Optimizing yourself into a corner

Organizations thrive on incremental improvement. They find a stable foundation and then build a feedback loop of relentless improvement. This leads to great efficiency, higher productivity and more profits. It enables more throughput and builds market share. Except things change. Optimized offerings are brittle. When the foundation shifts, all of that incremental improvement breaks into

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The Lego problem, revisited

For generations, the rules of Lego were simple: many pieces, all able to connect in many ways, led to many outcomes. That almost drove the company into bankruptcy, though. Lego kits saved the business. Each kit has just one way to do the work, follow the instructions carefully. Industrial indoctrination in a box. While it

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More interesting

Built into the concept of “interesting” is the unexplored. The temptation of discovery and the new. And so, by definition, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, it’s likely that there is something more interesting somewhere else. The people at the next table may be talking about something more fascinating than your date is… the only

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