On thinking and mistakes

We believe in:

• At least four types of productive thinking – "flow", day dreaming, team brainstorming and stream-of-consciousness.  None of these should ever be interrupted by outside forces, even for team-brainstorming.
• Someone once said "it is OK to make mistakes, it is not OK to surprise".  That is true to an extent, but we believe there are at least three types of mistakes (aka corporate funded learning opportunities) –

1. "I knew better, but still made the mistake", which is very bad,
2. "Someone on the team or network knew and I still made the mistake", which is also very bad, and
3. "No-one knew or there was counter-intuitive physics, and now something has been learnt" - this is actually great!

• Challenging arbitrary constraints (especially for walking back a client) and documenting our arbitrary choices.
• Tribal knowledge, the importance thereof, especially the sharing thereof.
• The dangers of skill and knowledge compartmentalization (siloing) – if I am growing, why can’t I help grow others?
• Not falling in love with your first idea.
• Minimising all paperwork (by using nudges, defaults, etc).
• That evolutionary and revolutionary teams are BOTH necessary, but not equally sexy.