johnmaconline

We are presented with dozens of make versus buy decisions every day.

Some are for convenience.

Make dinner or go out?
If we make dinner, will we make the chili lime marinade from scratch or buy premade?

Some are financial.

Should we hire a painter or paint the cabinets ourselves?
If we do it ourselves, should we refurbish the door pulls, or should we buy new ones?

Some are emotional.

Do you want to make charcuterie boards for Christmas presents or buy something?
If we make the boards, should I cut the wood from the trees we just took down or use planks from the hardware store?

Some are capability-based.

Should we hire roofers or replace the roof ourselves?
If we do it ourselves, should we borrow a truck and get the shingles, or should we have them delivered?

In our culture, we can buy (or hire) just about everything and need to make very little ourselves. Thank God. I would never want to go back to a time when I needed to make most or all of the stuff I use daily.

Most of the time, whether you made it or bought it, you haven’t moved the needle much.

However, every once in a while, the decision to make pays off in spades. You learn something new, connect with someone new, or connect with yourself in a new way.

You could choose to stay in your house or apartment all the time.

Amazon and Door Dash. Work from home. Netflix. Only venture out when absolutely necessary. Mask on. Keep your distance. Never expose yourself to physical danger.

Is that living, or is that existing?

You could choose to stay in your comfort zone.

Go with what you know. Get a safe job. Stay. Only make a change if a change has been forced on you. Immediately find the quickest path back to your comfort zone. Say “no” to anything new or challenging. Never expose yourself to emotional danger.

Is that living, or is that existing?

As much as I wish it weren’t so, I see no other way to a life worth living without exposing oneself to physical and emotional danger. Physical and emotional injuries are coming. Regardless of how good you are at staying safe.

When I look in the mirror, I can see seasons in my life where I was good or bad at each. Whenever I made progress, it was because I pursued or at least embraced the danger.

The bottom line — life is worth the risk.

Sometimes we get the cause and effect backward. To fix the problem, all we have to do is recognize it and flip the cause and effect.

You’re unhealthy because you’re overweight. You’re overweight because you’re unhealthy.

You’re unhappy because your life sucks. Your life sucks because you are unhappy.

You’re an unbeliever because you can’t see it. You don’t see it because you’re an unbeliever.

You don’t feel successful because you haven’t made enough money. You haven’t made enough money because you don’t feel successful.

You’re afraid because the world is scary. The world is scary because you are afraid.

You are in control of how you frame the problem. Once you frame it correctly, you can work on the real cause.

If we are slow to judge and quick to embrace.

If we examine our closely held beliefs.

If we focus on what we can control.

If we acknowledge personal history.

If we try to walk in another’s shoes.

If we are afraid and do it anyway.

If we take personal responsibility.

If we find the lesson in failure.

If we listen before we speak.

If we throw away the labels.

If we respect differences.

If we recognize the grey.

If we value other voices.

If we embrace change.

If we are present.

If we try harder.

If we look up.

If we love.

We all hire for the exact same reason — we have a problem to solve.

It might be a personal problem, such as cutting the grass, getting faster on the track, or fixing the car.

Or you might be hiring in a professional setting to solve a problem such as tracking orders, developing an application, or replacing a lost worker.

Hiring the right person is easier than you might think.

Step one is to weed out anybody without the basic skill set. Never hire a clown to perform brain surgery.

Then, of that group, hire the person that scores the best in just two areas: a) integrity and b) curiosity and excitement about the mission.

Integrity because showing up, being a responsible adult, and trustworthiness are irreplaceable human qualities for someone on your team. You can always count on a person with high integrity.

Curiosity and excitement because you’re hiring someone for what they can do in the future, not what they’ve done in the past. Those who deeply care about what you’re hiring them to do will rise to the occasion and outperform those with more impressive credentials and experience but don’t really care.

Sometimes you’ll swing and miss, and that’s OK. But your odds are better if you hire based on integrity and curiosity.

Risky means the possibility of misfortune or losing something valuable to you.

Exercise is risky. Sedentary is risky.
The city is risky. The country is risky.
Commitment is risky. Separation is risky.
Going outside is risky. Staying inside is risky.
Travel is risky. Never leaving your town is risky.
Publishing your thoughts is risky. Silence is risky.
Driving your car is risky. Public transportation is risky.
Starting a business is risky. Being an employee is risky.
Trying something new is risky. Sticking with the old is risky.
Investing in the market is risky. Putting it in the mattress is risky.

We spend a fair amount of our time and effort managing risk. It seems to me, though, that just waking up is risky.

Socialism — You have two cows. You give one to your neighbor.

Communism — You have two cows. You give both to the state, and the state gives you milk and beef.

Capitalism — You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.  

The problem with socialism, communism, and capitalism isn’t the ideology. Each system can work to the benefit of the people. 

Almost equally, each system can work to the detriment of the people.  

But the problem isn’t the -ism. The problem is the real world.

Maybe it’s human greed, power hunger, or racism. Or maybe it’s systemic incentives, privilege, or culture.

Or maybe it’s all of those things. But all those things are real-world problems, not fundamental to the academic ism.

The debate about the ism must take place in the real world.

KPI’s — key performance indicators. Also called metrics. Also called data.

We constantly hear about KPI’s and data-driven decisions, especially when measuring the peformance of teams and individuals. We should be using data to make decisions (business, personal, national, etc.). Data provides valuable insight.

But there is a downside.

Let’s consider a help desk. Common KPI’s for help desk workers and organizations is the number of tickets closed and the time to closure. That seems reasonable, right? More tickets closed faster seems like a great method to measure performance.

However, in practice, the individuals and the team begin to operate in ways that artificially skew the results — convert single customer tickets into multiple tickets, artificially close tickets early and open new ones, etc.

The problem isn’t the metric itself. The problem is the team’s knowledge of the metric.

As such, these KPI’s are only useful in hindsight to measure past performance. Once the team knows, those metrics cease to be as useful.

With good intentions, we’ve incentivized bad behavior. Not intentionally. Nor are the people bad actors or bad people. They are simply acting according to the systemic incentives.

We usually get what we incentivize. But are we sure the indicator measures the true performance?

“Fools are blind to their own foolishness”

Unknown

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area.

We all know people who suffer from Dunning-Kruger and have watched them burn. They’re self-unaware braggarts with both feet firmly planted in mid-air — misplaced confidence on full display. 

An irate colleague who didn’t get promoted. The neighbor who takes on the roofing project but eventually hire’s the pro. Heck, the entire twitter-verse in epidemiology, politics, and NFL defensive schemes. 

We always use the label “Dunning-Kruger” pejoratively, usually accompanied by an eye roll or a knowing wink. 

But hold the phone a sec. There’s an upside to it.

Dunning-Kruger describes a condition of unjustified confidence, but confidence, justified or unjustified, is a critical enabler allowing one to take on new things and forge new paths. Confidence allows one to overcome fear, develop resilience, and stay motivated to continue. 

If we all sat around in our little protective shells, never reaching or expanding beyond what we correctly know or are good at, how would we make any progress (personal or collective)?

Sometimes it’s the self-unaware yet confident ones that crash and burn. Sometimes they’re the ones who move the entire universe forward. 

I am a fan of both Rick Rubin’s and Quentin Tarantino’s work. 

Both are regarded as geniuses and have enjoyed tremendous commercial and critical success in their respective arts. 

As someone interested in both the creative process and success principles, I’ve listened to many interviews with each. Each comes across very different from the other. 

I heard Rubin on a podcast with clairvoyant self-awareness say (paraphrased), 

“I’m very lucky. I’ve learned that when I like something, the public will also, and it will sell. When I’m brought into a project, it’s for my taste. My job is to help the artist make something that I like.”

I’ve listened to many interviews with Tarantino. Never have I heard him say anything like this. Most of the time, he seems pretty excited about himself and how good he is. 

I don’t know if he’s aware that his magic dust is the same as Rubin’s — the luck of the public liking what he likes. 

There’s a lesson for me here. A million success coaches talk about purpose, hard work, and perseverance. All of these are necessary, of course. You’ll need these to be successful. 

You can’t, however, ultimately control success that depends on others. you can only control what you do — your effort, your skill development, etc.

Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.