Simple rules for saving lives, innovation and productivity

Lessons learned from lectures at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and from dealing with everyday chaos.

Bring it on Stanford!

When I started working toward Stanford Certification in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I knew that it would be demanding. Yet I was actually looking forward to the challenge. I was ready to struggle, to embrace complex frameworks, advanced managerial theories and sophisticated planning tools. To my surprise, I discovered that the framework for the most efficient and convincing real-time strategy instruments lay somewhere else. Simple and ready to be applied right ‘out of the box’, these techniques easily merged with my standing repertoire of skills. They’ll probably sit comfortably in your toolkit too! The following post is a set of reflections on the Stanford lecture “Simple Rules for Strategy-Driven Innovation” and the book “Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World” by Donald Sull and‎ Kathleen M. Eisenhardt.

Someone call 911

Have you heard of “triage”?

The word comes from the French verb “trier”, meaning “to sort”. Originally a concept designed for use in the chaos of the battlefield, it is now a system most widely used by the medical profession when dealing with mass casualties during calamitous events. It’s a simple set of rules that help medical personnel prioritise risk and determine the order in which victims should receive care.. The assessment of patients can be completed in less than one minute. After primary triage, patients are tagged red (life-threatening injuries), yellow (non-life-threatening injuries), green (minor injuries) or black (pain medication only, until death), depending on how severe their condition is. While such a system may seem cold to some, it maximises organisation when resources are limited and allows ‘the greatest amount of good for the greatest number’.

It turns out that similar principles can be applied to business. Business triage provides a framework for optimal decision making and resource allocation. It minimises congestion and delays. It helps prioritise goals and streamlines processes. Tagging your e-mails and deciding which ones to answer first might not be as critical as saving lives, but for sure it’s a good way of managing your workflow and increasing efficiency.

According to prof. Kathleen Eisenhardt (Stanford professor and co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University), many high-level companies shape their strategies by relying on simple rules, not complicated frameworks. Corporations such as Intel or Cisco rely on a small set of guidelines for critical processes such as making acquisitions or allocating capital. It closes the gap between strategy and execution. It means that decisions can be made rapidly, without structural constraints, keeping the organisation’s primary aims in mind

A lot more than prioritising

“Being able to prioritise won’t really solve all my workflow problems, will it?”

Prof. Eisenhardt lists several types of rules that might be critical for success. In fact, it’s good to have diverse rule types in your set, so that you are ready for any eventuality:

• How-to rules – how to execute a process?
• Boundary rules – which opportunities to pursue?
• Priority rules – how to rank opportunities
• Timing rules – what’s the right pace?
• Coordination rules – how to work together?
• Exit rules – when to quit a project? When to pull out from past opportunities?

Let’s have a look at some real-world examples of simple rules in action:

IDEO – in order to prevent rushing through the brainstorming process and starting to prototype too early, the IDEO founders crafted a set of simple rules to ensure that great ideas were generated. Brainstorming was identified as a strategic bottleneck and the following rules were created:

• “Defer judgement”
• “Encourage wild ideas”
• “Go for quantity”

Google – Shona Brown, Senior Vice President for Google, lists hiring computer science talent as a critical process for the company. The two rules that were crafted for an efficient recruitment process are:

• hire eccentric people. They tend to be more creative and think outside the box.
• hire people recommended by other Googlers. Smart people hang out with other smart people. Good developers know other good developers.

Coldplay – Chris Martin has a set of 10 rules that are applied while working on each Coldplay album. Here are a few examples:

• Albums to be no longer than 42 minutes, 9 tracks.
• Production must be amazing, but with space. Not over layered, less tracks, more quality, groove and swing.
• Computers are instruments, not recording aids.
• Imagery must be classic, colourful and different. ‘Come back in glorious technicolor’.

Why does it work?

Your organisation has a strategy. Chances are that it took a lot of time and effort to define it. It matches perfectly with your organisation’s long-term goals and aspirations. But is it understandable and applicable to your everyday activities?  Or is it “analysis paralysis” every time you try to apply it? 

In contrast, simple rules are fast and easy. Strategy translated into simple rules gives you a bit of structure, but also enough flexibility to get going without encountering quicksand at the first hurdle.

When applied to a critical bottleneck and used in the right way, simple rules increase efficiency and streamline workflow.

“Simple rules are shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information. The rules aren’t universal — they’re tailored to the particular situation and the person using them.”

Donald Sull, Kathleen Eisenhardt

Remember that rules don’t only define what to do. They also indicate activities that should not be undertaken. Steve Jobs once pointed out that Apple was defined as much by what it didn’t do as by what it did.

Managing my personal chaos

The book and lecture inspired me to reflect on my own tasks and search for recurring situations that could be optimised. I crafted sets of simple rules for a variety of processes, both personal and professional. These included eating habits, sports regimens, working with clients and even systems for social interactions.

Let me share with you a couple of examples.

Networking

Building new relationships with potential clients, investors, partners or mentors has always been a challenge for me. I find it less intimidating to send a message via LinkedIn than to approach new people face-to-face during events. I know that I’m not alone in this!

So I decided to challenge myself and to apply a set of rules to make the networking process more comfortable and more fruitful.

1. Try to talk to all speakers whose talks you liked
   Even if they are famous, they seem busy and you’re simply scared. A  short message to thank or congratulate them, maybe even a quick question relevant to your business might be enough. Years of experience as a TEDx organiser taught me that quite often speakers are more terrified than they let on. Words of encouragement and appreciation are very welcome, you might even make their day! And most of all, inspiring speakers might be extremely valuable connections!
2. Try to get to know the organising team
   If the event you’re attending is truly in an area of interest for you, chances are that you have a lot in common with people who created it. Again it might be a brief chat to share appreciation and feedback. Once the ice is broken, you might end up discovering a plethora of other things to discuss (although remember – they might be busy during the event. In such situations I try to exchange contact details and follow up at a more convenient time).

   These first two rules are the most difficult for me to apply. Once I get started though, the remaining ones are easy breezy.

3. Talk to people taking notes
   I’m a note taking addict. I don’t go anywhere without my sketchbook and Moleskine notepad (check out my recent post about The Power of Visuals). I feel that notes and drawings make me more engaged – I retain information better and my understanding of the topic is enhanced. I like connecting with people who think alike.
4. Talk to people sitting in the front rows
   Again, my experience is that they are more engaged, more confident. It’s probably not a coincidence that they’re at this event and they might be more eager to make new connections than the crowd who have chosen to sit in the back.

Designing interfaces

I also crafted a set of simple rules for my web and mobile UI design process. I was actually working in rough accordance with these rules most of the time over the past years, but clearly defining them streamlined my workflow. This allowed me to devote full focus on the creative process and work faster overall.

1. Always prepare 3 design directions
   Even the best research, requirement gathering process and branding guidelines analysis won’t predict with 100% accuracy what your clients’ own aesthetic preferences are. Over time I discovered that preparing 3 independent directions and having the client choose one of them actually saves time, compared to having only one option and ending up in a feedback deadlock.
2. Always reflect the customer brand’s values
   Values are the heart of your customers’ activity. Values drive what they do. Design projects, besides being functional and appealing, must speak the same language as the organisation they represent. Sometimes this might require adopting a more modern design approach, other times embedding a bit of traditional or local patterns will do the trick.
3. Always present your project on realistic device mockups
   Having a responsive project visualised on a laptop, tablet and smartphone is just so much better than showing a simple screen grab. It catches more attention, it’s closer to the final experience and it might bring up the discussion about some usability features that would not be visible otherwise.

Diet

For years I’ve been struggling with weight. My love for food was always stronger than the willingness to make a sacrifice for a fitter body, and besides the incidental diet and short-term minimal weight loss, I was pretty much stuck in the same place. Applying these simple rules made me lose 15kg in 9 months with ease and without resigning from the pleasure of eating.

1. No meat (Being vegetarian is in line with my values and respect for animal rights. I was eating meat before, but always had this lingering sense of guilt for being complicit in hurting other living beings. Declaring “No meat” as a rule just makes my eating decisions a lot easier).
2. No food when I feel full.
3. No food after 8 pm.
4. 30 min of yoga every morning, no exceptions. If I’m in pain or not in the mood, I still seat on the mat and use that time for stretching or meditation.

How to get started?

The authors of Simple Rules propose a three-step process to apply simple rules to your personal or professional challenges:

• Figure out what will move the needle. Prof. Eisenhardt uses this metaphor to describe profits (or more precisely the gap between revenues and costs over time). What will actually increase profit? What will effectively decrease costs?
• Choose a bottleneck. A good bottleneck should have a direct and significant impact on value creation. It’s an obstacle in making the most of arising opportunities. It should represent a recurring decision-making process
• Craft the rules. This might take time. Try to involve other people, your colleagues, your mentors. Consult diverse sources, especially if the rules are meant to be used by an organisation.  Limit rules to a handful of sets of different types. Make them concrete and easy to remember. Evaluate them over time and adjust when needed.

For more guidelines about crafting simple rules, read the book “Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World”.

So do we still need strategy?

Of course we do!

In fact, without a strategy, you wouldn’t be able to figure out what you want to achieve and how you want to get there. The purpose of simple rules is to give you the framework from which you can most efficiently apply strategy (possibly a complex one) in practice. It’s a bridge between management theory and execution. It’s a solution for successful on-the-spot decision making in dynamic environments.

For me, it was another way of getting things done and embracing challenges. Having a set of readily available recipes gives me peace of mind and enhances my determination. Whatever your particular situation is, it might be worth taking some time to figure out how you can benefit from simple rules. Whether it’s optimising sales, being successful at online dating, losing weight or managing your investment portfolio, I suggest you check it out.

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If you would like to find out more about my projects and the way I employ real-time strategy to deal with everyday chaos, don’t hesitate to contact me.