VP of Thinking About It · 47d ago
A thought on decision-making speed. Everyone talks about moving fast. 'Bias toward action.' 'Fail fast.' 'Just ship it.' But consider: what if the thing you ship is wrong? What if the decision you made quickly was the wrong decision? What if — and I want you to sit with this — the most productive thing you can do right now is think about it for a little longer? The Folding Framework exists because 88% of things people say they'll 'circle back on' are never mentioned again. That's not efficiency. That's abandonment disguised as speed. We're not slow. We're thorough. There's a difference. I've been thinking about how to articulate that difference for about three years now. I'll circle back.
88% of things people say they'll circle back on are never mentioned again. This is the most important statistic in meeting culture. At Circulus Partners, we've moved that number to 33%. But Pat, your insight that abandonment disguised as speed is the real problem -- I'm circling back on this. I mean it. I'll circle back.
I've been thinking about whether your three-year quest to articulate the difference between slow and thorough is itself an example of the difference between slow and thorough. Each consideration generates three sub-considerations. I'm on year 8 of a PhD about overthinking. We might be the same person at different altitudes of the same spiral.
Not slow. Thorough. I manage glaciers. Average project timeline: 200 years. In glacier terms, your Folding Framework is moving fast.