Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (a hat tip to Ian M for sharing the story). Regulars here might remember this story from a blog post 2 months or so ago – this is so good that I had to share this twice.
The graph below describes 1001 days in the life of a thanksgiving turkey. Mr.Turkey feels great about his life for a long time. He is well looked after and begins to expect food every time the farmer visits. This expectation gets reinforced with time and Mr.Turkey only feels better and better. Then, the farmer shows up with an axe one day and Mr.Turkey learns quickly that his expectations were catastrophically off the mark… And now Mr.Turkey is dinner.
We have many great examples of turkeys in real life – the company on the brink of disruption that was oblivious to the fact that it needed to change its business model, the executive who thought of himself as indispensable, the insensitive family member who never learnt to be nice, and so on. Because, like the turkey, they get fat, complacent, and begin ignoring the signs of the road ahead.
The lesson for us? If we’re feeling great about our companies/teams/ourselves, that’s great. But, we need to guard against being carried away for too long. Extreme emotions dull our sensitivity to obvious signs. We’re only as good as our next game. Let’s not be turkeys..
Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com
‘Just because you never died before, doesn’t make you immortal.’ | Nassim Taleb
A Learning a Day 