Inciting Curiosity
Antipattern Cluster
Antipattern #26
Evading Failure
Productive setbacks provide quick and valuable learning and reduce risk.
The Tin Man is terrified of failure. He sees it as a flaw in the machine, a deviation from the plan, a blemish on his record. He polishes his successes and hides his mistakes, creating a sterile environment where no real learning can happen.
The Octopus understands that intelligent failure is not the opposite of success; it is a necessary part of the path to success. It is simply data.
Our Recommended Reading List
Article: The Lean Startup Methodology
Video: Astro Teller's TED Talk: The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure
Book: Mindset
HBR Article: Performing a Project Premortem
Article: Strategies for Learning from Failure
Antipattern #27
Using Proxies For Customers
Deep obsession with getting close to and understanding real customers ensures long term impact.
The Tin Man sits in his factory, reading reports about the world outside. He looks at NPS scores, survey data, and market research, believing he understands the customer. He's interacting with a spreadsheet, a proxy for the real thing.
The Octopus uses its tentacles. It is in direct, constant contact with its environment. It doesn't just read about the customer; it feels, senses, and experiences their world firsthand.
Our Recommended Reading List
Concept: Steve Blank's famous talk 'The Secret History of Silicon Valley'
Guide: A guide to Empathy Mapping from Nielsen Norman Group
Book: Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
Article: An insider look at Amazon's culture and processes
Template: Working backwards template
Article: Why every Amazon meeting has at least one empty chair
Book: The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
Antipattern #28
Mortgaging The Future
Ambitious exploration helps companies forge new futures for customers and reshape markets.
The Tin Man is a masterful optimizer of the present. He is so focused on polishing the existing machine and maximizing this quarter's output that he fails to see the new world being built just over the horizon. He trades the uncertainty of tomorrow for the false security of today.
The Octopus has one eye on the present—exploring its immediate surroundings—but its other, large, inquisitive eye is always scanning the horizon. It balances today's exploitation with tomorrow's exploration.
Our Recommended Reading List
Book: The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Book: Finite and Infinite Games
Video: Animated summary of the idea
Article: The Ambidextrous Organization by Charles O’Reilly and Michael Tushman
Book: Loonshots by Safi Bahcall
Antipattern #29
Falling In Love With Answers
Love of problems and deep investment in learning the why behind them produces superior solutions.
The Tin Man loves answers. They feel productive, certain, and decisive. He asks his people to "bring me solutions, not problems." This leads to a culture that rushes to superficial fixes without ever understanding the root cause.
The Octopus is in love with the problem. It is endlessly curious about the "why" behind the "what." It knows that a deeply understood problem almost solves itself.
Our Recommended Reading List
HBR Article: Are You Solving the Right Problems?
Talk: Tina Seelig's talk at TEDxStanford
Article: The Surprising Power of Questions
Documentary Film: The documentary film 'General Magic'
Antipattern #30
Avoiding Hard Problems
To put a talking monkey on a pedestal, start with the monkey problem, not the pedestal.
The Tin Man loves "low-hanging fruit." It offers visible progress, quick wins, and the feeling of productivity. He builds the pedestal first.
The Octopus, guided by Astro Teller's #MonkeyFirst principle, knows that the only progress that matters is progress on the hardest part of the problem. It tackles the riskiest, most uncertain element first, because it knows that if the monkey can't be trained, the pedestal is worthless.
Our Recommended Reading List
Video: Tackle the monkey first
Article: Riskiest Assumptions Test
Antipattern #31
Avoiding Tough Conversations
Honest dialogue and constructive conflict dissolve surface-level harmony and boost performance.
The Tin Man's factory runs on the oil of artificial harmony. Disagreement is seen as friction, a lack of alignment. Important truths are left unspoken in meetings, only to surface in whispered hallway conversations.
The Octopus knows that constructive conflict is the engine of innovation. Its multiple brains argue and debate. It understands that intellectual honesty and rigorous dialogue are not threats to cohesion; they are the very things that create it.
Our Recommended Reading List
Video: Adar Cohen's presentation on difficult conversations
Website: The Crucial Learning website with resources and tools
TEDTalk: Margaret Heffernan's TED Talk 'Dare to Disagree'
Book: Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Article: Betting on “Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” by Paul Saffo
Book: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Antipattern #32
Building Homophilic Teams
Cognitive and intellectual diversity in teams amplifies problem-solving acumen.
The Tin Man organization builds comfortable echo chambers of people who think alike, prioritizing "culture fit" over unique contribution. This leads to groupthink, missed blind spots, and a brittle inability to innovate.
The Octopus, by contrast, operates on Rebel Ideas. It ruthlessly prioritizes cognitive diversity to ensure creative abrasion, recognizing that the discomfort of varied perspectives is the engine for superior problem-solving and long-term competitive advantage.
Our Recommended Reading List
Book: Rebel Ideas: The Power of Thinking Differently
Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow
TEDTalk: Linda Hill's TED Talk on the topic of collective genius
YouTube Video: Let's Fix Corporate Jargon in the Workplace by David Burkus
Book: Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation
Book: A guide to the Six Thinking Hats
Article: Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter
Antipattern #33
Deferring To Data
Data-informed decisions that honor human experience improve
quality of outcomes.
The Tin Man believes data is truth. Armed with a dashboard, he feels objective and rational, using numbers as a crutch to avoid the messy ambiguity of human judgment. He becomes "data-driven" and loses his way.
The Octopus is "data-informed." It respects data as one crucial input, one set of senses, but it combines that data with experience, intuition, and deep customer empathy. It knows that not everything that counts can be counted.
Our Recommended Reading List
Video: Cathy O'Neil's TED Talk on the topic
Book: Weapons of Math Destruction
Video: Jess Bezos called Amazon Customer Service
Article: Netflix & Big Data: The Strategic Ambivalence of an Entertainment Company,
Antipattern #34
Segregating Technology
Broad digital fluency bridges divides and unlocks innovation.
To the Tin Man, technology is a separate thing—a department, a cost center, a vassal that serves the "real" business. This creates a communication chasm, where technologists speak in jargon and business leaders feign understanding, resulting in wasted investment and missed opportunities.
The Octopus has a distributed brain. Technology is not a separate limb; it is part of its central nervous system, fully integrated and essential for sensing and responding to its environment. Digital fluency is everyone's responsibility.
Our Recommended Reading List
Book: A Seat at the Table by Mark Schwartz
Book: Inspired by Marty Cagan
Article: Does Your C-Suite Have Enough Digital Smarts?
Article: Why reverse mentoring works and how to do it right
Video: A talk with Indra Nooyi, Amazon Board Member and former PepsiCo CEO
Podcast: Jana's interview with Michael Coté, host of Software Defined Talk (podcast #464)
Website: Michael Coté's personal website
Antipattern #35
Downplaying People Development
Weaving development into daily tasks builds tomorrow’s critical skills.
The Tin Man sees people as resources. He hires them for the skills they have now, expecting them to perform their function. Training is a cost, a luxury, something to be done "off-site" and cut when budgets are tight.
The Octopus sees people as its adaptive capability. It knows that its ability to learn and evolve is its only sustainable advantage. It weaves development into the fabric of daily work, understanding that learning is the work.
Our Recommended Reading List
Book: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
Website: A guide to the 70-20-10 model from the Center for Creative Leadership
Book: Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results
Article: A New Paradigm For Corporate Training: Learning In The Flow of Work
Article: A New Strategy For Corporate Learning: Growth In The Flow Of Work, Josh Bersin
Antipattern #36
Pretending To Innovate
Ideas of any size, from anyone,
anywhere create real value.
The Tin Man loves the idea of innovation. He creates "innovation labs" with beanbags and foosball tables, runs hackathons, and puts up posters about "thinking differently." But it's all theater. The innovation is kept separate from the "real work," and the ideas never survive contact with the core business.
The Octopus doesn't have an "innovation department"; innovation is simply what it does. It's a natural outcome of its curiosity, its customer obsession, and its integrated, adaptive structure.
Our Recommended Reading List
HBR Article: Why Companies Do ‘Innovation Theater’ Instead of Actual Innovation
Strategic Guide: The Six Critical Decisions to Make Before Establishing an Innovation Outpost
Website: Safi Bahcall
Blogpost: What is Intrapreneurship: Definition, Strategies, and Examples