The utility of limiting principles

[rockstar.esq]

Back in college I had a few "soft skills" business classes that sought to teach negotiation, mediation, communication, etc.  Unlike my other classes which often hewed towards applying consistent strategies or formulas to solving problems.  These "soft skills" classes emphasized that there "were many correct answers/approaches" to any given problem.  At the time, I noticed that there was really no effort to define what a "wrong answer" or a "wrong approach" might look like.  The closest we got, was when the instructor suggested that we could "keep trying" with different strategies until we found success.

So far this all might seem obvious, but it relies on a very superficial level of thinking.  This lesson presupposes that any effort to persuade a person will result in neutral or positive reaction.  I suspect a lot of my classmates assumed that civility and good intentions were the only necessary safeguards against a negative reaction.  

I've encountered working professionals who could unleash an unholy torrent of hostile negotiations tactics without raising their voice, resorting to obscenity, or engaging in any form of dishonesty. Going in against them with only civility and good intentions as your defense would be like a mouse citing parliamentary process to a hungry feline.

None of which is to say that I believe there is always only one answer to a given problem.  This brings me to limiting principles.  In situations where answers will be in "shades of gray" we often trick ourselves into believing that the boundaries of black or white do not exist.

For example Is X right or wrong?  Well, in some situations it's justified, in other's it's not.  We can choose to decide each situation individually, or we can set a limit based on a principle.  Inevitably, the limit enforced by the principle will call the principle into question.

A lot of people seem to prefer the former over the latter, because limiting principles by definition, restrict your options.

I believe this approach leads to cognitive dissonance which is the discomfort people experience when they hold mutually exclusive beliefs or attitudes.  Here are a pair of mutually exclusive beliefs that are common phrases in business. 

"You get what you pay for" / "What did you expect of the lowest bidder".  This suggests that best value corresponds to highest price.

"Market value"/ "Market leader" This suggests that the best or absolute value corresponds to the lowest price.

It doesn't matter if you're buying or selling with this cognitive dissonance, you can't arrive at a reasonable answer.  This is obviously wrong, as most commercial empires were built by profitably offering great value at low prices.  

Imagine a tight rope strung above a net which is above a hard floor.  Tightrope acrobats do all sorts of amazing things within that narrow straight-line available to them.  But every action is governed by a limiting principle.  Weight can be shifted in "shades of gray" but only in perfect counterbalance, otherwise they fall.  They can move anywhere along the rope, but the sag increases as they approach center span.  This changes the dynamics of landing a jump, get it wrong, and they fall. 

Now a lot of readers might jump to the conclusion that all the shades of gray can be lumped together into either a success or failure that is ultimately meaningless because the performers end their show in net either way.  This ignores the entire point of the skill.  Anybody can fall into a net.  The net isn't a tightrope acrobat's limiting principle. Falling is a tightrope acrobat's limiting principle.  Once they fall, they're just like everybody else.

Did you notice that I never defined the height of the rope in this example?  That'd be another limiting principle.  If the rope was laying on the net which was laying on the ground, the rope wouldn't move so easily under the tightrope acrobat's feet.  There would be no sag, no bounce, nor distance to fall.  In short, it's no longer an acrobatic feat.  From here, we could argue that rope dynamics should a limiting principle for tightrope acrobats.

OK so how does this apply to business?  Well my classmates went out into the working world trying to represent their companies well.  They figured their civility and good intentions were a net which would catch their every fall, after which they could just climb the nearest tower and try again.  They didn't train on tightrope walking, because they were taught "there are many correct approaches".  Yet everywhere in life we've got perfectly understandable boundaries like schedule, budget, quality, integrity, competition, and honesty, that really narrow the viable paths to success. 

The Pareto principle teaches us that 80% of the outcomes result from 20% of the actions.  That's a metaphorical tightrope which applies as much to processes as it does to people.  A limiting principle which focuses your efforts on the 20% of people and processes that generate 80% of the desired outcomes leads to a 4x reward, with zero loss.  Bear in mind that simply chasing successful people and processes isn't enough to land work, one must offer something useful in exchange.  Aim at opportunities you can actually hit in terms of your cost, abilities, and value relative to the relevant market.  As a limiting principle, the viability of any given opportunity should correspond to your individual market leadership.  Here again, focusing on what you are good at, is a limiting principle which actually improves your probability of success.  Even in situations where one is testing their abilities in new ways, the focus is on defining what works, rather than chasing all possible tails.

 

[Anachronist58]

Alas, my ADD will not let me read through this post in one bite.  Thus I will respond to the utility of the "limiting principle", as pertains to my former line of work.

In reference to that paragraph, many of my colleagues relied upon the former.  It was easy for me to rely upon the limiting principle, based upon the assumption that every decision in Aerospace is presumably a matter of life and death.  Very inconvenient.  many have learned by encountering me in course of our duties, that I valued my employment far less than the altruistic demands of the Hardware, and those subjected to its end use.

I had many customers, the last gig was for a three acre footprint. In my trade, it was easy to be intransigent about the processes within my view.

How much harder it must be to develop and stick to limiting principles in your line of work, I would think.

You are the fellow who sold me on the difference between Accuracy and Precision, by the way...

Robert Taylor

[George N. M.]

I think that part of the problem that some people have with "right" and "wrong" approaches and processes is tied to the natural inclination some folk have for rules.  Rules are easy to understand and it is clear when they are followed or not.  Many people are more comfortable with this sort of a black/white dichotomy.  It is a lot harder to apply general principles such as "do no harm," "be nice," "maximize success," "avoid negativity," etc..  I think all of us have tendency to think that whatever has worked for a certain result in the past is the only "right" way to do things.

IMO and experience the only "right" way to accomplish a desired result is any way that works.  There may be solutions which are harder, take more time, are more expensive, are cheaper, etc. but if the end result is accomplished the road taken got you to the destination.  This is true whether it is doing a project in your shop, negotiating a contract, fighting a battle, making a scientific or medical discovery, or anything else.  The only "wrong" solutions are the ones that don't get you to the final destination.  There may be some that are more "wrong" than others, roads that dead end, lead you over a metaphorical or financial cliff, or even bring you back to where you started.

What Rockstar describes is similar to supervising folk, no one style works with everyone.  One person may need a kick in the fundament,  one may need gentle guidance, one may be motivated by appealing to the need to "help," etc..  Similarly, in a courtroom there are different ways of persuading a judge or members of a jury to see things your way, none of them wrong.

This is all the result of having to deal with humans who are contradictory, inconsistent, and contrary creatures.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

[JHCC]

The difficulty with your second paragraph, George, is that it doesn't account for anything outside of the immediate problem and the immediately desired result. The challenge lies in understanding that "what works" exists in a much broader context, where a solution that gets you to your final destination might set you up for failure down the road. In a shop context, this could be as simple as cutting a section from the end of a long piece of stock that's going to be needed for another project: you get the immediate job done quickly, but you've sabotaged your next one. In my own line of work (fundraising in higher education), we have to be constantly mindful that each individual action either contributes to or detracts from the quality of the long-term relationships between the college and its alumni. Pushing hard to get a big gift NOW might make our quarterly report numbers look good, but that gift could be a mere fraction of what a donor might have given over their lifetime and now won't because you've destroyed their trust.

I was talking last month with a fellow who has spent his career as a top-level professional negotiator, working with businesses, governments, nonprofits, and the like, even at one point doing pro-bono work in Iraq between the Shi'a and the Kurds. (He'd spent a good part of that career working with Roger Fisher, the co-author of "Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In".) One thing he said was that the single greatest advantage you can give yourself in any negotiation was to be super clear about your own interests and to understand as well as possible the interests of the other party. He said that you would be shocked at how often apparently competing interests can be accommodated in a negotiated agreement when both parties aren't focused solely on "winning" or (at very least) on minimizing the amount they have to "lose" in order to get a compromise. 

[rockstar.esq]

Anachronist, I appreciate your point, principled people can definitely encounter friction in the working world.  There's a foreman in our company like this.  I've had several occasions to defend his work where I reminded all parties concerned that we pay him to get things done properly.  On that score, he's one of our best employees.  While I wish for his sake that his life was less encumbered by conflict, I respect his principles and how they lead to good work getting done.  

George, it's interesting to see how different things can be from one perspective to another.  While I would agree with you that black and white rules are more appealing to me, I find my colleagues aren't of the same mind.  The "shades of gray" approach seems to be especially popular with colleagues who employ strategies like plausible deny-ability and "there's fault on all sides" reasoning.  What's also interesting, is how this parallels your point about how people do whatever worked last time.  In their case, they have an entire career built on the absence of principle.

JHCC,  You really nailed it.  The lack of limiting principles makes it virtually impossible for people to recognize when they're set up for cognitive dissonance.  As a result, they tend to mindlessly grind on with whatever worked last time, even when the ratio of success to failure declines.    You're point about the negotiating is really insightful.  Tons of people wash out of  my profession because they mindlessly grind away on estimates until they get fired.  They are taught that you can't win unless you bid, so they try to increase throughput after every loss.  Eventually they become so incredibly efficient at losing a high volume of bids that they get fired.  If these people started with stating what they actually need to achieve, it'd be obvious that they actually need to secure profitable work by mitigating risk.  That creates a set of limiting principles based on who you are, and what you're good at to define which prospects are actually viable.  Figuring out what your clients actually need is a HUGE part of this.  The whole "build it and they will come" approach to business is incredibly destructive.  There are often good reasons for why clients don't exist.

 

[JHCC]

The thing about "shades of gray*" vs. "black-and-white" isn't quite so black-and-white. That is to say, it's entirely appropriate to determine what the limiting principles are for a particular situation even when they may be entirely different for another set of circumstances. The trick is to be as clear about what is acceptable and unacceptable as one can be *in advance* of being in the middle of the situation, and then to have some set of guiding principles about how and when . 

Again, going with my own work situation, we have a pretty comprehensive Gift Acceptance Policy that goes into a lot of detail about what gifts we will and will not accept and for what purposes. However, it also has provisions for who has the authority to make permanent changes to the policy, who has the authority to grant one-time exceptions to it, and under what conditions such exceptions may be granted. (An earlier version had none of these, which meant that one unusual gift actually had to get approval from the Board of Trustees, even though it was something that everyone knew we wanted and would be happy to accept.) In other words, there's a very healthy middle ground between principled ossification and unfettered flexibility.

 

* or "grey", if you prefer

[Frosty]

Another thought provoking post. Thank you rockstar, I can follow this one, I see it all the time. I just deleted a long digression into a different example of the same thing.

You're defining problem solving in a specific instance. 

The different shades of gray approach typically signifies a lack of preparation or skill. Sure defining the necessary rules of engagement is gray but once established becomes more black and white.

How you approach resolution is where the gray gets harder to nail into black or white. Still it CAN almost always be reduced to black and white. BUT do you REALLY want to remove flexibility from your resolution tool box?

Where problems really arise is when people can't or won't adjust. Some insist on black and white, they do X the way they've always done it. Some can't perhaps they're too embarrassed to admit they were wrong or maybe just can't define the rules. Showing folks blacksmithing exposes you to all types.

Most of the folks I give my introductory dose of anvil time only want to give it a try and don't come back. Some have zero talent for the craft, don't understand steel has to be HOT to forge and just continue to tap at it in random places. Others insist steel should do what THEY believe it should. Etc. One angry one timer insisted I show him how to make a knife. I'm NOT a bladesmith, told him so repeatedly but he just argued more angrily until I suggested he find someone who could. 

The point here is some folk can't escape the gray, they're not equipped for whatever reason. Others can't escape the black and white.

Neither is the sole condition we have to deal with but the more successful players aren't disoriented by all the shades of gray. Yes you can deal with cognitive dissonance, it's just a problem to resolve, the same rules apply. You start defining the problem and develop the limits on all levels. The limits for the answer "resolution," the limits for the process, and the limits on the tools. 

You sift the gray until it's as black and white as you can make it while retaining enough flexibility to deal with surprise variables or unintended consequences as defined by John's example. You can poison future resolutions by not thinking ahead, peering into the gray.

Oh okay, I did delete a long ramble, I DID, TWICE! but I couldn't resist. I love problem solving.

Frosty The Lucky.

[rockstar.esq]

JHCC , Frosty,

Limiting principles wouldn't need to exist if the entire spectrum of options were acceptable.

Consider a really simplified example like eating.

One end of the spectrum is death by starvation, on the other end is death by gluttony.

Bringing the boundaries in a bit, we could have malnourishment on one end, and morbid obesity on the other.  It's not death at the boundaries, but death is not far off.

Bringing the boundaries in a bit more, and we could have general healthy eating guidelines that define where corrective action should be considered.  

The guideline exists to initiate a change in thinking.  Everything is shades of gray compared to it's neighbor condition, but any particular place on the spectrum is conspicuously different from median, range, or average.  There's meaningful information getting buried in the "shade of gray" description.  We're fooling ourselves to say otherwise.

A few weeks ago I watched a presentation that explained how the U.S. Coast Guard boats conduct open water sector searches.  It's somewhat difficult to explain without a diagram, but I'll try.  Imagine a point identifying the calculated/probable  location of the people needing rescue.  Now imagine a three equilateral triangles arranged such that each has a single corner touching the point.  The three triangles are arranged such that they look a bit like a radiation symbol.  

OK, now imagine the rescue boat following the path of those triangles, such that they only make left turns.

One starts to wonder why they do this, because it sure looks like they spend a lot of time pretty far from where they need to be.

It's only when we realize that the entire search area is dynamic, that this pattern makes sense.  See everything in that area of that ocean is drifting in a direction for each moment in time.  Any boat moving set distances followed by set course alterations (equal deflection left turns) , will end up zig-zagging through the drift path of the group in need of rescue, because they're caught in the drift just like the people they're rescuing.  It doesn't matter if the drift path is linear, curved, circular, or whatever.  

What they're doing is allowing all the incredibly complex dynamics of ocean currents to steer their search where it needs to go.  The search boat's zig zagging doubles the probability of crossing the group in need of rescue's actual path.

My point with all of this, is that limiting principles don't exclusively benefit the single axis spectrum of possibilities.  What they do, is allow people to see when drifting in one spectrum leads to serious consequences in other ways.

If the search boat didn't make equilateral triangles, they could effectively steer themselves out of the drift path.  Any pattern option is shades of gray in terms of the ideal for stumbling into a static position, but real life outcomes are virtually never about static positions.

There are a lot of good intentions applied in one spectrum, which end in predictably horrible outcomes in another.  I don't think the answer is to focus on the necessity of allowing a range of good intentions.  I believe the answer is to be honest and accountable about the practical outcomes of what we do.  That includes choosing not to see where one thing becomes another.

People tend to find the things they're actually looking for.  If everything is an island to itself where no shade of gray can be wrong, we deprive ourselves of meaningful inflection points for consideration.  A lot of the things we think, aren't true.  Our imagination often speaks with the same voice as our memories of lessons learned.  We can soothe ourselves by rationalizing the mistakes we know we shouldn't have made. This is how we learn to believe or accept things that don't represent who we are.  

I believe cognitive dissonance is a sign that we're losing freedom to reconcile our thoughts in pursuit of flexibility to justify our actions.  This sure seems to be making a lot of people miserable.

I think limiting principles are integral to discipline.  In my personal experience, discipline is integral to freedom.   

 

[Frosty]

On 3/18/2022 at 1:03 PM, rockstar.esq said:

Limiting principles wouldn't need to exist if the entire spectrum of options were acceptable.

In a system where all options are acceptable nothing exists. Pre-big bang and gradually developing limits for the next few million time units which have no number for another few billion. 

Even chaos has limiting principles which develop with changes in input. Our corner of the multiverse has a very temporary balance between chaos and stability. Too stable and it (whatever IT is) stagnates, dies, cools and ceases. Too chaotic and there's no system for anything to be. 

Chaotic systems are very interesting to study a bit, they're everywhere and everything. It's too easy to get engrossed to the point of not learning anything useful. My knowledge of chaotic systems related stuff had grown too many limiting principles halting growth along MY limiting principals by exceeding one of my prime principles. Two actually, #1 I had a good enough handle on the subject I could find more if I needed to. #2. It wasn't presenting any new useful or interesting ideas.

Without limiting principles you're nothing. With too strict limiting principals you're frozen in place without freedom to adapt.

Your example of search patterns at sea is pretty good. It reminds me of trying to explain correcting for wind to a couple friends trying to learn to navigate for their pilot's license. The example I used was a simple vectoring diagram though for one fellow I had to illustrate how a vector effected everything by sliding the sheet of paper.

Frosty The Lucky.