Course Correcting >> Move Fast With 70% Information
Course Correcting >> Move Fast With 70% Information
Course Correcting is not as catchy as Move Fast, but more key
Working Backwards, a book by former Amazon executives, cited Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ 2016 shareholder letter
“most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.
Bryar, Colin; Carr, Bill. Working Backwards (p. 71). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I literally read this as don't wait to be perfect, move fast. I'm sure most people read it like that too.
But, now I see the more crucial line is actually in the following line of the same quote.
Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”
Bryar, Colin; Carr, Bill. Working Backwards (p. 71). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Emphasis is mine.
It's clear to me the key foundational skill is actually course correcting. It doesn't matter whether you move fast or slow, if your course correcting radar is wonky.
And Bezos quote gave the definition of course correcting:
quickly recognizing bad decisions
quickly correcting bad decisions
If you combine with execution speed you get the following list of outcomes:
NO course correcting + move fast => Fast-moving disaster
NO course correcting + move slow => Slow disaster
GOOD course correcting + move fast => Ideal
GOOD course correcting + move slow => Slow
Ideally, we want 3. But still better to settle for 4 than 1 and 2.
> And Bezos quote gave the definition of course correcting:
> 1. quickly recognizing bad decisions
> 2. quickly correcting bad decisions
I wonder if there's a difference between (slow recognition + fast correction) vs. (fast recognition + slow correction)? Are recognition and correction equally valuable or is one more important than the other?
Does the nature of the goal affect the importance of course correction? For example, I imagine a more specific, harder to attain goal would require more course correction than a less specific, easier to attain goal? e.g. "Bob wants 10,000 followers on Twitter by the end of the month" would probably require more course corrections than, "Bob wants between 10 and 10,000 followers in the next 6 months".
In the latter case, would it be more important to move faster, with somewhat poor (but still some) course correction?