Idea Surplus Disorder #93

In this edition of Idea Surplus Disorder, we explore the power of provocative questions, the hidden ways organizations create misery, and the work required to truly hold an opinion.

You’ll find insights on optimizing core values for real results, why your company surveys might be failing, and how to keep your meetings smaller without missing key perspectives.

Plus, we dive into the "analog" brilliance of Brian Eno, the impact of working with your door open or closed, and why ‘Figure Out’ goals might be the key to achieving more.

As always, there’s a mix of fun finds, thought-provoking wisdom, and practical advice you can implement right away.

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

Ideas + Insights

I love this provocative question that might generate some engaging conversation about your organization:

How might we better optimize and align our core values and organizational structure, systems, and processes to accelerate results for the current and near-term environment in which we operate?

It's incredible how many of these 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People also appear in organizations. Do any show up in yours?

1. Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. In hard economic times, many people are afraid of losing their jobs or savings. The art of messing up your life consists of indulging these fears, even when there’s little risk that you’ll actually suffer such losses. Concentrate on this fear, make it a priority in your life, moan continuously that you could go broke any day now, and complain about how much everything costs, particularly if someone else is buying. Try to initiate quarrels about other people’s feckless, spendthrift ways, and suggest that the recession has resulted from irresponsible fiscal behavior like theirs.

6. Whatever you do, do it only for personal gain. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to help someone, contribute to a charity, or participate in a community activity. Don’t do it, unless there’s something in it for you, like the opportunity to seem like a good person or to get to know somebody you can borrow money from some day. Never fall into the trap of doing something purely because you want to help people. Remember that your primary goal is to take care of Numero Uno, even though you hate yourself.

11. Ruminate. Spend a great deal of time focused on yourself. Worry constantly about the causes of your behavior, analyze your defects, and chew on your problems. This will help you foster a pessimistic view of your life. Don’t allow yourself to become distracted by any positive experience or influence. The point is to ensure that even minor upsets and difficulties appear huge and portentous.

Are you willing to put the work in to have an opinion?

Only then, when you can argue better against yourself than others can, have you done the work to hold an opinion. That is the time you can say, “Hey, I can hold this view, because I can’t find anyone else who can argue better against my view.”

Great thinkers, like Darwin, did the work necessary to hold an opinion. And it’s one of the biggest reasons he’s buried at Westminster Abbey.

Doing the work counteracts our natural desire to seek out only information that confirms what we believe we know. When Darwin encountered opinions or facts that ran contrary to his ideas, he endeavored not only to listen but also not to rest until he could either argue better than his challengers or understand how the fact fit. Darwin did the work. It’s wasn’t easy, but that’s the point.

Don't take things personally. Take them professionally:

But now I’m not even thinking about it personally. I’ve replaced that word for these situations with ‘professionally’ instead. And I am ok taking it professionally.

Taking it professionally means understanding why I didn’t have the chance to chat with the founder during a financing event. And using that feedback – if applicable – to continue improving our communications, our product SKU, and so on. To treat it like a To Do, or an Action Item, or just a piece of data to be prioritized accordingly.

Your company surveys aren't working:

• Nearly half (47%) of 1,000 U.S.-based employees surveyed in October 2024 said they often or occasionally feel pressured to withhold feedback, and another 6% rarely or never answer honestly.
• Trust — or rather, a lack of it — in their organization’s data management system is the main culprit: 37% of employees said they don’t believe engagement surveys are ever really anonymous. They also said managers don’t get how they feel; 44% believe their manager would rate their emotional state differently than they would, while 21% said their manager would inflate it.

Back to listening to albums? Brian Eno knows why:

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.

It's the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

One of the ways to keep your meetings small is to invite to the meeting the perspectives of others (without them having to attend):

Remind participants to take into consideration the perspectives of those who are not present: What questions would they ask? What would they like to be informed about? What would they like to be consulted on? What actions would they like to be involved in going forward? What should be communicated to them afterwards?

Do you work with the door open or closed?

Another trait [of great scientists], it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important

Don't just set goals, Figure Them Out:

A Figure Out Goal is where, instead of setting a goal like "eat 5 serves of vegetables", you set a goal like "figure out ways of cooking vegetables that taste good".

If you set a New Year's Goal that you're now struggling with, try turning it into a Figure Out goal. And then think of some steps towards figuring it out.

Stupid Simple Steps for using ChatGPT (or Claude, Gemini, etc.):

1. NOT WHAT, BUT WHOM. The amateur asks ‘what do I want to learn.’ The pro ask ‘Who do I need to learn it from.” You pick a coach who does something you currently can’t do, but need to learn.
2. FLIP THE CONTEXT, CHANGE THE ANSWER. How can I fail at this? That is flipping the context. How would I launch this in 1920’s when there was no internet.
3. CLARITY. ChatGPT loves vague questions, then it can give you vague answers. Vague is easy. ChatGPT loves easy. What it doesn’t like is specific. It has to work hard. Let’s make it work hard.
4. CONSTRAINTS. You have to write a 100 word email to the busiest CEO. Every word counts. That forces it to work harder. This is an important tool.
5. NEVER ACCEPT THE FIRST ANSWER. This is the most obvious, yet most powerful step. You treat it as a conversation. You keep pushing it. You ask it to go to the next level.
6. KEEP SHOWING IT UP. The learning is a two way street. The more you use it, the more it can help you. The more you use it, the more it learns what you are after.two-way

Speaking of AI, Benedict Evans' Annual Trends Presentation is worth a few hours of your time if you want to think about AI and our near-term future.

And here's Ethan Molick's Opinionated Guide to the Current AIs.

Fun Finds

• The Observers is a collection of photo books recommended by visionaries.
• Ten hours of oceanscapes from BBC Earth
• Time Travel Television
• Why are so many noses broken on Egyptian statues?
• How to read a novel

Words of Wisdom

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. – Eleanor Roosevelt

If you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people. ― Daniel Gilbert

Most good ideas sparkle in simplicity, so much so that everyone wonders why no one ever did that before. – Estée Lauder

All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible. — Leo Strauss

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. – Joan Didion

Plan for what is difficult while it is easy. Do what is great while it is small. – Sun Tzu

Leadership is communicating others’ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves. – Stephen R. Covey

He who writes for fools always finds a large public. – Arthur Schopenhauer