Notes from the book The Choice by Eli Goldratt
For you, everything is like a prototype. No wonder situations that trigger disappointment and frustration for others, are, for you, a source of energy
One has to be humble to assume that one doesn’t known
One must be arrogant; have the confidence that one is capable of figuring out how to make things work
Oxymoron: humble arrogance
Seneca said two thousand years ago, that ‘good luck is preparation meets opportunity’
It’s not too difficult to predict the outcome. If someone isn’t prepared, then he won’t see most of the opportunities. Such a person will be waiting for good luck to provide everything on a silver platter.
If someone is not prepared, what freedom of choice does he have?
Ability to recognise situations
Logical maps of reality helps you in two ways. Recognise opportunities. Don’t lose energy.
The deeper meaning of freedom of choice is the choice to invest in overcoming these obstacles
The more complicated the situation seems to be , the simpler the solution must be
Approach it from the outside
The first and most profound obstacle is that people believe that realist is complex, and therefore they are looking for sophisticated explanations
You see, since complicated solutions never work, people tell themselves that they don’t know enough, that a lot of detailed knowledge is needed before one can even attempt to understand an environment.
Once understood, embarrassingly simple
Most of a person’s difficulties and joys stem from his interactions with other human beings
The most difficult cases are those dealing not just with a diverse group, but also with a diverse group that has to achieve something together. In other words, an organisation.
How and why it behaves the way it does.
Through the simple logical map you have built, new opportunities are opened.
Governing causalities
Chronic problems (problems that they already gave up on the possibilities of eliminating) develop protective mechanisms. They simply repress these problems.
Lower their expectations about life.
Energy is channeled to deal with the much less important things in their life.
Blind to the big persistent problems.
Distorted perception of reality.
Away from the noise of the many smaller problems.
Core problem.
Accept the concept of Inherent Simplicity.
The prevailing definition for complexity is, the more data elements one has to provide in order to fully describe the system, the more complex the system is
If you are a scientist, or a manager, you are not so much interested in the description of the system. You are more interested in the difficulty of controlling and predicting its behaviour, especially when changes are introduced. YOur definition of complexity is, the more degrees of freedom the system has the more complex it is.
Facing such an apparent contradiction no one would say, let’s compromise, let’s agree that the height of this building is the average between the two measurements.
What we would say is that somewhere along the line we have made an erroneous assumption.
Conflict is a situation where we want a contradiction.
I cannot think of even one example of an undesirable effect that is not the result of a conflict.
Treat any conflict like a scientist treats a contradiction
Let’s insist that one of the underlying assumptions is faulty.
The second obstacle is that people’s perception is that conflicts are a given and that the best we can do it to seek a compromise.
In academia we are encouraging that devastating mistake. Under the glorying title of optimisation we invest considerable efforts to teach students, not how to remove conflicts, but how to waste time finding the best compromise.
Inherent simplicity is that reality, any part of reality, is governed by very few elements, and that any existing conflict can be eliminated.
Undesirable effects are the outcome of an unsatisfactory compromise.
Simplicity caused you to take for granted that these problems can be solved because they are the result of a root conflict and that the conflict can be removed. That’s why you didn’t have a tendency to camouflage these problems.
The smaller problems are those that can be disconnected from the compromise, and that’s the reason they can be handled while the conflict stays intact.
To see all the ramifications, to complete the full picture.
Newton said ‘nature is exceedingly simple and harmonious with itself’
First two obstacles to thinking clearly — the perception that reality is complex, and the tendency to accept conflicts as a given.
The third obstacle is that we tend to blame the other party.
Blaming another person is not a solution.
You will be able to refrain from blaming people when you are convinced there is no reason to blame them.
Harmony exists in any relationship
I didn’t say that every relationship is harmonious.
When one party, because of its selfish interests, demands a major change from the other party.
Reaching a win-win solution enlarges the cake.
Looking for the other side’s win does not remove the conflict, rather it leads directly into the grip of the conflict — leads directly to a lose situation.
Robert Frost’s poem,
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth
Never compromise on the starting point. Never accept the erroneous cause and effect as a base for modifications or lack thereof.
What you should expect is that management will start to doubt the validity of their extrapolated connections and start to contemplate the possibility that the connections you have presented might be plausible.
Open-minded people will not necessarily agree with me, not when my arguments don’t make sense to them. But open minded people do listen.
As human beings we are standing on a three-legged stool: emotion, intuition, and logic.
Have your strongest intuition in the areas that are the most important to you?
Your emotion in that area is intensified.
Result of constantly practicing thinking clearly.
We tend to concentrate on our areas of interest. Now suppose that we use the intuition that we have in these areas to fuel logic. The more we succeed in thinking clearly the deeper our emotions in those areas become. The deeper the emotions, that stronger is the resulting initiation. The stronger the intuition, the higher the chances to successfully apply logic.
An optimise with experience is… ‘a pessimist’… The other answer is ‘a practical visionary’. What you will become is your choice.
No longer find refuge in blaming others, or blaming circumstances, or saying that it’s out of your control or even outside your abilities. You have to take full responsibility for your life. This will lead you to a full life but certainly not to an easy life.
