At the moment, I'm getting more responsibility with a piece of kit that measures reflectivity of things (think of it as something that scientifically measures how much glare your phone gives on a sunny day). With this kit – we can’t think about all the mechanisms and how they interplay together simultaneously. It’s just too much work. When I was younger I thought that as I learnt more about pieces of equipment, I’d be able to see more about how they interplay simultaneously together. I'm starting to think that I was barking up the wrong tree. What we can do is to create processes to control each mechanism, so that we don’t have to worry about them: we’ve already got them under control. This can be generalised to a problem mitigation process: when we realise problems are happening, we need to set up a system that deals with the problem automatically, which means we’re not allowing the problem to catch us out later on or to unnecessarily test us (and potentially allow us to fail the test) later on. And I think this way of thinking can be applied to everyone in their daily lives.
I know all of this sounds very complex and engineer-y and you might be thinking, "gosh I don't think I have anything in my own life that this could even apply to". That might be because I'm over-complicating things a bit. Or maybe I don't understand this simple idea well enough to apply it - still simply - to more complex task. But I believe that this idea, when solidified from it's nebulous form into the purest version of itself, can be applied to everyone's lives. Here's an example.
The backstory
About half a year ago, I was part of a work baking competition, so I had baked some super-tasty cakes the evening before taste-day and left them on dining room table to take to work. When getting ready in the morning, I saw them in the dining room and thought to myself, “don’t forget those cakes just before you leave the house”. The classic memory-test-for-future-me. Then I continued with my day, and went up to brush my teeth. No. All wrong. I’m setting myself up to fail. And guess what happened? I forgot the cakes. I had to go back for them.
The next time I had cakes to bring in to work, I was getting ready in the morning, saw them on the dining room table. At this point, I told myself, "OK, I forgot them last time, but I've learnt from my mistakes: I remember that I forgot them last time therefore this time... I'll remember not to forget them." That's the logic that I've had for the last 26 years... until now. And honestly, that's one of the most insane things that I've allowed myself to believe. Nothing about my memory has changed since last time I forgot them. Only the new information of, "I forgot cakes this one time." No suggestion that my memory has actually gotten better because of it, and the knowledge of having forgotten things in the past doesn't mitigate any forgetting I might do in the future. Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. In fact, all evidence suggests that I will forget the cakes this time, because I forgot them last time, and because my memory probably hasn't changed.
The pivotal moment
So, second time round of seeing cakes. I froze, mid-run up the stairs as I spotted them on the table. Game time. I had a crucial decision. I could either set myself up to potentially fail by deciding to "remember not to forget them later". Then I thought, “I’ve remembered them right now, which means that I have a window to make sure I don’t fail. How do I create a system where I don’t fail?”
So I placed them on top of my work shoes. Sure-fire way to make sure I won’t forget them.
Doesn't sound so complex now, does it? And I bet we all have one or two areas of our lives that we allow ourselves to fail in.
The most common ways we set ourselves up to fail & further examination
Ultimately, there are two reasons why we go wrong: due to the lies we tell ourselves, or by failing to appreciate the ways in which something can go wrong. By looking at the questions/statements we ask/say about the situation, we might be able to illuminate whether we've fallen into either two category:
"What could go wrong?" - Asking this question could be due to a failure in appreciating the ways in which something can go wrong. Be careful.
"Last time something bad happened, but I've learnt from this and now it won't happen again" - This is a tricky one, and requires a two step process to examine whether you have justification in saying this.
First step: Always ask yourself how you're learnt and are now mitigating the mistake. E.g. "I've remembered that I forgot last time, so this time (how I'm mitigating the mistake:) I'll remember not to forget."
At this point your brain will probably want to go, "I have a reason why I won't fail, therefore I won't." Daniel Kahneman, author of "Thinking Fast And Slow" calls this mode of thinking, "The Lazy Controller". The Lazy Controller often likes to replace an answer to a hard question with an answer to an easier question, because thinking is hard and The Lazy Controller is lazy. This is the case here. The question we're answering here has turned into, "do I have a reason why I won't fail for this task?" But anyone can come up with any reason for anything. The real question is, "Do I have a good reason why I won't fail this task?" This is a harder question, which requires another step to establish whether our reason is good or not:
Step Two: challenge the reason you've given yourself. Why is, "I'll remember not to forget", a good enough reason? Well... as soon as we start to challenge this, we realise there are a few flaws in our logic. Remembering to forget is only moving the "forgetting" part to another step along an infinite step cycle of forgetting. Next time after forgetting, I'll tell myself, "but this time I'll remember I forgot I forgot, therefore I won't forget again". On examination, it's using the same tool that failed at the task before, and there's no reason why this should change next time. So we need to change the method, and then critically ask again why this one would work.
Closing message
So next time you come to a decision like this in your lives, try to remember the idea of setting up processes to mitigate failure. It might stop you from having to walk home for some cakes.
FUN META-NOTE: At the end of writing this post, I realised that it was a more developed version of another post that I wrote last year, entitled, "The Lies That We Tell Ourselves".
No comments:
Post a Comment