For a Change, Some Gems from Farnham Street

Didn't think much of the book, TBH, but, this latest one on Genghis Khan has some good maxims :

As we first succeed, we will find ourselves in new situations, facing new problems. The freshly promoted soldier must learn the art of politics. The salesman, how to manage. The founder, how to delegate. The writer, how to edit others. The comedian, how to act. The chef turned restaurateur, how to run the other side of the house.

It takes a special kind of humility to grasp that you know less, even as you know and grasp more and more. It’s remembering Socrates’ wisdom lay in the fact that he knew that he knew next to nothing.

With accomplishment comes a growing pressure to pretend that we know more than we do. To pretend we already know everything. Scientia infla (knowledge puffs up). That’s the worry and the risk—thinking that we’re set and secure, when in reality understanding and mastery is a fluid, continual process.

Wynton Marsalis : “Humility engenders learning because it beats back the arrogance that puts blinders on. It leaves you open for truths to reveal themselves. You don’t stand in your own way. . . . Do you know how you can tell when someone is truly humble? I believe there’s one simple test: because they consistently observe and listen, the humble improve. They don’t assume, ‘I know the way.’”

No matter what you’ve done up to this point, you better still be a student. If you’re not still learning, you’re already dying.

The solution is as straightforward as it is initially uncomfortable: Pick up a book on a topic you know next to nothing about. Put yourself in rooms where you’re the least knowledgeable person.

Ever been in a meeting where the boss polls people and says we'll wait for more info to decide and sets the date for the next meeting? Consider FS' podcast with Stan the Generale McChrystal :

As a military rookie, Stan asks Dad for peacetime-signs a person is a good commander in combat. "You won't know until you're in combat." OK, what about signs in combat? He said, “Some people keep asking for more information and what they’re trying to do is drive uncertainty to zero so that there’s really not a question on the right course of action because you know everything.” But you can’t do that. It’s not achievable. So they become hesitant. They become tentative, and they become focused on getting more and more information to ratchet the uncertainty out of the situation and they don’t act."

What a gem! Ever read the Colin Powell powerpoint? At what point should you go with your gut? Focus on proximate objectives that are worthwhile - take that hill, secure this building, etc. The battlefield keeps changing. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.