Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Time, Cost, and Quality. Pick Any Two.
Pick any two.
We just bought some new drapes for our apartment in New York and asked a seamstress to tailor them to the space. She did a great job at a very reasonable price. But it took weeks to get them.
Our experience with the drapes reminded me of a rule-of-thumb that I learned long ago and has helped me through many a project since then. Here’s how I heard it:
Time, cost, and quality – pick any two. You can never have all three.
You can look at three parameters for any project, but you can only optimize two. For instance, you can make decisions about time – how long the project should take. You might specify that you want it done quickly or you might allow for a more leisurely pace. Similarly, you can specify that you want very high quality or that you’re willing to accept a few defects. For cost, you might choose to pay a very pretty penny to get the job completed. Or you might decide that the project has to fit within a rather tight budget.
Let’s look at the combinations.
Time and cost – you optimize for time and cost by deciding that you want the job done quickly and at low cost. That’s fine but quality is almost sure to suffer.
Quality and time – you want a high quality project done quickly. Great. But you’re probably going to pay very high fees to get it done. You can get quality work done quickly, but it will cost you.
Quality and cost – you want a high quality project done at low cost. OK, but it’s going to take a long time. (Our drapery example fits here).
The bottom line is that you can improve any two of the parameters but it will always create pain on the third parameter. I’ve thought about this on many, many projects throughout my career. It always works. Always.
The trick is to be very clear about what you want. In the case of the draperies, we weren’t in a hurry, so it made sense to optimize on quality and cost. In your projects, you’ll want to think through the parameters and decide which ones are the most important for that particular project. You’ll probably find that the parameters will change from project to project. That’s fine. Just be sure that everybody on the project understands which parameters you want to optimize. Otherwise, you won’t get two out of three. You’ll get none out of three.
Good For Bad
Rust never sleeps.
In The Magic Mountain, young Hans Castorp travels up the mountain to visit his cousin, Joachim, who is recuperating in a tuberculosis sanatorium. Joachim’s doctor tells Hans that — with its crisp, thin, dry air — the mountain is good for tuberculosis.
Hans enjoys the cosmopolitan crowd that inhabits the sanatorium and dallies a bit too long. He contracts tuberculosis himself. Dismayed, he consults with the doctor again. The doctor is nonplussed. “But I told you”, he says, “that the mountain is good for tuberculosis”.
Slice an apple in half and you’ll see the results of oxidation. The newly exposed flesh turns brown and dries out quickly as it oxidizes. If you rub lemon juice on the apple, however, the flesh stays moist and firm. The juice prevents oxidation.
Oxidation is essentially rust. Just as I don’t like rust on my bicycle, I don’t like it in my body either. I keep my bike well lubricated and I try to do the same for my body. Antioxidants help prevent rust in my body. That’s a good thing, right?
Like the magic mountain, however, antioxidants can be good for bad things as well. Science reports on a Swedish study that finds that “moderate doses of two widely used antioxidants spur the growth of early lung tumors in mice.” I’ve always viewed antioxidants as good for good things. It may be that they’re good for bad things as well. Cancer may not like rust any more than the rest of us do.
Recently we’ve seen a furor in the United States about the government spying on citizens. I believe that restricting the government’s ability to spy on us is a good program. Privacy is a valuable right and we should protect it. Those same restrictions, however, could be good for terrorists who want to attack us. In other words, restrictions of government spying could be good for bad things as well.
When the cure causes the disease, medical researchers call it iatrogenic. When a good program causes bad things to happen, we may refer to them as unintended consequences or, more recently, collateral damage.
I suspect that good programs promote bad things (as well as good things) more often than we think. The trick is to get the balance right, to create remedies and cures that promote maximal goodness and minimal badness. As we make our decisions, however, we need to remember that no program, no matter how well conceived, will promote only good. Unintended consequences will always be with us. We need to account for them. As Neil Young taught us, rust never sleeps.
Sex, Food, Smell, and Death
Oh, those pheromones!
I’m attracted to the opposite sex. I can’t help it. As Lady Gaga says, I was born this way. Lately, however, I’ve been reading that exposure to the opposite sex can lead to premature death, especially for males. It’s a scary thought.
As reported in the current issue of Science, the phenomenon might be called “female-induced demise” and it’s a clear cause-and-effect relationship. Researchers have shown that “… female-produced pheromones …can have detrimental effects on longevity and other age-related traits in male[s]….” Further, “It has long been known that having the opposite sex around can reduce fitness….”
You’re probably wondering, “Why didn’t someone warn me about this?” Before you get too upset, let me clarify that, so far, biologists have discovered the phenomenon only in nematode worms and fruit flies. Still, you have to wonder … today the nematode, tomorrow homo sapiens? And how many of us men haven’t been called a worm at some time in our lives?
But wait, it gets worse. Members of the opposite sex don’t even have to be physically present. Merely perceiving the opposite sex is enough to do the trick. And yes, this goes both ways: male-to-female and female-to-male. Our sense of smell seems to play a critical role. You don’t have to interact with the opposite sex to die young; you merely have to inhale their pheromones. As Science points out, “This is sufficient to decrease fat stores, increase mortality, … and decrease an animal’s overall size.”
But wait, it gets even worse. It also happens with food. Let’s say you’re on a low-calorie diet. You maintain your discipline, count your calories, and avoid fatty foods. But even the smell of fatty foods may be enough to limit the benefits of your diet. Science points out that “…just the smell of a rich diet is enough to increase mortality rate and prevent many of the benefits of a low-calorie diet.”
OK, OK … we’re talking about fruit flies and worms. And yet, you have to wonder. Is this why men have shorter life expectancies than women? Do people live longer in cultures that strictly segregate the sexes? Has Woody Allen heard about this? And do we need to amend the old saying to “Cut off your nose to spite your face … and prolong your life.”
Meaningless Means
Quick. What’s the mean?
Does your grade point average mean anything? To answer that question, let’s ask another one. Is this true or false?
The distance between 78 and 79 is the same as the distance between 96 and 97.
It may seem like a simple answer but it’s actually rather subtle. As with all good questions, the answer is “It depends”.
Let’s say that you’re measuring a distance in meters. You’re standing at meter zero. On a straight line, Object A is 78 meters away from you, Object B is 79 meters away, Object C is 96, and Object D is 97. Is the distance between Object A and B the same as the distance between Objects C and D?
Well, yes it is. After all a meter is a meter. A meter has a standard, universal definition. In fact, it’s one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator, on an arc passing through Paris*. (Those pesky French defined it). Because we have a standard and objective way of measuring a meter, we can safely conclude that the distance between A and B is the same as that between C and D.
Let’s look at a different example: ice dancing in the Olympics. The winners receive Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals. Is the distance between Bronze and Silver the same as the distance between Silver and Gold? Well, no. For one thing, we don’t have a standard, objective way to measure. Judging ice dancing is subjective. The Russian and American judges may well have different points of view.
Additionally, most athletes would say that improving performance becomes increasingly difficult the closer you get to the top. Let’s say that you can run a mile in ten minutes. You work hard, improve your speed, and get your time down to nine minutes. (Congratulations). Let’s compare your level of effort to Mary who runs a six-minute mile and improves her time to five minutes. You’ve shaved a minute off your time and she’s shaved a minute off her time but, really, who has to work harder? I think we’d all agree that it’s Mary. So, the distance between ten minutes and nine minutes is not the same as that between six minutes and five.
Now, let’s calculate some means. Let’s say we have three buildings. One is 30 meters tall, the second is 60, and the third is 70. What’s the mean? We add up the numbers (160) and divide by the number of numbers (3) and find that the mean is 53.3 meters. Does that make sense? Sure it does, because we have a standard, objective way to measure a meter and the points on the scale are equidistant.
Let’s do the same for ice dancing medals. We’ll give three points to a gold medal, two to a silver, and one to a bronze. Now we can add up the numbers, divide by the number of numbers, and calculate a mean. Does it make sense? Well, no. There’s a little sleight of hand here. We’ve changed from rankings that are not equidistant (gold, silver, bronze) to numbers that are equidistant. It’s a bit slippery. It’s the kind of calculation that you might expect from major banks rather than from good researchers.
What does this have to do with your grade point average? Well, your GPA is much more like ice dancing medals rather than meters. The distance between and F and a D is much shorter than the distance between a B and an A. Since the points on the scale are not equidistant, it doesn’t make sense to calculate a mean. Remember that the next time someone asks your GPA.
*Actually, the definition of a meter has changed since it originated. Here’s a good explanation.
Recruiting and The Triple Package
Hire her.
When I first started managing people, I took a series of short management courses offered by our Human Resources department. One course focused on how to recruit talented, high-potential employees. I knew how to identify specific skills (“Can you program in C++?”) but I didn’t really know how to identify motivation and potential.
A recruiter named Sarah taught the course and told us there were two profiles to look for. (Yes, we were profiling … but for a good cause). She had a name for each which I don’t remember so let’s just call them Profiles Y and Z. Here they are:
Profile Y – someone who attended an elite university, studied relevant topics, and made good grades. You would likely get someone who was smart and motivated. According to Sarah, making good grades was a critical differentiator. Some people qualify for elite universities and then coast – perhaps a sign of a sense of entitlement. The person might not be motivated.
Profile Z – someone who might have qualified for an elite university but couldn’t afford to go. He went to a state university, studied relevant topics, and made very good grades. He’s very confident and believes strongly in his own abilities. At the same time, he believes that other people may not recognize his talents and achievements. He has something to prove. He’s probably not the first-born child.
I thought about these profiles – and especially Profile Z – when I read about Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld’s concept of the Triple Package. Chua and Rubenfeld have studied ethnic cultures within the United States and asked a simple question: why is it that some cultures are more upwardly mobile than others?
According to Chua and Rubenfeld, Americans with different national heritages have markedly different educational and professional success rates. For instance, Cuban-, Lebanese-, and Nigerian-Americans tend to have higher success rates (on the whole) than do groups with similar ethnic or language backgrounds but different national ancestry. What makes them different?
Chua and Rubenfeld argue that the Triple Package makes the difference. There are three elements in the package:
“The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.”
Sound familiar? The first two concepts in the Triple Package correlate with two elements of Profile Z. The person (or the culture) feels exceptional and somewhat superior to other people (or cultures). At the same time, however, the person/culture has some sense of insecurity. They feel exceptional and they also want to be recognized as exceptional. They have something to prove.
The third element of the Triple Package is impulse control. This is what we used to call deferred gratification – the ability to defer short-term rewards for larger rewards in the future. I don’t remember it being part of Profile Z but it should be. Impulse control has been studied in a variety of ways – including the famous marshmallow experiments – and it seems to predict what my dear old Mom used to call “sticktoitiveness”. In other words, you better stick to it if you want to succeed.
What do we learn from all this? If you want to win the war for talent, you’ll need to hire intelligent, motivated people with a high degree of sticktoitiveness. Recruiting people with the Triple Package is a good place to start.
My Social Media
