errors… and trials
A few months ago, I was having dinner with one of my colleagues I worked with a few years ago.
We were reminiscing about the good old days, over a beer, and in the conversation he told me that he learned from me not to think too much.
I laughed, and asked him to elaborate on that statement.
He felt that sometimes, when he didn’t know how to move forward, he didn’t have all the information at hand, he had doubts… he tended to think too much. He pulled out the stereotype card and he told me that, as he was Swedish, he felt that Swedish society tries to think and think until they reach a consensus before acting.
In his current organisation he was surrounded by people with little experience in what they were doing, and the tendency in this type of solution was to stop and keep thinking about things that, on some occasions, did not become clearer after more thought.
Then he approached me, and reminded me how a Spanish manager with a strong Spanglish accent would push him to start moving without clearly knowing where to go. This made him feel out of his comfort zone, because he liked to play it safe… but in that situation, if his manager could put up with the shit, why think about the problem any more?
So he would start work making an assumption without knowing if it was the right one, but as he started to make progress, he would begin to find solutions to the questions he had about the result of the work… solving the problem as he went along.
I thought about it and apart from accepting my impatience, I think I had the opportunity to learn from one of the most pragmatic people I have ever had as a boss. He was not an easy person to work with, and I can’t say he was the kind of leader who cared about people. Difficult to deal with, and not a person who invited you to bring problems home. However, on the very positive side, I can say that he managed to get things done in a way that I have never seen before. With a handful of people he was able to produce more work than larger organisations much better equipped with resources of all kinds. His formula: keep moving!
One of the things I learnt from him was that, to keep going. Thinking and planning was very important, but in the real world, you won’t have all the answers to the problems you have, and a lack of movement, on many occasions, is the worst decision you can make.
I don’t know if you like doing Sudoku. The easiest ones are quite simple to solve with a little logic. The complex ones (due to my limitations) are more difficult to find using my logic. Many times, I find myself repeating the same patterns to a problem that has no solution, as if I were typecast. The quickest solution is the trial and error method. If you can limit the problem to two numbers, if you get it right, you will unlock and move on to the next step. If you make a mistake, you will know that the solution was the other one… And after a few undo’s, you’ll get it right.
In real life, you will face many situations like sudoku. In business schools, you are taught to make decisions based on decision trees, probability scenarios and uncertainties, even Monte Carlo… and each tool can have a purpose, but we tend to forget the simplest and often the most effective tool: trial and error.
