Psychology

You’re Doing It Wrong

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I hurt my back recently – nothing big – but I did need some physical therapy. It’s been going great, but then the therapist told me something that blew my mind – I was walking wrong.

This news was a bit stunning, as I’ve been walking for decades and figured by now I was pretty good at it. But apparently, the way I was carrying myself wasn’t helping my back and made things worse. It was weird, but a few changes in how I held myself, and I had a noticeable difference in my discomfort.

On top of everything else I’d done to myself, I’d started – or had been – walking wrong. This gave me pause for thought – followed, of course, by a pause for blogging.

There’s a lot of things we do that we’re used to, skills that are habits. They’re instinctive and automatic, and we’re probably pretty good at them. Just like my walking – but it could be cooking, driving, writing, etc.

But just because we’re good at something doesn’t mean we can’t end up doing it wrong.

We could end up adopting bad habits over time, slowly corrupting our abilities with bad choices. We miss the point where our practices outweighed our skill – perhaps our attempts to cook quickly lead us to make poorer dishes.

A crisis or bad experience could lead us to bad choices. Perhaps we restrain ourselves, or overdo something, or avoid a challenge. My back injury seemed to result in my favoring my back the wrong way.

Perhaps we don’t practice our skills or avoid a challenge, and our abilities weaken. They can’t support our ambitions or our goals. We use them, but not enough, not in the right way, and they fade and become fragile.

Or maybe we become too strict in our practice, too linear. We’ve got checklists and outlines, policies and procedures. We become stiff and unyielding in our ideas, and even though we do things, somehow nothing gets done.

We can all become bad at things we are expert at doing. Even walking.

This is why it’s essential to practice and keep learning, no matter what we do. This is why it’s good to ask questions when you have a problem with something that’s normal or something you were once good at doesn’t seem to be going well. Those things we do well may change.

Here’s your assignment – what’s something you’re really good at, and how do you ensure you stay good at it? Think it over . . .

Steven Savage

Creating A Great Work

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Recently Serdar and I were discussing what made Great works of art, literature, and anime.  We quickly got to the point of realizing that the idea there’s some checklist to create the Great Works is an illusion.  There’s no roadmap for Greatness, despite many failed attempts to create one.

(We left the exact definition of Great ambiguous in our discussion.  I think of Greatness as influential, life-changing works that aim us upward – and persist one way or another).

What we did determine was that there’s no Greatness CHecklist, but there are traits that those that make Great Works have, and seem to increase the chance of creating a Great Work.  Passion for one’s work, persistence, clear vision, and so on.  We probably need to finish this list . . .

What we realized is that there are not techniques to Greatness per se.  There are things you can learn from those that made Great Works, principles, and sets of philosophies and goals, that if you hold them, increase the chance of doing something Great.  None of the people out there that made amazing things are the same, and none of them are the same as you, but there’s probably a rough set of principles and philosophies you can find that’s common among many people you admire.

Then there are techniques MAY help you achieve Great Works.  It could be the “list six things each evening to do the next day.”  It could be writing 1000 words a day.  There is no comprehensive list of techniques, just some out there that will help you after you find what works for you – and what embodies the various principles that those that make Great Works end up holding as important.

You hold the Principles and live them with Methods.

I realized quickly that this is a lot like Agile.  Much as Agile has two parts that help people achieve great things, I think general “making something Great” is similar.

Agile in best practice is about two things:

First, there’s general Principles, as embodied in the Agile Manifesto.  These are things to aspire to, values to hold, general guidelines. Stuff like “Leverage change” or “establish a firm technical foundation.”  They’re good ideas, but you have to figure out how to make them work – and internalize them.  Internalized, they make good productivity instinctive.

Secondly, there are Agile Methods – Scrum, Kanban, and whatever home-brew your office probably uses.  These are ways to embody the Principles in a way that works for you (or you and your team) and help you realize them, so your work is better.  These are techniques that in general help you achieve the Principles, but you have to find what works for you and your situation.  They’re ways to get to the destination of the Principles.

It’s the same with Greatness.  You can probably find similar, general philosophies and attitudes that people that made Great Works have had – but you have to adapt them and live them.  You can select methods that help you realize these principles – but you need to choose what works for you out of the near-endless advice you’ll get.  The two work together to increase the chance of making a Great Work.

The funny thing is – much like Agile – trying too hard will sabotage you.  Many people I know who I admire, who create and do a lot of good and great works, have this all internalized.  This makes it harder to understand, harder to get advice, and tempts you to try hard to do what is, to some effortless (even if it feels like an effort, it comes naturally).

Greatness is lived, not had.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so frustrating, even for those that achieve amazing things.  Greatness exists in two parts and flows out of us like water, and whenever we try to grasp it, we can’t get ahold of it.

Well, if we could get ahold of it, maybe it wouldn’t be so Great . . .

The great Tao flows everywhere.

All things are born from it, yet it doesn’t create them.

It pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claim.

It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn’t hold on to them.

Since it is merged with all things and hidden in their hearts, it can be called humble.

Since all things vanish into it and it alone endures, it can be called great.

It isn’t aware of its greatness; thus it is truly great.

Steven Savage

Advice And Survivorship Bias

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I want you to think about video game adventures. There, one goes on a grand quest, and of course one often saves the game to record progress. If things go wrong, one reloads the last save and proceeds. We’re used to that, even if “die and come back or start over” has become more popular over the decade, and the save game mechanic has been mocked in certain other games like Undertale.

Now imagine if you made a movie from the point of view in the characters of these games. Unaware that they are being restored from saves, the character’s lives would be a series of perfect actions and lucky breaks, propelling them inevitably towards the end credits and post game content. Any lessons one might learn from this “movie” would be ones of best situations and optimal choices.

In short, an example of Survivorship bias or “survivor bias” as I’ve heard it shortened.

Now let’s look at all the success tips we seek in business, education, publishing, etc. How much of that is Survivorship Bias. I mean you can read the article I linked to, but I think you can imagine a few. How much advice do we see on careers, training, etc. reflects Survivorship Bias?

Someone gave career advice that sounds great . . . only they really got the job due to being the right age, gender, and timing.

Someone gave resume advice that sounds pristine and perfect . . . only we ignore the people that followed the same advice and didn’t get their dream jobs.

Someone got a book published and think it’s their writing . . . but maybe it was connections or persistent marketing as their writing is kinda “eh.”

Remember we only hear advice from people that made it. We don’t hear what all the people who didn’t make it did. By definition, the amount of people who haven’t succeeded at something is much larger than those that have.

We’re probably aware of this fact, at least unconsciously. I’m sure you, as well as I, evaluate advice carefully. We know we’re seeing a limited sample when someone gives us tips for game marketing. We know people succeed for reasons beyond merit.

But let’s turn this around – do we remember that when we give advice, that we’re survivors?

This is something I’ve been thinking of as I write, well, advice. I’ve seen some of it work, but also some of it seem irrelevant, and some of it age out. It’s made me evaluate what I’m doing and what I continue and how I can help. But it does sit in my mind uncomfortably.

My guess is if you’re an advice giver, you’ve either felt this way or I’ve suddenly made you feel bad. Sorry.

This is where we have to remember Survivorship Bias for our advice. We have to sort through our experiences, our lessons, our advice and ask what matters versus what’s just lucky, good looks, etc. That’s not easy, and trust me, it’s on my mind for my future books for rewrites – or even decommissioning when they’re just irrelevant.

As the same time, this can paralyze us. We can ask if everything we know is limited, irrelevant, inappropriate. We can question everything.

Which is good. We should question what we tell people might not apply, that Survivorship Bias plays a role. Then we can zero in on what really does help people, what is applicable, what matters. If we’re going to give advice, we should ask questions of ourselves.

I think, ultimately, there’s always some Survivorship Bias in giving advice, if only for the fact our lives are all unique. What we can do is to figure out what advice is more universal, what advice does pay off. We can research and compare, make models, and try to extract valuable lessons.

This is why I think most advice works best when it’s a mix of standalone ideas and synergies. Specific bite-sized pieces of advice can be evaluated for individual relevance. The way advice works together helps us understand how different instructions and ideas interact for results. Keeping both views in minds lets us give advice – and then people can customize their actions based on their situations.

No, it’s not easy. But if we want to help people, we need to understand what gives us something to say sometimes means figuring out what is only relevant to us and no one else.

Steven Savage