Sign in Subscribe
By Matthew Homann —

Idea Surplus Disorder #111

In this edition: why culture is really just your company’s last 50 days, how to test your strategy with sharper questions, project trading to force hard choices, spotting “snow leopard” trends, and a devil’s advocate prompt worth stealing.

Idea Surplus Disorder #111

In this week's edition of Idea Surplus Disorder:  why culture is really just your company’s last 50 days, how to test your strategy with sharper questions, and what Brian Eno gets right about AI.

Plus: project trading to force hard choices, spotting “snow leopard” trends, and a devil’s advocate prompt worth stealing.

And as always, you’ll find a mix of fun finds, practical insights, and thought-provoking quotes to help you lead, live, and think more intentionally.

I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here.

Ideas + Insights

You can't claim you have a "great culture" if you don't work on it:

How much time do you really spend on culture? Of all the meetings on your calendar, how many are focused on culture? How often do you speak about the kind of culture you want to see take hold in your organization? How often do you frankly challenge whether the culture is working the way you want it to?

Related: your company's culture is its last 50 days:

A company's culture is a 50-day moving average. It's what you've been collectively doing as a company over the last 50 days.How do you treat people? Who have you hired (or fired) and why? What do you when people are stressed out? How do you help people? How do you critique each other? How do you share? How do you help people who are stuck? Where's the bar on quality? How do you support customers? How do you close deals? What have you let go on too long? What have you celebrated? What have you let slide? How honest have you been with each other and yourself.
Why 50 days? It's enough time for patterns to emerge, yet malleable enough to be current and honest. One day, or even a couple weeks, isn't enough to stand for culture. A series of moments tied together loosely by near-term time just isn't enough to establish what it's really like somewhere. We can all be on our best behavior for a little while, but the longer while tells the truth.

I'm starting to agree with Brian Eno on AI:

All my misgivings about AI really are to do with the fact that it’s owned by a group of people that I don’t trust at all. I don’t trust their taste, I don’t trust their morals, and I don’t trust their politics, and that’s a problem for me — that the whole technology is in the hands of the wrong people.

I liked this Devil's Advocate Prompt:

"I'm planning to [decision/plan] because [reasoning] and with a goal of [objective]. Play devil's advocate, give me multiple perspectives on this, be bold, surprising, creative, and thoughtful in your reply, and address these questions:
  • What are the strongest arguments against this approach?
  • What alternatives should I consider?
  • What risks might I be overlooking?
  • What questions should I be asking myself?
  • What challenges should I expect to face?
  • What could I do to gain more insight?
  • What could I do to increase the chances of success?
Pro tip: Try asking your AI assistant to role-play. It can respond as a financial advisor, family member, or competitor, for varied viewpoints. Or ask it to act like a person you admire, living or dead, real or fictional.

Recommended: the "hidden curves" of the Gartner HypeCycle:

So when you are looking at a Gartner curve, as a whole, you are only seeing a representation of the path that 20% of innovation triggers follow. The other 80% follow an alternative path, often one that is much less bumpy.

I'd never heard the term "snow leopard" to describe under-the-radar trends before:

Consider the snow leopard. Panthera uncia sports some of the most effective camouflage in the animal kingdom, its white coat with gray and black spots blending in perfectly with the rocky, snowy Himalayan landscape it inhabits. It’s known as “the ghost of the mountains,” seeming to appear out of thin air on the rare occasions it is seen in the wild. 
There’s an equivalent phenomenon in global affairs: under-the-radar trends and events that elude even the most seasoned observer. When their effect on world affairs eventually becomes apparent, they may seem to have come out of nowhere.

There are different kinds of smart:

Someone with B+ intelligence in several fields likely has a better grasp of how the world works than someone with A+ intelligence in one field but an ignorance of that field just being one piece of a complicated puzzle.

I wonder how this icebreaker would work if you asked new hires this question on their 6-month anniversary, replacing "world" with "this company".

What's the biggest difference you can think of between how you were *told* the world works and how you came to realize it *actually* works?

Struggle with saying no to new projects in your organization? Try Project Trading Sessions:

Every business-unit leader was given a fixed “budget” of talent and funding, with one rule: To launch a new initiative, they had to stop or “sell” an existing project of equal value.
The process wasn’t just financial—it was psychological. Leaders had to publicly justify why a new project was more valuable than one already underway, creating an actual marketplace for priorities.
After one session, a senior executive admitted: “I realized I was defending projects I didn’t even believe in anymore, just because nobody ever asked me to choose.” Within a year, the portfolio shrank by 35%, and execution speed for key strategic projects improved significantly.

Fun Finds

Words of Wisdom

Success is built in rooms no one would photograph. – Shane Parrish
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. – Marie Curie
I used to be afraid of failing at the things that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter. – Bob Goff
A crowded mind leaves no space for a peaceful heart. – Christine Evangelou
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. — Blaise Pascal

Up Next From Filament

Every month, Filament delivers an incredible mix of free programming and professional development. You can find links to sign up for all of our upcoming events, including PlayDays, EmpowerHer, NSFW, and SuperCollider here.

Now Reading

If you've made it this far, here's what I'm enjoying right now:

Subscribe to Idea Surplus Disorder

Don’t miss out on the latest issues. Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only issues.
jamie@example.com
Subscribe