Trigger Strategy

Survivorship bias is unavoidable. By default, we see what survives and not what doesn't. This is OK but it creates the risk that we take the wrong lessons from the survivors.In this episode, we talk about how we might mitigate the downsides of survivorship bias. We touch on a bunch of topics:rejecting simplistic Sinekismstheory-informed praxis, rather than copy-pasting patterns across contextschallenges to Estuarine Mappingzero-sum gamesbounded applicabilty – asking when something doesn't apply, or who shouldn't use a thingDouble DiamondsShiny FrameworksPortfolio of small bets in parallel – as a way to optimise for survivalAnd an invitation to you: what are we missing? How do you handle survivorship bias?Linky GoodnessBounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306Trigger Strategy website: https://triggerstrategy.com/

We recorded this one on a whim and we didn't have our microphone with a little hat on it, so the wind noise makes a guest appearance. Apologies – return to quality sound soon.Corissa grabbed a snippet from an article:Over at one of my favourite blogs, Common Cog, Cedric Chin writes that there is a style of thinking that is reliably exhibited by successful entrepreneurs. It is called effectual thinking, and it's the type of improvisatory, reality based thinking that follows the question, what effects can be produced with the spread of resources in front of me? He contrasts this with causal thinking, which is the opposite pattern, looking towards an ideal outcome and then trying to work backwards to derive the actions required to eventually bring about that future. And this inspired us to talk through effectual thinking. We go on a blustery journey through chefs in high-end experimental kitchens, John Boyd's Snowmobiling, Mr Beast, Steve Jobs, Estuarine Framework and Small Bets.The big question: can effectual thinking give you a happier, healthier way to operate, or is it just the case that, as Andrew Wilkinson put it, "most highly successful people are “just a walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity”?Linky goodness:Sasha Chapin's article: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/our-perfume-line-is-hereCedric Chin's Common Cog: https://commoncog.com/when-action-beats-prediction/Vaughn Tan's Uncertainty Mindset: https://uncertaintymindset.org/Snowmobiling podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/072-granularity-part-2-snowmobilingDo 100 Thing podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thingInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10Small Bets: https://smallbets.com/

A live thinking through of the next chunk in our series of articles about the Vision Chasm – that gulf between the glorious future people are talking about and the reality of where you are today. In this episode we look at situations where a Vision is unreachable because it's actually deceptive – either deliberate deception to keep everyone looking the other way while people deploy a secret strategy; or accidental self-deception because your reality has shifted but your narratives haven't caught up. We talk through a few stories from our past. 1) A company workshop where trying to crystallise a vision of the future fell apart - because nobody was ready/able to be honest about the true direction of the company. Still clinging to a cultural heritage that was no longer a fit for their market position?2) A deep misunderstanding between a C-suite and design team – talking past one another because we were operating in fundamentally different worlds. A third party was able to show us why we were stuck in loggerheads. Looking back, we can see how daft we were being. But could we have done things differently at the time? 3) How the misunderstanding played out when the C-suite brought in an external agency. In one way, it was a disaster that made a mess and broke some hearts. In another way, it was a success that broke the deadlock and massively moved things forward for the company.References:Vision Chasm Part I: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasmVision Chasm Part II: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/066-feeling-the-edges-of-the-vision-chasm2D Comparison / Card Sifting method:

All credit to friend of the pod Pete Shaw for the "Founder mode sounds like brat summer" observation.Founder Mode triggered a beefstorm on LinkedIn, so we take a little stroll around the topic and share our takes. 3 parts nuance, 2 parts spicy, 1 long run-on sentence where Tom gets lost and forgets what he was trying to say.Topics include alignment, coherence, intuition, taste and more.References:Paul Graham's Founder ModeOur article We need to talk about Airbnb

In this episode, we zoom back in time to a situation when a load of meetings were frustrating people at this one company. Tom used Snowmobiling with a small team to break down the meetings into smaller pieces and then remix those pieces in a new way. We share some of the details and pitfalls along the way. This same decompose/recombine approach can be used in lots of different situations where you need to find something new. Because everything new is really just novel recombinations of existing stuff.We read out the steps on the Snowmobiling card (Innovation Tactics) – the exact instructions you can follow to harness the power of the remix. References:Everything is a RemixAustin Kleon's Keep GoingJohn Boyd's Destruction and CreationSnowmobiling card from Innovation Tactics: Front | BackInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10

Today, we start by adding some corrections to terminology we used in episode 70, which will be confusing if you haven't listened to that one. But it doesn't take long, and then we get into our main topic, which is granularity. When you work with too coarse a granularity, you can find yourself stuck or confused about what to do. When you work with too fine a granularity, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed, drowning in data, paralysed by too many options. The magic is to find the sweet spot, where you break things down just enough to create good options for action.We talk through ASHEN as a typology for decomposing people or roles to a more legible and actionable level of granularity, and Corissa tries it out for real with one of her old bosses.LinksASHEN on the Cynefin wiki: https://cynefin.io/wiki/ASHENArticle about stages of companies vs different people's natural propensities: https://newsletter.thewayofwork.com/p/stage-fright