Faint Signal
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References
2030 – Guillén (2020)
A First Course in Network Science – Menczer, et. al. (2020)
A More Beautiful Question – Berger (2014)
A Whole New Mind – Pink (2006)
Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking – Kolko (2010)
Abundance – Diamandis and Kotler (2012)
Antifragile – Taleb (2012)
Atomic Habits – Clear (2018)
Cognitive Surplus – Shirky (2010)
Connectography – Khanna (2016)
Creative Confidence – Kelley and Kelley (2013)
Crossing the Chasm – Moore (2009)
Crucial Influence – Grenny, et al. (2023)
Cynefin – Snowden, et al. (2020)
Elastic – Mlodinow (2018)
Essentialism – Mckeown (2014)
Exponential Organizations – Ismail, et al. (2014)
Factfulness – Rosling, et al. (2018)
Frame Innovation – Dorst (2015)
Good Strategy Bad Strategy – Rumelt (2011)
Grit – Duckworth (2016)
How Big Things Get Done – Flyvbjerg and Gardner (2023)
How Do Committees Invent – Conway (1968)
How Innovation Works – Ridley (2020)
Ideaflow – Utley and Klebahn (2022)
Influence – Cialdini (2021)
Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton – Fretwell, et. al. (2013)
Letter to the American Church – Metaxas (2022)
Linked – Barabási, Frangos (2002)
Loonshots – Bahcall (2019)
Make It Stick – Brown (2014)
Martin Luther – Metaxas (2017)
Metaphors We Live By – Lakoff and Johnson (2008)
Mindset – Dweck (2006)
Moonwalking with Einstein – Foer (2011)
Movements That Move – Reach (2016)
Networks and Netwars – Arquilla and Ronfeldt (2001)
Never Split the Difference – Voss, Raz (2016)
Noise – Kahneman, et. al. (2021)
Nonviolent Communication – Rosenberg (2015)
Nudge – Thaler and Sunstein (2021)
Originals – Grant, Sandberg (2016)
Outliers – Gladwell (2008)
Persuadable – Pittampalli (2016)
Playing to Win – Lafley and Martin (2013)
Range – Epstein (2019)
Rare Leadership – Warner and Wilder (2016)
Resilience Thinking – Walker and Salt (2012)
Simple Rules for a Complex World – Sull and Eisenhardt (2012)
Start with Why – Sinek (2009)
Supercommunicators – Duhigg (2024)
Superforecasting – Tetlock, Gardner (2015)
Switch – Heath and Heath (2010)
Taking the Medicine – Burch (2009)
Team of Teams – McChrystal, et al. (2015)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Covey (2013)
The Advantage – Lencioni (2012)
The Black Swan – Taleb (2010)
The Box – Levinson (2016)
The Breakdown of Nations – Kohr (2016)
The Checklist Manifesto – Gawande (2009)
The Design of Everyday Things – Norman (2013)
The Fifth Discipline – Senge (2010)
The Great Upheaval – Levine and Van Pelt (2021)
The Infinite Game – Sinek (2019)
The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn – Kuhn (2022)
The Lean Startup – Ries (2011)
The Master Switch – Wu (2010)
The Molecule of More – Lieberman, Long (2018)
The Order of Time – Rovelli (2018)
The Paradox of Choice – Schwartz (2009)
The Power of Habit – Duhigg (2012)
The Scout Mindset – Galef (2021)
The Starfish and the Spider – Brafman and Beckstrom (2006)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Kuhn (1962)
The Three-Box Solution – Govindarajan (2016)
The True Believer – Hoffer (2011)
The Tyranny of Experts – Easterly (2014)
The Tyranny of Metrics – Muller (2018)
The Voltage Effect – List (2022)
Think Again – Grant (2021)
Think Like a Rocket Scientist – Varol (2020)
Thinking in Systems – Meadows (2008)
Thinking, Fast and Slow – Kahneman (2013)
Understanding Variation – Wheeler (1993)
What Matters Now – Hamel (2012)
When Helping Hurts – Corbett and Fikkert (2012)
Where Good Ideas Come From – Johnson (2011)
Writing to Learn – Zinsser (2013)
Topics
Cognition
Cognitive Bias
Complexity
Effectiveness
Frame Innovation
Leadership
Metacognition
Networks
Paradigm Shifts
Psychology
Resilience Thinking
Strategic
1% is Halfway
A catalyst starts and moves on from a decentralized organization
A decentralized organization stands on five legs
A missed signal is an opportunity wasted
Accordion Principle says systems oscillate between centralization and decentralization
Adaptability is the capacity of actors to manage the resilience of a system
Addressing symptoms shifts the burden from addressing fundamental causes
Adjacent Possible is the edge of the future
Admitting uncertainty is not necessarily indicative of lack of expertise
Agreement is a spectrum, not a binary
All linked adaptive cycles govern the behavior of a system
All translation loses, adds, or changes information
All-Channel Networks can function without hierarchies
Ambiguity aversion favors the known over the unknown
An idea can fail in any number of ways
An idea is a new connection between two things
Analogical thinking uses a known example to explain something new
Anchoring Bias pulls an unknown value toward a known anchor
Antifragile systems are configured for adaptability
Antifragile Systems become stronger with shocks
Appraisal of a complex problem’s context is objective
Assertive inquiry moves dialog beyond argumentation
Availability Heuristic overestimates likelihood of events
Backcasting works backward from a desired outcome
Bandwagon bias is social proof
Bed of Procrustes
Behavioral change fails when it requires absolute recantation
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose
Bias for action can mask a bias against thinking
Black Swan events are rare, impactful, and retrospectively predictable
Blame Instinct hinders thinking by pointing fingers
Blue Ocean strategy creates demand
Bright spots show positive deviance
Building habits reduces cognitive strain
Building shared vision results in intrinsic motivation
Catalysts are fundamentally different from CEOs
Causal Loop Diagrams model system dynamics
Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space
Centralized innovation is beset by two weaknesses
Centralized systems are efficient, not disruptively innovative
Challenges are now open, complex, dynamic, and networked
Champions relentlessly promote a new idea
Change efforts are undermined by three measurement mistakes
Changing things happens in the opposite direction
Changing things requires directing the Rider and motivating the Elephant
Checklists account for the mundane but essential tasks
Checklists ensure success in complex conditions
Checklists establish a higher standard of baseline performance
Coevolution simultaneously develops the formulation of and solution to a problem
Communicating ideas requires overcoming the curse of knowledge
Compartmentalization blinds you to new possibilities
Compensating feedback offsets interventions
Complex adaptive systems are unpredictable and non-linear
Complex networks have unique topological features
Complex problems can be solved at the periphery
Complex problems have many interconnected elements
Complex problems require new thinking
Complex situations have multiple levels of explanation
Complex systems are characterized by VUCA
Complex systems exhibit emergent behavior
Complexifying overcomes binary bias
Concept maps are graphical representations of mental models
Concept Networks are the building blocks of thoughts processes
Concrete communication explains in terms of human actions and senses
Confirmation Bias defends one's assumptions
Consistency of rigid management processes decreases flexibility
Consistency principle is a social anchoring effect
Constant change requires constant reformation
Course-correcting early and often
Creating frames improves cognition
Creating frames overcomes the adoption problem
Creation of a process also creates secondary processes which limit it
Creative events bridge problems and solutions
Creativity doesn’t look creative when you’re doing it
Credible communication carries its own credentials
Crises do not always lead to new paradigms
Criticism affecting identity predisposes soldier mindset
Cynefin framework helps interpret systems
Data must be interpreted in context and without noise
Decentralization of industries tends to lower profits
Decentralized organizations emerge from networks
Decentralized systems accelerate innovation
Decentralized systems are easily mistaken for centralized systems
Decentralized systems are incomprehensible to centralized worldviews
Decentralized systems can adapt rapidly
Decentralized systems can grow quickly
Deliberate practice is focused, at the edge, with feedback
Deliberate practice matters more than time on the job
Design expertise has seven levels
Design practice can address open, complex, dynamic, networked challenges
Design Thinking is innovating routinely
Design thinking seeks to discover and solve the actual problem
Destiny Instinct hinders thinking by forgetting that small changes add up
Developing problem situations allows reframing
Dichotomous thinking simplistically resolves ambiguity
Disagree and commit enables unified action
Disruptive innovation is antithetical to good management
Disruptive innovation requires plans for learning rather than implementation
Disruptive innovations are complex
Disruptive innovations are underestimated for three reasons
Disruptive innovations fail because they do not provide immediate financial value
Disruptive innovations tend to be smaller, simpler, and more convenient
Disruptive innovations tend to flourish in new organizations
Disruptive innovations underperform at the outset
Divergent ideas come from the right brain
Diversity of a system affects resilience
Double diamond implements design thinking
Dynamic problems add elements and shift connections over time
Early majority is motivated by why rather than what
Early majority will not shift until someone they trust does first
Effectiveness necessarily differentiates between importance and urgency
Effects of interventions in systems of dynamic complexity are not immediately obvious
Efficiency is purchased by a loss in flexibility
Elastic Thinking can hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously
Elastic Thinking is parallel and integrative
Emergence is non-linear behavior of a system
Emerging markets are decreasingly attractive as organizations get larger
Emotional communication makes people feel something
Empowered execution enables effective adaptation to threats and opportunities
Epistemic confidence pertains to truth
Every problem is an idea problem
Everything we think we know about the world is a model
Existing processes are change-resistant for two reasons
Exploring themes leads to solutions
Extrinsic rewards can crowd out intrinsic motivation
Faint Signal
Faint signals are whispers from the future
Familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth
Fear Instinct hinders thinking by confusing risk with fear
Fear of failure is a powerful deterrent to disruptive innovation
Financial structure and organizational culture constrain disruptive innovation
Finding the bright spots clones what is already working
Finding the feeling moves beyond merely knowing things
First Principles thinking allows you to see the obvious hiding in plain sight
Five disciplines develop three core learning capabilities of a team
Fixed mindset believes abilities are set in stone
Flexibility, simplicity and adaptability are simple rules of movements
Forecasting calculates the future from known data
Fostering a discourse shapes behavior
Frame creation begins with investigation
Frame creation considers all stakeholders of the problem and solution
Frame creation develops a plan for transformation
Frame creation identifies common themes as the basis for frames
Frame creation integrates solutions into the stakeholder context
Frame creation is composed of ten principles
Frame creation learns practices and scenarios that may suggest a solution
Frame creation requires understanding the core paradox
Frame creation resolves complex problems in nine steps
Frame creation seeks to understand the root factors of stakeholders
Frame creation thinks forward to identify solutions
Frightening and dangerous are two different things
Fundamental Attribution Error blames others and exonerates me
Fundamental insight can trigger disruptive innovation
Gap Instinct hinders thinking by ignoring the middle majority
General resilience depends on diversity, modularity, and feedbacks
Generalization Instinct hinders thinking by using misleading categories
Generative learning requires systemic thinking
Getting to Trusted
Globalization is a complex system
Good decision-making does not mix values with facts
Grand strategies link means to ends
Groups whose identity is defined by changing a paradigm become committed to preserving the original paradigm
Growing your people cultivates identity and growth mindset
Growth mindset reframes failure as learning
Halo effect is the tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person
Hanlon's razor avoids paranoia and ideology
Healthy systems are self-regulating
High achievers are learners and goal-setters
Human-centered design is the process of ensuring that people’s actual needs are met
Idea quotas foster creativity
Ideaflow is the single most important creative metric
Ideas are like leaves floating on collective thinking
Identity drives behavior
Ideological purity is the best possible camouflage for appalling mediocrity
Ideology is the glue that holds decentralized organizations together
Impact of disruptive innovations cannot be predicted
In decentralized social systems leadership is by influence
Increased knowledge increases influence
Increasing access to the means of production causes a decrease in the average quality of what gets produced
Increasing efficiency tends to lock up a system
Incumbent organizations tend to value sustaining innovations
Incumbents often invent what later destroys them
Influence can only be manipulative or inspirational
Influence focuses on results
Influencing behavior engages six sources of influence
Innovation requires an organizational culture that values it
Innovator’s dilemma is about first-mover advantage
Inquiry into complex issues is seldom rewarded
Institutions become committed to preserving the problem they were formed to solve
Integrative, Macroscopic Thinking is antithetical to higher education
Integrative, macroscopic thinking sees the forest and the trees
Intelligence is spread throughout decentralized systems
Inter-paradigm communication requires paradigmatic bilingualism
Intuition delivers overly extreme predictions
Intuition is pattern recognition
Inversion illuminates solutions by identifying what would make things worse
It is difficult to make someone understand what their salary depends on them not understanding
It is difficult to provide someone with a solution for a problem they do not think they have
It is impossible to teach a man what he thinks he already knows
Kinds of networks
Knowledge of managing sustaining innovations is incommensurable with disruptive innovations
Large systems tend to disintegrate during development
Lateral thinking is range in action
Lateral thinking with withered technology
Leaders cultivate an innovative environment
Leadership becomes more important with increasing complexity
Leadership is by circles in decentralized organizations
Leadership is intentional influence
Leadership is maintaining full engagement from your group
Leadership requires a vision and ability to communicate it
Leading like a gardener creates shared consciousness
Learning organizations create their own future
Learning organizations implement five component technologies
Leverage in the right location is more effective than the amount used
Lexicons constrain the range of possible belief
Liquid Networks foster innovation
Listen to the Suck with Curiosity
Locking down of a problem leads to frozen thinking
Loss aversion values avoiding losses more than achieving gains
Low-leverage interventions are alluring because they work in the short term
Making good decisions in ambiguous scenarios requires elastic thinking
Maps of connectivity reveal strategic dynamics
Memory palaces use physical locations to improve memory
Mental models influence how we think and act
Metaphors form the basis of our ability to think
Metcalfe's Law defines network effects
Metric fixation invites gaming
Modularity of a system affects resilience
Modularity radically reduces risk
Monkey First principle dictates building the hardest part of the moonshot first
Most executives only know how to manage sustaining innovations
Motivated reasoning is the soldier mindset
Near misses lead to taking unwise risks
Need for distribution of authority is commensurate to an organization’s size.
Negativity dominance processes the bad more thoroughly than the good
Negativity Instinct hinders thinking by emphasizing bad news
Networked problems influence each other
Networks at scale increase the number of links more than nodes
New organizations with range beat narrowly-focused incumbents every time
New paradigms are incommensurable with previous ones
New paradigms are preceded by crisis
New paradigms tend to be invented by newcomers
New paradigms tend to emerge all at once
Non-systemic solutions are addictive
Non-systemic thinking relies on familiar (but ineffective) solutions
Nothing has been heard until it has been said several times
Occam's razor leads to first principles thinking
One or two high leverage behaviors produce maximum change
Open licenses provide 5 freedoms
Open problems have unclear or permeable borders
Opportunity Cost is the sum of all the benefits provided by the options not chosen
Optimization aims to hold a system in an optimal state
Optimizing a system reduces its resilience
Organizational structures optimized for efficiency cannot manage disruptive innovations
Organizations entrenched in what they do need to return to why they do it
Organizations expand when prestige is correlated to budget size
Organizations focused on competitors become entrenched
Organizations need intentional structures for disruptive innovation
Overcome loss aversion with hands-on experience
Overton Window is a range of possibilities
Paradigm arguments are circular
Paradigm changes are preceded by awareness and recognition
Paradigm shifts create a new framework of thinking
Paradigm shifts reconstruct the field from new fundamentals
Paradigms can have phenomenal longevity
Paradigms change when they can no longer address anomalies
Pareto Principle leverages effort for maximum impact
Paternalism is doing for others what they can do for themselves
Path dependence shapes what we do next
Pattern recognition primes decision-making
People are more inclined to be influenced by multiple experts
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it
People judge the book by the cover
People tend to adopt their own ideas
People who have new ideas are threatening to the status quo
Perceived impartiality increases influence
Perception is Reality
Perseverance balances faith and honesty
Personal mastery is life in service of your highest aspirations
Planning fallacy confuses “best-guess” with “best-case” scenario
Planning is an active, iterative, learning process
Pointing to the destination shows why we're going
Positive Test Strategy reinforces Confirmation Bias
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Power Law distributions
Practice one or two specific skills
Practice skills at the edge of ability
Practice with immediate feedback and coaching
Premortem works backward from an undesirable outcome in order to prevent it
Pressure to meet a target value changes the system or the data
Prime directive of institutions is self-preservation
Problem-solving follows a four step process
Prolifically creative people pursue a network of projects
Property rights locks up a decentralized movement
Proximity to a threshold decreases the shock required to cross it
Psychological Safety is a prerequisite for creativity
Quality arises from quantity
Rallying the herd makes behavior contagious
Reference-class forecasting avoids uniqueness bias
Reference-class forecasting overcomes the planning fallacy
Reframing shifts perspective to see things in a new way
Resilience is the capacity to absorb shocks and retain function
Resilience is the distance between the system and its nearest threshold
Resilience is the key to overcoming the innovator’s dilemma
Resilience Thinking creates antifragile systems
Resilience Thinking embraces the reality that things change
Resilience Thinking understands thresholds and adaptive cycles
Resilient systems require both specified and general resilience
Results are produced by vital behaviors
Reverse-engineering focuses strategic options
Rough Consensus enables forward progress
Scale magnifies complexity
Scale-free patterns are fractal
Scenario Planning envisions the future
Scientific thinking is understanding something before it is observed
Scout mindset acknowledges own shortcomings
Scout mindset is the pursuit of truth
Scout mindset uses thought experiments to test for motivated reasoning
Scouts frequently update their maps
Scouts view anomalies as puzzle pieces
Scripting the critical moves shapes specific behaviors
Selection Bias happens when the sample is not representative
Self-regulating systems are modular
Self-regulating systems are small
Shared consciousness maximizes availability of strategic information
Shifting paradigms requires macroscopic, integrative thinking
Shrinking the change reduces fear
Simple communication expresses the core of an idea
Simple rules tame complexity
Single Perspective Instinct hinders thinking by having only a hammer
Size Instinct hinders thinking by considering a number without context
Small sample sizes means variations will fluctuate wildly
Smart autonomy is freedom to act according to strategic intent
Social proof is most influential under three conditions
Solutions to complex problems are based on pattern recognition
Solutions to complex problems are rooted in context
Solutions to complex problems depend on creation of themes
Solutions to complex problems depends on a clear frame
Solving complex problems avoids simplification
Solving complex problems requires having the right participants
Solving complex problems requires intentional follow-through
Solving complex problems requires laying considerable groundwork
Solving complex problems requires understanding the context
Specialization tends to reduce range
Specified resilience defends against known disturbances
Specifying conditions reverse engineers a possibility
Spiral of Silence means the price of speaking out rises over time
Stanford Prison Experiment
Status quo bias favors the current state
Story-based communication elicits effective responses
Straight Line Instinct hinders thinking by assuming trends will continue
Strategic capability is required for thinking your way out of difficult positions
Strategic Cascade aligns activities with purpose
Strategic forecasting guides decision-making and catalyzes innovation
Strategy defines the choices for winning in a chosen field
Strategy formulation is an iterative process
Strategy identifies capabilities needed for winning in a chosen field
Strategy identifies management systems needed for winning
Strategy is focused on a winning aspiration
Strategy is formulated and communicated at every level
Strategy is the answer to five questions
Strategy narrows the competitive field
Structural explanations address underlying causes
Structure influences behavior
Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner
Substitution answers an easier, similar question instead
Successful projects develop a clear, informed understanding of the goal
Sunk Cost Fallacy avoids facing a loss
Superforecasters think differently
Superforecasting is the intersection of range and mindset
Survivorship bias focuses only on successful examples
Sustaining innovations improve performance
Symptomatic solutions exacerbate fundamental causes
Synthesis of innovation frameworks
System noise is undesirable variability in judgments
System structure produces behavior revealed as events over time
Systems archetypes embody the key to systems thinking
Systems are integrative, cohesive, and indivisible
Systems cannot be held in an optimal state
Systems grow best at their optimal rate, not faster
Systems image their design groups
Systems mindset examines the quality of decisions, not just outcomes
Systems of nature tend to follow an adaptive cycle
Systems Theory studies the relationships and structure of systems
Systems thinking accounts for events, structure, and behavior (over time)
Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing inter-relationships
Systems thinking is defined by laws
Systems Thinking perceives the relationships and structure of complex systems
Tactical Empathy understands another's feelings and mindset
Taking a stand triggers the consistency principle
Teachers of a tradition tend to resist its correction
Team learning is thinking together
Ten questions differentiate centralized and decentralized systems
The best plans maximize experience and experimentation
The clarity of a map is not easily distinguished from its accuracy
The default carries immense power
The kernel of a good strategy includes three things
The map is not the territory
The price of knowledge is a change in lexicon
The taste of better things excites revolt
The two halves of the brain speak different languages
Theory of influence asks why and how
Think slow, act fast is the secret of success
Thinking from right to left begins with the goal
Three questions form the essence of innovation
Tightness of feedback loops affects a system’s resilience
Time passes more slowly in some places than others
Tools both illuminate and limit our understanding
Trailblazers amplify weak signals
Transformability is the capacity to create a new system
Tribalism is human nature
Trolley problem illustrates an ethical dilemma
Trustworthy vs. Trusted
Turkey problem illustrates erroneously predicting the future based on a false narrative of the past
Tweaking the environment changes behavior
Typical organizational structures impede innovation
Typologies underscore the most characteristic elements of a type
Unchecked optimism leads to project failure
Understanding the systemic structure is powerfully generative
Unexpected communication violates expectations
Urgency Instinct hinders thinking by exaggerating a decision's urgency
Use of funding for training does not disrupt movements
Using emoji and memory palaces to memorize passages
Visionaries alienate pragmatists in four ways
Visionaries and pragmatists are fundamentally different in how they think
Visionaries only succeed together with implementers
What others do is the stimulus, not the cause, of feelings
What you see is all there is
When attacked, decentralized systems tend to become moreso
When facing potentially extreme outcomes, forecast risk
Wicked learning environments prevent learning
Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve
Wicked problems can only be addressed by systems thinking
Writing clarifies thinking
The Order of Time – Rovelli (2018)
Info
title:
The Order of Time
authors:
Carlo Rovelli
year:
2018
publisher: Riverhead Books
URL:
File
Links
Scientific thinking is understanding something before it is observed
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Time passes more slowly in some places than others
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