Winners Lose

Questions of the week: What is a system's mindset explained in the lesson? What does looking for systems when applying a solution mean? How do both loser and winner have the same goal?

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

I write this article based on the insight of my conversation with my team in our monthly 1-on-1 call. I speak with each one of my team members. This article is a compilation of a whole week's takeaway. You can subscribe to the?Building our Team?newsletter (1900+ subscribers)

What is a system's mindset explained in the lesson?

The system mindset explained in the videos is that everything in the world is made up of systems & very few realise it. All the systems operate in a sequence of a procedure 1-2-3-4, which are independent of each other.?

When we don’t see it in a system mindset, we see everything or every work as a linear thing like more of a transactional mindset. It is like giving X to get Y, and it will be very random vague requests like getting this done or completing this page or building a dataset, finishing the feature or calling for the requirement. Everything is a big block of work.?

As the author mentions, one should have a system mindset because once you get it, you can work on each system and improve it to up to 98% so that you can always have a predictable outcome and you don't have to worry.?

Normally people not having a system mindset operate in a fire-fighting or fire-killing mode or apply Band-Aid to a problem; they don't get into the root cause of it.?

Let’s look into a hard system, Computer. There is a problem with google meet on your computer. You tried multiple ways to fix it and found that restarting your computer makes it work, but next time you face the same problem. You are so busy working that you habitually restart the computer before your call. That’s not a system’s mindset to fix the problem.?

A system’s mindset will look at the issue a level deeper, find the error message, and look for the root cause. It may mean to re-install google chrome or some google meet plugin and you fix the problem forever. This solution also doesn’t drain you or frustrate you each time you cannot come to a call quickly and make you look like a fool every time.?

If you look into any system, you will see the internal mechanics of it and see how some subsystems and things are getting into it. So the day-to-day work that keeps you busy and you're almost not in control is because you're not looking at your everyday work with the system's mindset. You cannot segregate it into SOPs, which has 1-2-3-4 sequence or a checklist or some narratives.

You don't develop the habit of automating, delegating or deleting to improve the system's effectiveness.?

This is why whenever an estimation is to be made, we are almost guessing or ball parking each time. We add a significant buffer to safeguard ourselves.?

It's a reactive approach to the problem.

A system's mindset can be to develop an online calculator for setting up surveys, datasets and scorecards. That can be used by our team, clients or even prospects. This new system will not be perfect in the beginning and may never be perfect but the system mindset is to improve the accuracy of the calculator and increase the value while lowering the time and cost to the client. The result for 73bit.com will be an increase in profit margin.?

The author suggests that the first thing you could do is identify different systems and observe how they are interconnected. Thus building the muscle of your brain for the system's mindset. This need is about more than just your work, but in your regular day-to-day, like the water system of your city, school system, or delivery system.

The advantage of having a system mindset in your life is to have more money and more freedom.

What does looking for systems when applying a solution mean?

Somebody asked this question during our bi-monthly culture call. It was about picking a solution as a system and creating SOP for it to apply in 73bit. The topic in discussion was solution-based thinking.

Solution-based thinking, or solution-focused thinking, is a way of thinking whereby you start with your goal and work backwards to solve your problem. With Solution based thinking, most of your mental energy is used solely to solve a specific part of the problem.

Here are 20 such ideas that we can add to our solution toolkit

1) Prototyping

2) Brainstorming

3) Design Thinking

4) Scientific method

5) First Principle Thinking

6) Proof of Concept

7) Scope Discovery

8) 80/20 Principle

9) Research Sprint

10) Double Estimation

11) Cut Scope into half

12) 5 Whys

13) Low-cost experiment

14) Infinite Game Theory

15) Creative Thinking

16) Service Model

17) Mind mapping

18) Batching

19) High Priority High-Risk Metrics?

20) SWOT Analysis

How do both loser and winner have the same goal?

Goals are important as they give us direction. However, goals do not make you the winner or loser, as the winner & loser have the same goal. Only goals are for losers, but a system in place with direction leads you to your target & makes you a winner.

Nobody is a loser. When we lose, it's not the person but the event in which she or he is lost.

For example, let's take coding as an example. When we write the code directly by understanding the requirement & then writing some test cases can lead to a couple of bugs or not, there are still the chances.

On the other hand, if we try writing the code using the TDD (Test Driven Development), we can write better and cleaner code; here, the system helped us reach the goal & be successful. Also, there will be 5000 tests to ensure all the code you wrote in the past few years is working when you make a new change.?

Let's take another example, Losing weight. So here the system is you go for a walk 3 days a week and gym for the 3 days. You may go out on vacation or some marriage function, and you eat the food you ignore to keep yourself healthy, but you don't worry about it or a failure as you have the system in place.?

Here is the 3rd example, Sales target. “What will be your weekly or monthly target to sell?” The goal here has some flaws because it's not in your control. A much better goal or a better question would be How many leads do you have a target to talk to each week??

Like losing weight, there is no point in always talking about your current or desired weight. Have you moved your body today? That would be a better question to ask. Once you get it, You will start seeing clearly why some goals are so silly to spend a second speaking about them.?

You will always win that particular event if the system is in place. It’s a momentary situation; you know exactly how to steer towards your goal.?

Sharing is caring; people who care always share.