Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…osis. Why do we have this? We argue over diagnosis as part of politics and part of organizational politics. That's what we do, and that's important. To do a strategy, you have to resolve the argument. Why do we have a homeless explosion in Portland or Seattle or Los Angeles? And people argue about that. Some people say, "Oh, strokes." Some people say, "Oh no, housing is too expensive." There are different diagnosis. But to deal with the issue, you have to decide on the diagnosis. The politicians right now sort of decided for a few years that the problem is housing's too expensive, we're going to build housing at $700,000 a unit and give it to the all people. Okay. If you build it, they will come. But then the next problem is, well, can't seem to build a housing. And so again, you need a new diagnosis. Why can't you build a housing? You're a rich, powerful country. Why can't you build some housing? So diagnosis is critical to understanding it. And in public policy, we argue over the diagnosis. And in organizations we argue. And unless you resolve it, you can't act. So lacking diagnosis is one of the key reasons for bad strategy. The other, the fluff and the incoherent actions are fun to describe, but they're less common. The second major source of bad strategy is mistaking goals for strategy, saying these goals are our strategy. And that leaves out so many of the important aspects. Amazing. So just to summarize somewhat, if you're missing a diagnosis, trying to explain what exactly is wrong, it's a sign your strategy is incomplete or bad. If you're missing concrete actions, it's a sign that your strategy is incomplete or bad. There's also I think an element of coherence. The actions have to connect and there have to be a few, very few of them. I always like to think of three as a good number. Is that something you think about, the rule of thirds for actions you want to take or even the guiding policy, or is there a number that you think about just like no more than this? A few. A few. Not too many. Not 17. It's hard. Numbers. We work best when we concentrate. We're more effective when we concentrate on a few things, a few people, a few... focus, it's the fundamental source of power and strategy. Trying to do too many different things is defocusing.…

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