[Photo by Charlie Egan on Unsplash]
Good morning,
Fail fast and fail often is a mantra for many tech companies. In Humble Inquiry, Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein argue, that mindset might have a pernicious effect in people management.
They write, “this ‘fail fast’ mindset may work for software and many consumer goods that can be reworked or reprinted so quickly that there is more to be gained by redoing quickly rather than slowing down to get it done better in the first place.
“All of this may work very well when failing fast negatively impacts only machines, microprocessors, manufacturing robots, 3D printers, algorithms, and AI. These intelligent assistants to human processes may have some ‘memory’, but they do not (for now) have feelings. The problem with humans in groups is that we have strong feelings about ourselves and about the other people with whom we have relationships. While ‘fail fast’ fits very well into the culture of do and tell, it may not fit as well with our human intent to inquire and reflect. The bot that you reprogram does not care and is not offended. But when you impulsively react to a human colleague—whether you are telling, rebuking, praising, or ignoring—that colleague probably does care, might even be offended, and thereafter may not share the truth of what is actually going on. Rebuilding human relationships is a slower process than fixing or adapting an algorithm or prototype. Humble Inquiry is in the end an attitude to first ask and reflect. To speed up this process risks failing fast with human relationships that cannot as easily be reprogrammed in the next iteration.
“Hurrying also has this insidious way of blinding us from seeing the broader context, by obscuring new possibilities, discouraging us from considering other options. By contrast, learning Humble Inquiry is not learning how to run faster but how to slow down just enough to observe carefully and take full stock of situational reality so as to ensure that the baton is not dropped.”
In this issue
- When bureaucracy hits pandemic response
- Keith Rabois on effectiveness
- The burden on women
Have a great day!
When bureaucracy hits pandemic response
Last year, the World Health Organization, Unicef, Gavi and a bunch of other organisations created Covax to ensure Covid vaccines were made available around the world. It’s aim was to distribute enough vaccines to protect at least 20% of the population in 92 low- or medium-income countries. As the delta variant spreads across the world, the programme is woefully short of its stated goals. Why is it struggling? One response is that the programme significantly depended on Serum Institute, but as the second wave surged in India, the country halted exports. While that’s one of the reasons, a recent report in The New York Times goes into several other issues with the programme, including a lack of leadership, infighting and bureaucracy. Here’s an extract.
“Covax had counted on World Bank grants and loans to finance poorer countries’ rollouts. But because of Covax’s supply shortages, countries spent most of that money on doses.
“Gavi, the nonprofit leading Covax, asked its board in June to approve $775 million in new distribution funding, $500 million of it from the United States as part of a donation unaffected by the Pfizer deal.
“But the $1.8 billion available by late June for vaccine delivery was still $1 billion short of what health officials estimate may be needed.
“Costs are only rising, given that Pfizer doses must be stored at ultralow temperatures. Covax needs to install 250 to 400 more freezers, and backup generators for them. Some African officials worry that their electrical grids could be overwhelmed. As it is, some countries, like Chad, cannot move Pfizer doses outside major cities.
“To buy freezers, Covax plans to draw on $220 million pledged by Germany in February. But a bureaucratic impasse has prevented it from being spent, reflecting broader concerns about delays in ramping up delivery funding.
“Germany specified that the money be distributed through UNICEF, while also insisting on giving it first to Covax, whose purse strings are controlled by Gavi.
“The country would not send the money until the two agencies submitted a joint spending plan, its development ministry said, delaying the payment until early July. But Gavi, exercising oversight of how it is spent, has not yet transferred the cash to UNICEF.
“‘Covax is like a group project without a leader,’ said Andrea Taylor, a Duke researcher studying global vaccinations. ‘Everything they do is that much slower.’
Dig deeper
Keith Rabois on effectiveness
Last week, when R Sriram, the co-founder of Next Practice Retail, pointed to an essay by Keith Rabois on effectiveness that dates back to 2019, it had our attention. Rabois earned a reputation as an investor for spotting opportunities in entities such as LinkedIn and PayPal in their early days. He was in the news again for moving out of Silicon Valley in the aftermath of the pandemic to work remotely.
Back to effectiveness, Rabois makes two arguments. Learn to run yourself. And learn to run your team.
On running yourself, his pointers include;
- Be proactive rather than reactive. “Lead” your team as opposed to “manage” a situation.
- Your output is how much your team gets done + how much neighbouring teams get done divided by how many people are on your team. Only add someone if they bring up the ratio of output to people.
- Spend time on judging your team’s inputs, i.e. the quality of ideas, not on whether you can move revenue 3x this quarter, i.e. outputs.
When it comes to running the team, he writes
- Your job as an exec is to make the four right calls a year. Can’t do that without all the information so spend time gathering information. Get around filtering mechanisms by wandering the office.
- Find indicators as close to the inputs as possible. Make those and your team’s objectives as simple and clear as possible. Make sure the team understands the logical jump from achieving that objective to having a large impact.
- Identify whether it is motivation or capability hindering performance. Extend rope to junior people when the downside is low. Always increase their scope.
Dig deeper
The burden on women
(Via Naresh Fernandes on Twitter)
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Bookmark Founding Fuel’s special section on Thriving in Volatile Times. All our stories on how individuals and businesses are responding to the pandemic until now are posted there.
Warm regards,
Team Founding Fuel
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