While I agree that early stages require more effectuation, and that action beats analysis, there’s also a point where it’s so early, action is … pointless or outright counterproductive.
2 examples:
1. the one by Eugene Wei where he talks about being outside the OODA loop
Here’s Eugene talking about being outside your competitors’ OODA loop
i quote
I come not to bury that advice, but to look at a variant, almost its opposite. Sometimes you can win by having a slower OODA loop if it just endures longer.
There can be many reasons for this. One, and it’s difficult to stress this enough, timing is critical to so much of Silicon Valley success. The same ideas are tried over and over again, failing time and again, until one day, for a variety of reasons, the stars align, the environment is conducive, and suddenly an idea takes off. It happened for online commerce and streaming video, and someday it will happen for VR and self-driving cars and cryptocurrency. The problem is that if you’re too early on something, having a faster OODA loop just means you burn through your investor’s money and implode more quickly.
2. the one where Steve Jobs says to wait for something big to turn up
Ok, this one is from memory and i will be grateful for anyone to provide the source. Cannot remember who wrote this but when someone interviewed Steve Jobs who came back as interim CEO of apple , and this was just after he stopped Apple from going bankrupt but before iPod, he was asked so what will he do next to return Apple to greatness.
Update : thanks to @roman i found the excerpt at The Shape of a Technological Window - Commoncog and Jobs's Second Act at Apple - The Next Big Thing - Commoncog
In the summer of 1998, I got an opportunity to talk with Jobs again. I said, “Steve, this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the PC business says that Apple cannot really push beyond a small niche position. The network effects are just too strong to upset the Wintel standard. So what are you trying to do in the longer term? What is the strategy?”
He did not attack my argument. He didn’t agree with it, either. He just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing
Most people will bluster and say something vague and grandiose.
Jobs said something a long the lines, I don’t know what it is exactly but something big will turn up in technology and we will wait for that window of opportunity.
Is Apple at that time early stage? actually, no. But i guess this whole thing is probably fractal.
you can be mature company but stll be early in the next paradigm of whatever in your industry.
So effectuation can still apply.
But if I think if we boil effectuation down to simply action beats analysis or prediction, i think we will miss out on the crucial timing lessons that Jobs and Wei allude to.
Indulge me as I summarize this point along with Ced’s into the following alliteration:
- Abide (as in hang tough)
- Action (as in effectuation to generate feedback via actions)
- Analysis (as in the typical prediction based left brained stuff that formal education prizes so much)
the lower the tier, the more teachable, effable.
the higher the tier, the harder to teach per se, the more “Art” it is.
The ultimate level is to see how they all mix and interact with one another in a kind of dance. For example, Jobs didn’t passively wait per se. He was also trying to do something while keeping an eye out for the next big thing to show up.