problem and to solve it, helping the customer get to where they are going. And the second, which (from a marketing perspective) is ultimately more important than the first, is to give that person a story to tell others. To engage with the web of community. To help that person improve their status and affiliation because they are engaging with others using the story that you helped them create. When we see the world as a web, and our work as helping the people in the web connect and grow, the strategy becomes far more clear.

The successful blueprint aligns the change you seek to make with the life you seek to live.

• Importante

Do the things you need to do to get what you need in the long run. •  Don’t do the things that keep you from creating the change you seek.

Strategy always involves a delay. We need to do something non-obvious or un-fun now so we can get the result we seek later. And that requires trust. Trust in our understanding of what’s being offered, and trust that the world won’t let us down.

“Don’t eat the marshmallow” is a lot easier to work with if you understand and trust the path to getting that bonus marshmallow.

86. Strategy is the Partner of Freedom •  The freedom to create, to write, to invent, and to share widely. •  The freedom to connect, to reach out to nearly every everyone. •  The freedom to learn and to teach. •  The freedom to choose the information we consume, the time we spend, and the people we associate with.

When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? This is something we must work on right now, and tomorrow, and every single day until the meeting happens.

Too often, our approach to our work is to view it as a repeated chance to buy a very low-odds lottery ticket. This approach is always outperformed in the long run by consistent and persistent strategic work.

A strategy is the most reliable way to get to a future we’d like to live in.

Instead of attachment and a relentless addiction to one and only one outcome, we can develop a resilient strategy that helps us build the future we seek to live in. We can choose to get on the bus. To go build that future we’re yearning for.

We talk about tension as if it’s a bad thing. But the only way to launch a rubber band across the room is to pull it backwards, creating tension. Tension permits the water spider to walk across a puddle without drowning. And tension keeps us focused on the world around us.

The strategy we adopt has tension at its center. We’re not here to “do our job.” We’re here to make a change happen.

When Google launched Gmail, there were a limited number of trial accounts. Getting an account satisfied the curiosity of early adopters and gave them status. They didn’t want to be left out, and so they scrambled, trading attention for the chance to go first.

Jealousy and the status quo are powerful forces.

This might be the right moment to understand our power and to do something with it. Tomorrow keeps arriving. Perhaps we can choose a strategy to make it better.

96. What Does It Mean to Be a Strategic Thinker? It means that you see the system. It means that you develop the assets and skills that you will need to work with the system or to change it. It means that you have the empathy to understand how others make choices. And it means that you work to reduce delays in the feedback loops so you can adjust your tactics based on the system’s response to your work. The operating plan and tactics that accompany our strategy are focused on these feedback loops—on allowing us to become more nimble when we encounter responses from the status quo.

97. Tactics are Not Strategies Tactics are how we win short-term games. Tactics are flexible, disposable, and sometimes secret. Strategies are for the long-term games. Strategies are worth sharing, inspecting, and sticking with. A tactic is what we do next. A strategy is all the nexts, one after the other. Tactics are for now. Strategies see and respect and value time. If your tactics work, they should advance your strategy. If your strategy is flawed, all the successful tactics you engage in won’t help.

How did we end up with weddings that cost $2,000,000? A wedding is a semi-public ceremony. It celebrates connection and status. Many people who attend a wedding will either host a wedding for their kids or plan one for themselves. When they do, they take the standards of the weddings they’ve attended and are likely to ratchet them forward. The feedback loop is amplified.

Every choice comes with a cost. When we spend an hour reading a book, it’s an hour we didn’t spend listening to speed metal. When we take on one client, we’ve chosen not to pursue a different option.

When we recognize that time today is the investment we make to transform our lives tomorrow, the invisible axis becomes even more obvious. The choices we make today to make tomorrow better are our strategy.

If you seek to be part of a system, it helps to understand how your actions will change the system, and it helps even more if you can discover how the system will respond or react to your actions.

What the system makes is probably what the system values. And vice versa.

Systems produce what they produce, not what the organizers or participants might have been hoping for. The healthcare system doesn’t make health. It makes treatments. Sometimes health is a by-product.

As long as culture is delivering the resilient and useful results we seek, there’s no issue at all. But when it’s no longer fulfilling, it might be worth looking hard at the system we’ve decided to support and the systems we’re building.

Creating tomorrow by repeating yesterday is not a useful way forward.

When a system creates negative effects, it almost always happens gradually. Each node makes what feels like a reasonable decision at every step along the way, until the descent is far greater than we signed up for.

If we’re competing with everyone, in every venue, it’s no wonder we’re not getting much done.

A foundation of our blueprint is acknowledging which judges we are prepared to choose, and which wannabe judges we’re eager to ignore.

Here are some of the choices that customers and clients dictate: •  The price •  Support and service •  Exclusivity •  Co-creation •  Durability •  The status it brings •  Public persona of the brand •  Sustainability

If you raise your prices 30%, you might exchange your value-seeking customers for those that use high price as a signal of quality. The work we do and the way we transact is a story and a signal, not simply an exchange of goods.

The best way for a freelancer to succeed is to find better customers. Better customers that pay more, demand more, and spread the word as well. Better customers aren’t always easy to find, which is why the more common and convenient approach is to take what you can get.

The customers you pay attention to—and those you fire—change the way you spend your days (if you’re not firing customers, you’re surrendering your future to whoever walks in the door). You can identify and reward the customers you’d like to spend your days with. You have the freedom and power to do this if you choose. It’s not easy to persuade someone to want what you want. It’s much more productive to find people who already want to go where you’d like to take them.

112. Choose Your Competition and Choose Your Future It’s not surprising that Lance Armstrong cheated. During his career, at the highest levels of bike racing, it was impossible to win without doping. Everyone else is doing it. When there’s scarcity, competition ensues. And if you choose a competition where the most successful path is short-term thinking and a race to the bottom, you’ve decided how you will spend your time.

When we match where we seek validation to the work we hope to do and the rewards we hope to receive, our strategy is in alignment.

Distribution is the act of bringing the thing you make to the people who want it. Distribution is harder to visualize, but ultimately is just as important as the other choices you make.

We can’t have an impact on everyone. None of us can. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make things better for someone. Implied in that statement is that our strategy is going to leave someone behind, ignore folks, or even be criticized. The need for a unanimous standing ovation is a trap. There’s a way out: The people who need you, the someone who will benefit—if you hesitate to ship the work because it might not be perfect for everyone, you’re actually stealing from the someones who need you.

When we wonder about what we really want, insecurities arise. What if we get what we hope for and we don’t like it? Or what if we fall in love with the change we seek to make and then discover we can’t accomplish it?

Systems want something. Before you engage with one, investing your time and your passion, it’s worth understanding what the system wants. Choosing to engage with things that want what we want is a powerful choice.

People will trade almost anything once they’re offered an option that enhances laziness or seems to multiply free time.

And this helps us see that what most people in most systems want is reassurance. Freedom from fear. Knowing that they’re going to be okay, and that tomorrow will be okay too.

Status, safety, affiliation, and curiosity are universal and always interacting, as people around the world seek success and hope for solace.

A chicken is merely an egg’s way of making another egg.

Often, systems arise because they help us achieve our goals. But over time, the most powerful systems actually change our goals, and put us to work helping them satisfy their needs, not ours. Systems create culture, and culture is the way a system quietly persists, creating gravity where there was none.

Our strategy is the narrative for how we will engage with our project over time. Play all the notes in a song at once and it’s nothing but noise. It’s the space between the notes that makes it into music. Now is important, but it’s insufficient. Now plus tomorrow and the tomorrow after that is our project.

When in doubt, look for the fear. It’s probably the cause of whatever surprising behavior you’re encountering.

Good ideas are required, but they’re rarely sufficient.

The hard work isn’t to appeal to everyone. The hard work is to get out the vote, to get the folks who want the change you want to show up, persistently and generously, over and over.

The first group are early adopters, not adapters. They’re eager. They’re looking for something new. Their role in the system is to bring innovation, and they gain status and satisfaction by looking for something better. This is less than 3% of the population. That means that when you bring something new to the world, 97% of the folks you interact with will not embrace it.

Anthony Iannarino teaches that that the job of a sales team isn’t to persuade people to buy from us. It’s to find the people who WANT to try something new, and to politely and eagerly send everyone else on their way.

The job of the marketer is to make something so remarkable that this tiny group of adopters can’t stop telling their peers. They’re the ones that get the word out, not you. This phenomenon has been clear for decades, and yet people keep looking for a shortcut. A shortcut to change the entire system. A shortcut to promote an idea to every human and explain why the new way is better. A shortcut to get picked. Your idea might be rejected because it’s not better. But it’s probably going to be rejected because it’s new.

Does launching a breakthrough new product change the culture and deliver a profitable return? Perhaps. But not today. Maybe eventually.

Ideas that spread, win. And traction is underrated.

Systems problems demand systems solutions, and we cross the chasm when we create the conditions for the defenders of the status quo to eagerly embrace our movement.

Scaffolding is the cultural and organizational support we get at the beginning of adopting a new idea or practice.

How can we possibly get people to save for their retirement or vaccinate their kids? Like many important and beneficial practices, they don’t pay off right away. The path begins with fear or discomfort, and only later rewards us.

It’s much easier to ride a bike if someone on Rollerblades is scooting along beside you, holding the handlebars. A few hours later, you can’t remember ever not knowing how to ride.

If you seek to make systems change and you haven’t built the scaffolding for others to join you, it’s unlikely you’ll succeed.

A brand isn’t a logo. It’s an invitation and a promise, an expectation about who someone can become, and what the journey will be like.

“The system will adopt you once you’re successful. In order to be adopted, you’ll need to be successful.” If your brand is selling a lot of units, you’ll get shelf space at the store. Of course, the only way to sell a lot of units is to have shelf space.

We overinvest in this tiny group, creating a scaffolding around their experience that others are eager to join in on.

142. Treating Different People Differently

The masses are a choice, one you can commit to or plan on avoiding.

When we pursue quality, we then have two jobs: •  Agree on the spec for the customer we seek to serve. •  Make sure the product or service meets the spec.

Perhaps your definition of better doesn’t matter. We can use someone else’s version of it and set the spec accordingly.

“For the kind of person we seek to serve, given that time will improve many of the elements you see, what’s missing?”

When we lack the empathy to imagine someone else’s “better”, we’re on the road to frustration.

Writing about technical change, Rogers has outlined the questions that inform any cultural or economic change we seek to make. I’ve added a few based on a strategic and cultural mindset. It takes empathy to answer these questions with others in mind, but it’s essential. Engineering and performance •  How does this innovation improve on previous solutions? •  What are the benefits of using this innovation? •  Can the improvement be measured in terms of cost, speed, efficiency, or other metrics? Interactions and network effects •  Does this innovation align with the smallest viable audience’s values, beliefs, and current needs? •  Is it compatible with existing systems, practices, or technologies already in use by the target audience? •  Will it work better when more people use it? •  How does the innovation fit into the social and cultural context of the audience? Convenience and simplicity •  How easy is the innovation to understand and use? •  What is the learning curve like? •  Are there any complexities or technicalities that could hinder its adoption? Risk reduction •  Can the innovation be tested on a limited basis before a commitment to full adoption is made? •  Is it possible to pilot the innovation with a small group or segment of the target audience? •  How easily can trial results be measured and analyzed? Scaffolding •  Do new users get status or organizational benefits? •  Are the results of using the innovation visible and apparent to others? •  How can success stories or benefits be demonstrated or communicated to potential adopters? •  Do existing users bring tension to those that might be holding back?

short-term game is a discrete interaction with an outcome. Some examples: •  Talking your way out of a traffic ticket •  Finishing a freelance project and pleasing the client •  Writing a post that wins a lot of attention online •  Winning an argument with your partner A long-term game is the sum of a series of short-term games. Examples include: •  The outcome of a night of playing poker •  A ten-year career as a brand manager •  Building a platform for your work online

Use short-term games to build long-term soft assets like trust or habits. •  Play iterated games, embracing the fact that you’ll probably be back tomorrow. •  Take intentional risks, but don’t expose yourself to the chance of losing your core assets. You might lose a short-term game but lose in a way that makes it likely you’ll be invited back. No tantrums, no bridges burned.

There are infinite and finite games. Finite games are games we play to win. They have players, beginnings, and endings. Infinite games are games we play to play.

But there are also finite games that involve abundance. Book publishers understand that one book rarely competes with another—the opportunity is to sell more books overall. Bookstores are filled with competitive titles, but that’s where books sell best—next to other books. Every strategy includes a game. We need to choose and understand the game we’re playing.

In most models of economics and in most versions of our day-to-day strategy, scarcity is at the heart of the game. Only one person can get this job. Only $300 will be spent today on accommodations. Only one movie can be watched at a time. Copyright is based on scarcity, as are luxury goods. If everyone had access, it wouldn’t be worth much. But there’s been a remarkably swift increase in games that are based on abundance instead. Networks built on information or connection abhor scarcity. They’re built to be generative instead.

Generative approaches create value. It’s a chance to trade abundance for scarcity.

There are games that are won by dominance and those that are won by affiliation.

All the merchant cares about is which brand is going to return the most profit per square foot. They don’t need or want to like your product, nor do they need or want to care very much about how hard you’re trying. If you’re not ready to play a game based on dominance, don’t start.

Paying it back is trading favors. Reciprocity is a natural human instinct, amplified by culture. If someone does a nice thing for you, you are inclined to do a nice thing in return. Paying it forward means offering something to someone who can do nothing in return for you. This act of feeding the culture isn’t focused on what you’ll get back today. It simply creates the conditions for the culture to pass it on.

If you’re interested in developing your own resilient path, focus on games that are based on skill—and go get those skills.

The negotiation is often about how the negotiation is going to unfold. This is one reason why arbitration is such a powerful tool—agreeing to it assures mutual enrollment in the process and the outcome. Without mutual enrollment, it falls apart. The quicksand shows up when you skip the essential pre-negotiation and assume that this system will play by the rules you’re hoping for. It’s a mistake to assume that each player is going to imagine the same rules.

Teaching the opponent a lesson in this moment may cost you more than it’s worth. We can save oppositional games for the pickleball court. They don’t work well in real life.

We’re not sitting in traffic, we are traffic. Everyone brings some sort of selfish to the games they play.

All resilient strategies are based on expanding our circles of us and of now.

When there is competition, strategy is often offered a seat at the table.

What doesn’t work? Insisting. Trying harder. Being just like the leader, but not them.

The Red Queen Theory helps us understand why our world seems so chaotic. AOL won the internet, until Yahoo did, until Google did, until Facebook did, until TikTok did. There isn’t an end, but simply the beginning of a new game, played anew. Our strategy will work until it doesn’t. Because our strategy has an impact on the system, the system changes. Not simply as the result of our work, but in response to other strategies as well.

Your current success might have been hard-earned. But the future doesn’t care about this as much as you do.

Most of the time, we work in the system, not on it.

When we work in the system, all we can do is bail. When we work on the system, we have a chance to make things better.

Standards are consistent containers. They mean that we can automatically and easily accept anything that fits into that container, and this enables us to build complex and resilient systems.

When that standard becomes toxic or harms our culture, it needs to be changed. That’s a cultural and systemic shift. Teaching a bureaucrat or a customer service rep a lesson is pointless. They’re busy processing packages and checking off boxes, and our indignant response simply wastes our time. Instead, we might need to consider doing what needs to be done or saying what needs to be said to work with the system in this moment, so we can find the resources to change the system with more leverage and urgency where it counts. Sometimes, it’s satisfying to rail at an unfair system at the place where the system engages with us, but in that moment, the system is probably not listening.

Someone is going to win the lottery, but it’s probably not going to be her. When we sign up to feed the system, we’re joining in with others who are offering a similar product or service. Plenty of alternatives with little chance to build a unique asset, which means that it’s unlikely you’ll be fairly compensated. Feeding the system can be fun and it feels safe, which is why so many people do it. It’s a strategy with predictable outcomes. A reliable job might be what you’re seeking. Sometimes, though, the system will sell us a dream it can’t deliver, and these are the games we should avoid.

When a retail business is doing well, the store keeps 20% of the margin and the landlord gets 80%. When it goes under, that’s because the landlord got 105%. The difference between rent and profit margin is the driver of success or failure for anyone with a lease. They’re not making any more real estate, so landlords are able to drive the system of retail, and often of housing.

Facebook and Google are landlords. They’re in the business of selling attention. When businesses seek to buy clicks, these media giants run algorithms and auctions to determine the highest price for the traffic they can sell. If the traffic is worth more to their advertisers, media sites raise the price on that traffic and absorb all of the extra value. A law firm that makes $100aclicksigningupclientsforaclassactionlawsuitiswillingtopayupto$99 a click to get that traffic. If they have competition, that’s exactly what they’ll end up paying, with Google keeping all the incremental value. The lesson is simple: Avoid projects where the system is organized to take all the value you create.

The smallest organizations have an advantage when they create projects. With nothing to lose and few people to please, it’s possible to create moments of magic. Small projects from small teams can leap forward with the confidence of knowing that they don’t have far to fall. When a project works, it’s tempting and generous to scale it. Offer it to more people. Turn one successful restaurant into a chain, or a small medical practice into a much larger one. And almost inevitably, it falters. The only way to effectively scale magic is to create a strategy where the scale is the magic.

Projects where the scale is the magic have a network effect. The more people who use them, the better they get.

When new technology changes the rules, old systems rarely thrive.

Each person in a system will always act in their self-interest. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll act selfishly. A healthy system is organized in a way that self-interest leads to behavior that’s in the common good. People sign up for systems that give them what they seek, and they stay as long as their needs are being met.

Decisions by nodes could involve questions like: •  Will this get me promoted? •  What will I tell my boss? •  Does this fit into our standards? •  Who has the power in this interaction? •  Is this something I’m authorized to do? •  What am I afraid of? •  Will I profit from this? •  What’s the least risky choice for me? •  How do I maximize the metrics the system is looking for? •  What’s the path of least resistance? •  Do people like us do things like this?

If you want to predict how a system will respond to an input, begin by describing what’s in the self-interest of the node you’re interacting with.

The work of change-making is to help people decide that changing their actions is exactly what they want to do. Not because it’s important to us, but because it’s important to them.

The choices we each make are driven by our goals and needs, our fears and desires. In the context of the system. No one is fully alone, and no one is completely powerless. We exist in community, seek connection, and worry about our status, fitting in, and getting ahead. The empathy of a useful strategy sees and respects the agency of everyone else.

We create value when we establish the conditions for status and affiliation to be delivered to those that seek it. Rock stars included.

The Newton and the iPhone had very similar results at the start—launch hype is overrated. Nature is similar. After just a few weeks of development, the embryo of a human, an elephant, and a blue whale each weigh about as much as a poppy seed. The future unfolds after the launch. When we embrace time and systems, the launch takes care of itself.

to the bottom line. A simple question like, “What’s for dinner,” becomes a complex problem, one with no obviously correct answer, because the system has independent variables and mutually incompatible goals. There isn’t a single solution. There are many solutions, and none of them are perfect.

When you have the leverage, you can change the system.

We are so entrenched in our professional systems that we don’t even notice that most of our choices have already been made for us.

177. What Does the System Respond To? Systems are all different, but they often behave in similar ways. If we know what people are looking for, it’s easier to find it. Here are a few, many of which are rooted in Western commercial culture. •  Reassurance: This is the dominant one. The system wants what the system wants. And one thing it wants is to persist. If there’s a way to spend time and money to ensure that everything will remain okay, to avoid the current emergency, that action relieves tension. •  Faster: The race for productivity continues unabated, and faster-moving ideas, devices, and processes often gain traction, usually by people who like moving faster, which means the adoption is faster as well. •  More connected: Since 1850, we’ve been wiring the world into a network. Systems are the original networks, and with increasing rapidity, systems are adopting approaches that further enmesh the nodes. •  More convenient: Tim Wu has pointed out that the wealthy consumer will trade almost anything for convenience. Dishwashers and one-click shopping are all part of the same spectrum. •  Cheaper: If all other things are equal (though they rarely are), people pick the cheap one. •  More remarkable: In a market filled with choices, few things are talked about. But remarkable items, by definition, are. •  More status: This is a form of reassurance. The system wants insiders and outsiders to profess respect and root for it to succeed.

The best projects are often unique with no easy substitutes, There’s no real price pressure because you’re not offering a commodity. If you want this, here it is, and no one else has it.

But creators should recognize that when there are easy substitutes, there is little opportunity for profitable value creation and memorable storytelling.

• Importante Reach

When you choose your genre, you’re sending a message. You’re choosing your customers and the expectations they bring with them. You’re also choosing (at some level) your staffing, funding, and production models.

The innovators in every field are seen as innovators because they confounded our expectations of genre. And many of the failures that have tried to change the culture did the same thing. If it’s not what we expect, the easiest thing to do is to ignore it. One way we change the system is by subverting genre. That new thing might look like an ordinary experience or product, but once we experience it, it changes us in a way that we can’t undo.

Price is a story, price is a signal, and price is a symptom of your strategy.

The slogan of generous work can be, “You’ll pay a lot but you’ll get more than you paid for.” And the tag line is, “I see you. And I care.”

Organizations and families make decisions based on price all the time. Thoughtful managers look at the cost.

At a certain point, a person’s story about money is far more important than money itself: Successful strategies seek to find customers who are eager to pay money to solve their problems. If you want to find a lousy customer, find someone who has a scarcity mindset, or is more comfortable with their problem than they are in spending to make it go away.

Money is a story, and price is a way of telling that story.

Not sympathy. You don’t have to agree with how any node in a system will choose to act. And not, “If I were you,” because you’re not them. Only they are them. This is the empathy of, “I don’t know what you know, see what you see, or believe what you believe. And that’s okay.”

You can be right or you can make progress. It helps if you’re right, but progress actually comes from helping other people feel as though they’re right. It’s easier to help someone get to where they’re going than it is to persuade them to go somewhere else.

How did Dorothy persuade the Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow to join her on the trip to see the Wizard? Did she make a case about how much she missed home? The lesson here is worth remembering. She created the conditions where the others could get what they wanted by joining her.

We can show up with a story that resonates, and we can create the conditions for people to make different choices. But we cannot easily persuade someone that they are wrong.

So go ahead and kill the butterfly—the problems and challenges of tomorrow’s world will remain unchanged.

first step, then, is to seek to shorten the delay, to look for early signals that usually lead to later ones. More likely, though, we’ll need to have a strategy that helps us navigate when the feedback from the system is slow or confusing.

188. Systems + Games + Feedback Loops

Here are some of the precepts of strategic impact.

Require effort and expense from the early adopters: When working with the pioneers, require effort and offer status. It’s not convenient, easy, or free to go first—there’s no tension in that. Embrace the effort. The appearance of risk is actually a benefit for this cohort.

Persistence: People become what they do, so reward them for consistently showing up to do the new thing.

Moving forward: Create one-way ratchets where sticking with the new approach is easier than giving up and moving backward.

Reinvest: Use the resources earned from early users to invest in creating what the next segment of the curve wants.

Gabe Anderson blogged about the bigger hoop analogy. NBA players don’t complain that the hoop on the net is too small (a bigger hoop, after all, would make everything easier). Instead, they embrace the opportunity to focus on court speed, teamwork, or shooting accuracy. All games have constraints. We can deny them or we can work with them.

When we see who benefits from the persistence of the system, we’ve identified the people who will work to maintain it. People adhere to a cultural system as long as the perceived safety and comfort in maintaining the status quo outweighs the potential risks and uncertainties of departing from it.

191. Six System Traps

Drift to low performance is the disappointing path of comparing our low performance to others’ even worse performance, and creating a feedback loop of lowering the bar. Once a neighborhood starts to be unkempt, it’s likely that someone might care less and make it a bit worse, which amplifies the downward spiral.

The system adjusts. We can influence it, but it’s unlikely we can simply replace it.

If you change what gets measured, you’ll change what gets done.

The best tactic I know for someone seeking to influence a system is simple: Elevate the useful proxies and diminish the presence of the false ones.

Things like: •  The percentage of failed searches •  The trending sentiment of loyalty and trust in the brand •  The health of the ecosystem that the network depends on •  Impact of philanthropic ventures •  Shift in the literacy rate •  New projects built on the API •  Daily average users of email

This was what the decision-making system in their marketing department looked like. She understood that there was no point in hiding it—if vendors didn’t know how it worked, they’d simply waste everyone’s time and energy.

Systems change. They are dynamic. When an event occurs that stresses a system, the rules of the system change, as do the outputs. In our lifetimes, one of the most significant agents of change has been technology.

The agent of change often takes the form of: •  Communications •  Competition •  Community action and regulation •  The means of production and access to capital •  Easing or creation of constraints •  Cultural shifts

Here are some change agents through the ages:

These are either threats or opportunities. The smart strategy is to bet on change. How will the new system create opportunities for people brave enough to take them?

It was only the invention of the telephone that permitted knowledge workers to have an office in a skyscraper. Alexander Graham Bell changed real estate. If you look for a change agent, you can find one.

Status and affiliation. Kehler isn’t in the cow business. He’s in the business of taking a commodity raw material and turning it into a high-value food item. It shouldn’t matter to him whether the raw material is from a cow, a chickpea, or a nut. But it does. This is similar to the way the book industry acts—as if it’s in the cutting-down-trees business instead of the enterprise of bringing new ideas to people who want to pay for them.

The irony is that the very status and affiliation that allow them to bully insurgents could also be powerful tools to help them invent the future instead.

203. What Will I Tell the Others? That’s the second question. The first question is, “Why will I tell the others?” How will the network you’re building benefit me? Will it increase my status, enhance my social affiliation, or decrease my fear? The network effect powers us through this. It gives us a reason. And then the second question: Have we made it easy for you to tell the others?

When we offer utility, status, or affiliation to our users, they’re more likely to use the systems leverage they have to find us more users.

The forces on the system exist long before the system itself changes.

No one makes decisions for the system. The invisible hand has no owner. Not even the president/founder/COO/monarch has complete control over the system.

When pitching an idea, we imagine that the person we’re talking to cares primarily about the entire system, about what it should want. They don’t. They’re not even aware of the entire system. They’re simply thinking about their boss, or their urgent needs, or nothing much at all. •  And when considering a change, we often revert to thinking about our limited agency and the person right in front of us, instead of probing for what might make the system itself pivot and shift.

208. Types of Elegant Strategies

Low cost is easy to claim but hard to do. Many organizations claim that this is what they do, but they end up with only the low-price part. If you don’t have a substantial process advantage, low prices are almost impossible to maintain. It’s a race to the bottom and you might win. Cut enough corners and there’s nothing left. And resilience disappears.

People don’t share because they like you. They share because it helps them achieve their objectives. Alcoholics Anonymous isn’t anonymous, and you can’t do it by yourself. That’s the point.

Potential risk remediation is a complicated way to say, “everything will be okay (if you listen to us).”

“No one ever got fired for buying IBM” was true for 40 years. It wasn’t because they had the best tech for any given problem (they rarely did). It was because they created so much reassurance, cultural advantage, and convenience that it was easier to say “yes” than to risk shopping around.

Several things determine how an existing system will respond to a change agent. •  Does adapting to the change require a different set of metrics, rewards, and approaches? •  Does the change lead to a significant change in the dominant status structure—one that those in power will seek to stop? •  Does the change rhyme with previous changes, and does the system have a history of accepting and working with these sorts of changes? •  Is the problem or insight the agent of change brings persistent and permanent, or is it transient or simply urgent? •  Do other systems benefit from the change in a way that will threaten the power of this system? •  Does the change align with the unstated values and beliefs of the system? •  Is the change perceived as a threat to individual roles, skills, or job security of the nodes that have power? •  Do nodes in the system believe they have the necessary resources and capabilities to implement the change? •  Will competitive pressures force the system to adopt the change?

the words of Neil Levy, “We cannot undo the effects of luck with more luck.”

Systems contain feedback loops, and the loops often reward an early lead. It’s more productive to go faster now than it is to go faster later. When a six-year-old kid beats the other kids at tennis, that kid is more likely to be encouraged to play more, or to get a coach, and pretty soon, they’re much better at tennis than the others. That leads to more coaches and more tournaments.

We can decide to play in a system where our head start gives us a natural advantage. Or we can acknowledge that the feedback loops in the system are probably not going to help us at first, and we can work to find the support and coaching we need to overcome this. Scaffolding is hard to find and priceless. There are often ways forward if we’re willing to look for them.

Any strategy, scaled big enough, cannot be sustained, and it will be replaced by a new set of conditions, players, and rules. In other words: Every successful organization will fail unless it becomes something different before it does.

When a system is created, the intent is usually a good one. The pioneers of the internet weren’t trying to build a platform for trolls and misogynists. The creators of packaged foods weren’t hoping to increase obesity, diabetes, and heart attacks. But side effects often occur. Side effects are merely effects. The system produces them, often with the same reliable regularity as the desired effects. If we can’t accept the side effects, then we can’t accept the system. A strategy cannot ignore the side effects. Because side effects are part of the system, the same way that a shadow is part of the sunshine.

In moments of turbulence, new ideas and new organizations can gain traction and further the transformation. It’s easy to imagine that the turbulence will last forever, but it rarely does.

Sometimes, the job of a gatekeeper is to keep the gate closed.

215. Kinds of Tension

Our project relieves the tension once it’s adopted by those in our community. There’s a hump, and on the other side, there is better.

The smallest viable audience is most useful, but only when serving them is a seed that grows into a larger segment of the market, causing the change you seek.

Traditionally, organizations have focused on a few pillars to win in the marketplace: •  Reliable quality through process innovation •  Better price •  Intellectual property •  Persistent positioning advantage •  Customer service •  Distribution lock-in •  Product innovation •  Specialization •  Partnerships

Trust leads to trust. Influence creates influence. The network effect is the dynamic of our time, and most of us don’t even notice it.

This isn’t a competition of effort or obvious performance metrics. The work doesn’t get the network effect it deserves based on how much you insist on people joining you. Instead, networks catch on because the network being built is attractive, sticky, and persistent. Does it work better for me if my friends join in? Networks create value for those who choose to join them, and part of that value comes from the status and affiliation bump that evangelists of the system receive. People only invite others to join a network if they benefit from doing so. If you don’t begin with a network effect as a significant benefit for users, it’s almost impossible to build it in later.

What people do might not be aligned with what they want.

Instead, we’re working to create the conditions for people to choose to do useful things while seeking what they’ve always wanted. And what they want is status and affiliation. Some combination of joy, honor, and achievement. A place to be safe and a way to excel.

Culture defeats tactics, every time, and culture is the most resilient component of a system. Often we have the opportunity to do judo instead of surgery. To embrace the goals and momentum of the system and direct it in a better direction. We don’t change the system as much as we change the outputs the system creates.

It’s easier to help someone find what they want than it is to change what they want.

Social adhesion is culture. People like us do things like this. The unspoken rules that cause us to do things that might not be easy or in our short-term interest. The vague (or pronounced) feelings we have when going against the grain. And resistance to substitution is at the heart of every market we engage in. Why this and not that? What prevents a constant race for cheaper or more convenient? Shouldn’t everything be a rational commodity? Why stick when we can switch? Social adhesion and resistance to substitution often work at cross purposes, creating an oscillating and unstable equilibrium between change and the status quo. “Everyone else is doing it” meets “I don’t want to go first.”

Loss aversion: Losing feels worse than winning feels good, and it’s easier to stand pat and protect what we have. Confirmation bias: It’s nice to feel like we made a good choice. The group encourages its members to look for external signs that existing choices were appropriate, and thus diminishes a desire to look for substitutes. Tribalism: The strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or social group (often leading to hostility or discrimination against those perceived as outsiders) can reinforce social adhesion within groups and make it harder for new ideas or practices to spread across group boundaries. But most of all, in the last century, we took our instincts for social adherence and substitution aversion and built them into our culture.

When bringing a project to the world, it pays to see the systems that will be pushing it forward or holding it back. Here’s what’s worth investigating: Who gains or loses in status from changes in the system? Are there forms of communication and interoperability wired into the system? What are the forces that oppose substitutions? Are the individuals or nodes with the incentive and power to hold things back or push them forward? And are there other nodes that can work in opposition? Are there behaviors that seem like superstitions based in history instead of reality? Where are the feedback loops that amplify or diminish signals?

Beyond the conflicting agendas faced by complex systems, the entire system is often under tension as well. When technology changes, or public policy shifts, the system itself scrambles to find and maintain equilibrium. We most easily see a system when the system bends under stress.

The innovator: Technology and insight are the most common and powerful ways to change a system. The innovation creates opportunities and threats, and the tension that builds around it forces existing players in the system to respond or react. Claude.ai and other LLM’s are a current example. The work they do can become a change agent, but right now, the innovator is simply focused on solving an interesting problem.

The educator: Information is actually a measurable force of nature, as much as a rainstorm or a meteor. When information is shared and spread, the system shifts.

Probability is nothing but a report on how the deck is stacked. If we are going to choose our future, it helps to have a hint about what to expect there.

The future is unknown. Any project we take on, any change we seek to make, might not work. We can’t do strategy without embracing the knowledge that we’re taking a risk. If you need a guarantee, you’ll need the world to stay still. Strategy requires being smart about how we invest our time, money, and assets.

And the systems question: If we get a yes this time, is the next call going to go more easily? Are they dependent events, getting easier as we go, or are we trapped in this loop? Visualize the cards and you can make smarter choices about which moments, which nodes, which changes, and which systems you’re going to focus on.

The future sends us reports on what it’s going to be like. None of us have seen it, but it’s possible to make assertions about what is to come. We may have to walk away from our drawing tomorrow, no matter how hard it was to create, but the sketching pays off because it offers context and structure for what might come next.

No one is controlling the dice, but if we’re smart, we can choose a set of dice that are more likely to get us what we seek. Loaded dice and a stacked deck can be found if we look for them.

There are dice and they are rolled, there are cards and they are shuffled. Random events happen all the time.

Strategy involves the hard work of looking at probabilities and building likely outcomes into your plans. It might not be in our control, but we can still count the cards.

We have been indoctrinated to seek certainty, go back to normal, celebrate the end of change, seek the right answer and the peace of mind that comes with it.

Once we see the system, we can discern how it’s the same (and different) from the one we’re facing. And once we understand a system, we can work within it and we can change

Positioning is a service. It’s a beacon to your customers, patients, or constituents. It says, “If you’re looking for X, that’s what we have. On the other hand, plenty of people are looking for Y, and you’ll find that from our colleagues over there.”

But you (and your customers) benefit when you have a strategy to get to the edge you seek to live on.

When you honestly and accurately position the competition, they cease to become your competition, because you sell something that they don’t sell.

Build something that fills a square, and it becomes yours to defend.

Successful positions work because they have empathy for people, not because they represent a universal sort of better.

Your successful competition stands for something. When you choose to stand for something that contrasts with that, they can’t follow you.

“Everyone” is shorthand for hope and an unwillingness to see time, systems, and strategies. “Someone” is far more effective.

And my answers are always the same, in the form of more questions: •  If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over? •  Is this objective really what you want? •  Do your assets match the project you’ve taken on? •  Why would the nodes in the system you’re engaging with care enough to listen to you or take action? •  What will they tell their colleagues and friends? People with answers to these questions rarely end up with a marketing problem.

When we run out of time, we’re done. When we run out of money, we’re done. And if we’re done before we’ve made an impact, the entire effort is wasted. The scale of your project needs to match your assets. When we take on too big a change, for too many people, we underdeliver, and all is lost.

When we extend ourselves beyond our means, we create short-term pressure and a downward spiral if the market doesn’t respond on time. The process is simple but easy to forget: overwhelm the smallest viable audience with a solution that creates the conditions for them to take action. Repeat.

Changing course and exploring your options are far cheaper at the start than they are at the end.

The discipline of project management is to insist, “We’re not going to write a line of code until you sign off on the storyboards” or “We’re not going to lay a brick until the plans are approved.”

And so a new project begins. Thrash again. At the beginning. Repeat.

Opportunity cost is real. Time is not infinite, and the scarcity of time creates constraints. There’s only a bit of room in your shopping cart. If you have this, you can’t have that. One reason that we avoid choosing a strategy is that we’re not comfortable walking away from all the other possible strategies. Rather than celebrate the paths not taken, we take no path at all. If you’re going to say “yes” to something, be prepared to show us all the things that you would have to say “no” to in order to make room.

The question isn’t: “How is it going?” It’s: “Compared to what?” This time, effort, or money you’re spending—what could it have gone to instead?

Projects are not simply tasks. All projects: •  Interact with other people •  Have a beginning and an end •  Seek to deliver a desired result •  Have constraints •  Involve unknowns When we bring intent to our project, we’re more likely to avoid drama. And reducing risk is about investing in avoiding problems before they occur.

“Tell everyone about your strategy.” Tactics shift, but strategies are for the long-haul.

255. Successful Projects •  They aren’t static because they move through time and time moves through them. •  They accomplish something. •  They serve systems and enable their participants to get to where they’re going. •  They create the conditions for people to spread an idea. •  They create resilient structures that thrive when the world changes. •  They evolve based on useful inputs.

Ahead of us is a dip, a place of difficulty, where most people quit. Our job is to ensure we have sufficient momentum, resources, and energy to get through that dip, because tomorrow is another chance to begin our project again. Don’t run out of time, don’t run out of money. Hard decisions now ensure easier decisions tomorrow.

The larger the team, the more we need to lean into the process of communication. It begins by being clear about our roles, our purpose, the change we seek to make, and the people we’re seeking to serve.

The world changes. We’re changing it. Without a resilient communications system, the project stalls. Projects require strategy, but our strategy is directly related to our ability to ship the work.

The future is an unknown place, and no project is risk-free. If we say, “Failure is not an option,” we’ve just guaranteed that success can’t happen either. Certainty is elusive, and if we require certainty to move forward, we’re trapped. The opportunity isn’t to de-risk our work. The opportunity is to see the risks, understand the game, and build our expectations and responses about risk into the project. Risk is the price we pay to make a difference.

Constraints are a gift because they bring us something to lean against, and they give us the chance to focus. Sometimes, the situation changes, and constraints are lifted. In those moments, we need to be hyper-aware of the new possibilities. The rest of the time, instead of cursing the boundaries, we can celebrate them. The most interesting strategies happen at the edges, and the edges exist because that’s where the constraints are.

When a decision is called for, there must be a problem to solve. If there are no problems, there’s no need for projects and no room for growth. Russ Ackoff’s writing about systems asserts that problems have five components: •  A decision-maker •  Elements of the situation that are controllable by the decision-maker •  Elements which are out of the decision-maker’s control •  Constraints •  A range of possible outcomes When all five are present, we get to do our work. The work of making a decision. If they’re not present, then we don’t have a problem or a decision to make. We simply have a situation. Celebrate the problems ahead. Problems are opportunities to create the conditions for better outcomes. The way forward is simple, but not easy.

Getting stung by a wasp is an unfortunate situation. It hurts. It can’t be undone. Other than a bit of first aid, there are no decisions to be made. Avoiding getting stung by a wasp tomorrow is a problem. We have choices to make, investments of time or effort to consider, and a chance to reconsider the objectives that may have caused the first situation.

There’s a pyramid of decision effort, and unless someone has a good reason, they’d prefer to be at the lowest number, probably level 1: 1.    Don’t notice, don’t care, no decision needed. 2.    Think about it and realize our previous instinct was correct. 3.    Think about a new situation and make a new decision from scratch. 4.    Think about a situation and then make a different choice based on new data. 5.    Realize a mistake was made and undo a previous decision.

No decision needed is the easiest decision of all.

A more useful approach is to seek out and embrace optionality. If we can try something, experience something, or launch something that comes with an undo button, that path is far more resilient than irrevocable decisions that can’t be undone. If there’s an easy and productive way to backtrack, the best response might be, “Sure, why not?” Forward motion with optionality doesn’t involve stalling when commitments are the better path to make a change happen. Instead, when all other things are similar, choosing the option that gives us more options as the world unfolds is the better choice.

These all make sense, but how often do we consciously seek out optionality? “And then what happens?” is most productive when we’re okay with multiple answers.

There’s a difference between a good decision and a good outcome.

Our decisions improve as we learn more about the systems we’re working with, and it’s useful to evaluate our past decisions as part of the learning process.

A decision is a choice. It’s based on what we know in the moment.

But if you buy a lottery ticket and actually win the lottery, it feels like you made a good decision. You didn’t. You made a bad decision and got lucky—a bad choice with a good outcome. The flip side is more often true: We correctly understood our options, made a choice, and our strategy didn’t succeed. That’s not a bad decision. That’s a good decision that was followed by a bad outcome. Instead of concealing or diminishing these outcomes, we should examine them and even celebrate them. Bad luck isn’t a moral failing.

The tension and stress of talking about a decision before we make it is real. Yet it’s far less than the tension and stress that goes with living with a poor decision we made yesterday.

Predicting the future in a complex system is an unreliable venture. As a result, unexpected, unpredicted outcomes are the norm. It’s worth calling it what it is: luck. Resilient strategies accept and account for luck. They benefit from good luck and are resilient enough to survive bad luck.

money is an emotional issue for you, you’ve put your finger on a big part of the problem. No one who is good at building houses has an emotional problem with hammers. Place your emotional problems where they belong, and focus on seeing money as a tool.

Don’t get caught confusing money with security. There are lots of ways to build a life that’s more secure, starting with the stories you tell yourself, the people you surround yourself with, and the cost of living you embrace. Money is one way to feel more secure, but money alone won’t deliver this.

Maximax is the strategy of seeking to maximize the impact of your wins. This is the entertainment business, where it doesn’t matter if you have occasional flops—what matters is focusing on increasing the scale and impact of your hits. The alternative is to focus on Maximin. Minimize the impact of your losses. This is the way a power plant works. It’s nice if your average productivity goes up a bit, but it’s absolutely terrible if something goes wrong and the place melts down. We tend to default to Maximin, playing it safe and avoiding any short-term losses. But there are places where we should lean into Maximax, being careful not to completely blow it, but embracing small losses as we seek to maximize the benefits of our wins. This is always a choice. There are very few decisions that offer both.

If we get tricked into believing that good decisions always lead to good outcomes, and we can’t be sure of the outcome, then good decisions are elusive and we should simply avoid taking action. It’s true that it’s easier to do nothing than to feel like we were wrong. But action is our only option.

A good decision is simply the best analysis of the existing information. The outcomes can inform our analysis in the future, but the outcomes are out of our control. Good decisions are worth making, even if they don’t always lead to good outcomes.

Another example: A company works hard to fix the things that lead customers to call in and complain. That’s fine, but it ignores the customers that aren’t bothering to call in but who are just walking away or badmouthing you to others. Figure out what those things are and you’ll make an even bigger impact on your long-term success. The utility of a strategy is not measured by how many people used it successfully. It’s measured by what percentage of the folks who used it succeeded.

They could have access to better information. Decisions are based on what you know and how you see the world. If others are seeing more clearly than you do, you’ll need to see what they see.

Decisions are difficult. There’s fear, effort, and risk involved.

If the change you seek to make requires nuanced and brave decisions from people inclined to defend sunk costs, the road ahead is more difficult than it needs to be.

We seek to help people achieve their goals, but we do it by changing the way they get there.

Assets that disappear when you leave the building are helpful, but the most scalable ones are tools you can leverage by sharing with others. While some of these assets can easily be acquired for cash, others take time and effort to earn. Every day, we expend time, and we expend effort. Do you end up with more valuable tools at the end of the day, or have you simply performed tasks for someone else?

Each of these assets has gone up in value, day after day, year after year. What do you own?

Professionals obtain assets with intent.

Every day we trade time, opportunity and money to obtain assets. If we do this without intent, we’ll simply get our tasks done and waste whatever assets we could have earned.

The goal is to find assets that increase in value over time, and are resilient enough to transfer to other projects when the world changes.

The only way to solve a systems problem is with a systems solution.

If culture is the way a system protects itself, community action is the way we push back against culture becoming toxic.

“If you don’t want to smoke, don’t smoke.” “If you’re worried about lead in your gas, don’t buy leaded gas.” “If you are concerned about the environment, compost, recycle, and get an electric car. If everyone did that, we’d be fine.”

The price of dog food goes up, but the dogs don’t seem any happier. We’re happy to buy a story. Promotions and ads work. Systems work. The culture reinforces itself.

Power is part of our insatiable desire for more, and offering more for less is an easy way to get traction.

If it’s legal, our culture implies that it’s okay.

We can’t shrink our way to greatness. But we can make better decisions with better information.

It begins in the delivery room and the nursery. It continues on the playground. It is amplified in school. And cemented at the job interview. We’ve been trained to feel helpless when considering the future.

“I like to leave room for accidents or chaos. Making a seamless record, where every note and syllable is in place and every bass drum is identical, is no trick. Any idiot with the patience and the budget to allow such foolishness can do it. I prefer to work on records that aspire to greater things, like originality, personality and enthusiasm. If every element of the music and dynamics of a band is controlled by click tracks, computers, automated mixes, gates, samplers and sequencers, then the record may not be incompetent, but it certainly won’t be exceptional.” Steve Albini, record producer

We change systems by building our own systems—systems that cause change as their output.

When two or more people work together in sync, their force is multiplied.

The coach in the locker room might amp up the team during halftime, but it’s the culture that develops from practices, meals, and the playbook that determines whether they’re likely to win the next game or make it through the entire season. Culture defeats motivation. And culture is distributed and rarely happens all at once. Culture is a system’s way of defending itself, and if we’re to build a system, we should be mindful of the culture we create.

In our work culture, a distinction needs to be made between meetings and conversations. Conversations are interactions that share insight and wisdom. Meetings are real-time memos that waste everyone’s time and leave no commonly accepted record behind. Organizations that struggle with strategy also seem to have a lot of meetings.

When making a new decision, we must ignore what we acquired yesterday. The skills we earned, the machines we purchased, the privileges we were given—they are all gifts to you from the you of yesterday. Like all gifts, they’re optional. You don’t need to accept them or keep them around.

All effort comes with an opportunity cost, and sometimes that effort turns into an asset. When the asset isn’t helping you any longer, you can forgive your effort, decline the asset going forward, and go make the change you signed up for in the first place.

The wrong direction, the wrong answer, the wrong project. What does wrong mean? Let’s go back to where we started. Who’s it for? What’s it for?

People like us do things like this. Tension comes with change the same way shadows come with sunlight.

297. Questions That Lead to Strategies

You’ve always had what you needed to make a difference. But now you can see the systems, understand the games, and ask the questions to turn your project into work with impact. Persistently over time, person by person, day by day. Go make a ruckus.

A note on AI: I’m grateful for the editorial assistance of Claude, a new kind of large language model. All of this book is written by me, and I’m responsible for its content, but I regularly asked Claude to challenge my thinking. I was particularly pleased with how good it was at completing lists. At the start of the book, I encouraged you to challenge Claude with prompts and lists from this book, as it’s very good at reviewing your work and pointing out what doesn’t match the goals you’ve stated. If you’re hesitant about sharing your strategy with your peers, ask Claude first.