Why it's Often Sane to Have Another Go

You probably know this quote:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"?

It's been on countless posters on offices walls and student digs. It usually has Einstein with his tongue hanging out, with the quote also attributed to him.

It's also well known that he never actually said this. However he did struggle with the concept of uncertainty throughout his life. A genuine quote is "God does not play dice with the universe" and he later wrote in frustration that "God tirelessly plays dice under laws which he has himself prescribed", as he wrestled with the implications of quantum theory.

That's all fine, but the vast majority of people reading that poster weren't particle physicists. That famous quote, from wherever it came, is more likely to be brought up when reviewing a lessons learned report, when trying to find a job or when growing a new business or service.

And in a work or personal context, this 'definition of insanity' is problematic, because there are clearly times when we absolutely should pick ourselves up and try again.

How do we know when to do that?

There's at least three reasons: probability, training, and thresholds.?

Probability, equivalent to rolling a dice, is the obvious one: if you've a one in six, or one in twenty chance of success then you're eventually likely to succeed.

Truly random tests rarely exist in our working lives. What's much more common are situations which are subject to probability because of what we don't, or can't know. For example when when we're trying to win a tender, a job interview or a funding application - we can't always know what the competition, or the fit will be before we invest time in it.

In these circumstances we don't purely rely on re-rolls. When we can, we try and rig the dice in our favour by getting more information. We also try and reduce the work required to roll the dice each time, so that we can cast our nets wider if we need to.

Training (and learning) build experience, often through repetition. If you aim to run a kilometre in three minutes and you try every day, then despite failing you will get closer and closer and may eventually succeed.

You are doing the same thing, but your body is strengthening. You may also be doing other different things that are so subtle you're not even aware of them. The same can apply with problem solving, giving amazing sales demos and presentations, chairing a meeting so it finishes on time: experience and practice makes a massive difference, even when the substantive task stays the same.

Finally, thresholds are when the desired outcome depends on reaching a tipping point that potentially you can't see. When a politician or campaigner looks to move public perception, how they craft the message is important - but even more important is repetition and getting the message out there. Commercial negotiations can often come down to having just the right amount of tenacity once you've got a proposal that the other side will accept.

An even better example of the above is when engaging in culture change within an organisation. Cultural changes are contagious but unlike influenza it can require significant exposure to the new culture, and usually some new practices, for it to start to take hold. Many change programmes fail to deliver the culture change because they claim success and stop once new systems are in place, and inevitably the old culture persists. Would a little more time supporting the change make a difference? That depends on the circumstances, however you can be pretty sure the old culture won't change if you stop too soon. ??

Know when to stop, and when not to

All in all, whilst we've spent decades gaining new ways to acquire data and insight to mitigate uncertainty, that uncertainty will always exist.

We know this. In the middle of the last decade the hot new text in business psychology was Angela Duckworth's Grit. Grit, as a combination of tenacity and resilience, was suddenly the big ticket item for recruitment panels across the planet.

It is still one of them, and for good reason. Grit is a useful trait to have for those times when to keep on trying is also the most sane approach. The wisdom to know when that's true is the other one.

Chris Ingold

Systems Thinker, Change Agent, Catalyst

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