Original link: https://aaronnick.github.io/posts/necessity-and-feasibility/
When making decisions, we often need to consider two elements: necessity and feasibility .
The translation is that necessity is used to judge whether it is necessary to do this thing, and feasibility is used to judge whether it is feasible in practice. Generally speaking, the necessity is considered first, and the feasibility second. Because the former is the door to control what to do or not to do, if the door is closed (unnecessary), then the latter does not need to be considered.
In everyday life, however, we often turn things upside down, or mix things up , so that it affects the speed and quality of decision-making.
From my own experience, here are two practical examples.
Example 1: This is very complicated, don’t change it easily
At a certain meeting, an idea was proposed, and a function was planned to be launched, and I am familiar with the business module where this function is located. After understanding the background and the changes to be made, my brain was thinking quickly: which pages are involved in this change, which modules are coupled, and how much business is involved… Finally, my brain gave a result: the changes involved a lot , and then give a preliminary conclusion: it cannot be easily changed.
Then my colleague woke me up, we should evaluate the value of this change first, and then decide what to do. If the value is great, it is necessary to do it, and then think about how to achieve it.
Interesting, I, who knew this function best, became the person who opposed the change at the beginning—because I was so familiar with it, my thinking suddenly jumped to how to do this step, adding the element of difficulty into the decision-making thinking process, affecting the subsequent judgment .
Evaluate the value first, and then think about how to do it. In fact, you know the truth, but in practice, it is easy to be uncertain, and you will know by observing those who often refuse.
Example 2: The boss’s goals are too whimsical
Presumably, almost all company employees and friends at the executive level have complained about such a thing: the KPI set by the boss is too outrageous! It doesn’t take into account the reality at all.
We bear the KPI set by the leader, the leader bears the KPI set by the boss, and no one is better than the other.
Once drinking with the leader, the leader shared her latest understanding: the (unrealistic) goals set by the boss, in our opinion, do not understand the actual business and make trouble without reason… But from the boss’s standpoint, from the industry and the market From an angle of view, this is the performance that should be achieved at the current stage, or should be the goal that the company should achieve at this stage – something that is necessary to be done . The subtext is that if the current scale does not reach the matching goal, it is likely to be eliminated.
Such goals are necessary, even unreasonable— so the conclusion is, treat such goals as expectations, as North Stars, and then stay grounded in doing your own thing and achieving achievable goals.
After changing the angle, the mentality is much better. Neither will one-sidedly feel that the goals set by the boss are unrealistic, nor will they disrupt their own position.
The first example wants to illustrate that in our daily life, there is a common bias in decision-making thinking – considering the feasibility first and ignoring the necessity, in some cases putting the cart before the horse .
The second example wants to illustrate that when we are faced with something that seems “infeasible”, we might as well look at it from another angle to see if it is necessary. If so, find a way to overcome it; if not, find a way to escape.
Recently I was reading the book “The Era of Deng Xiaoping”. When deciding whether to carry out reform and opening up, there were two extreme opinions in the party. Conservatives believed that it was taking the capitalist road, and the country had just emerged from the Cultural Revolution and was full of scars. Baikong, you can’t be so tossed; reformists believe that reform is necessary, especially after Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore, Japan and other countries with rapid economic development, he has strengthened the belief in reform – reform is necessary, and no reform will only more and more backward.
With this necessity, what Deng Xiaoping has to do is to try to avoid intra-party conflicts, such as proposing and emphasizing that this is the primary stage of socialism (we did not deviate from socialism, but exploring in the primary stage), such as proposing the division of special zones and emphasizing that it is Special Economic Zones (which actually have many policy privileges, but are called Special Economic Zones to avoid being considered political zones)… These are all ingenuity at the executive level .
Therefore, before making a decision, consider the necessity first, and then consider the feasibility.
This article is reprinted from: https://aaronnick.github.io/posts/necessity-and-feasibility/
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