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Matrix Decision Making
I had the pleasure of working with the authors of this book for over a year as a research assistant. Over that time I came to deeply associate with the 2x2 Matrix approach to problem-solving, and believe it is one of the most novel, fun, and effective ways of understanding business and personal dilemmas.
The idea behind 2x2 Matrix problem solving is to simplify any dilemma you're experiencing to its two core, often competing, facets. For example, The Gartner Magic Quadrant evaluates a company's technology solution based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. These two aspects are then placed on opposing axis of a grid and given hi/low extremes. This instantly generates four quadrants of distinctly different possible scenarios. In this case:
- Niche Players - Low completeness of vision, low ability to execute
- Visionaries - High completeness of vision, low ability to execute
- Challengers - Low completeness of vision, high ability to execute
- Leaders - High completeness of vision, high ability to execute
The authors, Alex Lowy and Phil Hood, have gone to great lengths to examine outstanding problem solving practices offering both an academic explanation of the theory behind 2x2 modeling, and a profile of 55 of the best decision models out there.
These 55 decision models, presented in short, clear summaries with illustrations and often technology-based case examples (drawn from IBM, Apple, HP, Borland, and the open source world) are the real gold in the book. The models range from highly business-oriented strategy, marketing, and employee-motivation frameworks, to personally oriented frameworks that help structure time, understand personality conflicts, improve leadership skills, and evaluate career transition opportunities.
Chapter 3 is devoted to what the authors call Archetypal Business Dilemmas. The dilemmas presented here speak vividly to the challenges being experienced right now by the open source community:
- Head vs. Heart The toughest choices are between doing what makes sense, and what feels right.
- Content vs. Process Content is the what, Process is the how. Success in most things requires mastery of both qualities.
Also, there are a host of technology gurus who have been interviewed and have matrices presented from their work: Charles Fine, author of Clockspeed; Watts Wacker, author of The Deviant's Advantage ; Hal Varian and Carl Shapiro, authors of Information Rules ; Paul Weifels and Geoffrey Moore, authors of Crossing the Chasm; and Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy.
It is almost impossible to read this book and not compulsively apply these exceptional models to personal life. At the moment I've been working with Stephen Covey's Urgency and Importance matrix.
For many of us, life is filled with tasks that are Urgent, leaving little time for more fundamental and long-term activities necessary for personal and professional development.The Time Management matrix explores two key dimensions, Importance and Urgency:
Importance. Things that are important are reflective of one's values and contribute to achieving higher-priority goals and personal mission. Importance is about results that matter.
Urgency. Urgent things require immediate attention. They tend to be visible, popular with others, and to act on us.
My cell-phone and inbox both feel highly Urgent, and I often answer my messages immediately, despite the fact that in most situations their Importance is questionable. I'm working at shifting away from a crisis-oriented instant response, which is in turn generating more free time to work on the things that are really important to me but don't necessarily jump in front of my face.
Without actually sitting down and plotting how I used my time during a week on the matrix, I would never have had to directly face the multitude of things I was sacrificing just to keep up with my trivial emails. It's the simplicity and clarity of 2x2 modeling that makes it a great tool for wrestling with dilemmas, and generating deep insights.
Most will find the book an easy and engaging read, especially the framework sections. The downside, if there is one, is the sheer volume of great frameworks. One can only absorb a few at a time and for this reason I'd recommend reading slowly, jumping from the table of contents right to parts that sound the most interesting.
You can purchase The Power of the 2x2 Matrix from bn.com; a sample chapter is available here. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Red pill or blue pill?
Trinity and Neo choose???
I can't see Neo saying "Whoa" about a Matrix that was just 2 by 2. Seriously, am I the only one who thought this was a Matrix Movie related topic at first glance?
What do you do if you're Damned if you do, but damned if you don't....
Error! This book has caused an Illegal operation!
it's the american way!
is whether to read this book or not.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"... simplify any dilemma you're experiencing to its two core, often competing, facets..." then flip a coin.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
You know that scene in the Matrix where Ted flails his arms about dodging bullets in slo-mo? Ever recreate that feeling by strategically going to the bathroom because you overheard something in the next cubicle suggesting your services might be volunteered?
"Derp de derp."
both Bush and Kerry
You can download some more chapters than just the first one at http://www.2x2matrix.com/downloads/.
Matrices are just glorified simultaneous equations!
If I go to a company and I see "How to Win Friends and Influence People", "Who Moved My Cheese","The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" or "Managment for Dummies" on a desk I know that it is not a place I want to work. To me it is the same as seeing "SQL for Dummies" on a lead DBA's desk if you are that far along in your career you should be well beyond those books.
No one can tell you about Matrix Decision Making, you need to read it for yourself...
I've recently stopped checking voicemails incessantly, and I feel strangely liberated as a result. I'm so used to being tied in to broadband at home and at the office, and 2.5G on the run, that it's nice to be blissfully unavailable once in a while. Whether I leave my cellphone at home, or prioritize my current activities higher than the interruption of the vibrating electronics, it's amazing how much more peaceful things can seem.
2x2 matrices are sometimes useful, but more often they just encourage us to limit the number of possibilities we consider. We're so prone to thinking in terms of binary choices anyway that what we need is something to help us see the multitude of possibilities rather than something that narrows the scope.
The goal of these decision matrices is not to actually make decisions, but to validate decisions - to get everyone to agree that the decision is the correct one, which is where most of the hard work lies in corporate decision-making. Generally there's plenty of people able to make the right decision, whether they be the local leader, an outside consultant, etc, without needing any gimmicks like "decision matrices". But getting everyone to agree on a decision and put their will behind it and implement it - boy, that takes all the shiny stuff you can muster.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Fortunately, I have a highly complex mind that can reduce any machine to a simple yes or no answer.
No!
i am betting that calculating the determinant is not a part of this book. hey look, i am a manager and i can talk with words from math in them to motivate you to do stupid things.
There is a pie
Player 1 gets to cut the pie
Player 2 chooses a piece.
Assuming both of these players are rational (rationality = wanting the biggest piece), we can represent all possible outcomes of the game in a matrix. The payoff for Player 1 is always going to be 1-n, where n is the percentage of the pie he cut. Since this stupid example is a zero sum game, it is easy to see that Player 1 will always get the smaller of two pieces, making it not hard to conclude that the best cut is an equal, 50/50 cut.
Obviously, the concept of payoff matrices can be extrapolated for more players and variables, but doing this quickly approached the limits of solving linear systems.
derek
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 2x2 Matrix?
Ted Stroehmann: Yeah, sure, 2x2 Matrix. Yeah, the decision making strategy.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 1... by... 1... Matrix.
Ted Stroehmann: Right. Yes. OK, alright. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a book store, you see 2x2 Matrix sittin' there, there's 1x1 Matrix right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted Stroehmann: I would go for the 1x1.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 1x1 Matrix. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 2x2 Matrix folk.
Ted Stroehmann: You guarantee it? That's -- how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 1x1 matrix, we're gonna send you an extra 1x1 matrix free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".
Ted Stroehmann: That's right. That's -- that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 0x0. Then you're in trouble, huh?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
...in a management book I've read. Employees all have willingness and ableness.
Great employees are willing AND able
Employees that need training are willing and not able
Employees and need some attitude adjusting are not willing and able
Employees that are about to get their asses fired are not willing and not able
It is very interesting to see this type of matrixed used in other places.
I generallly prefer to read up on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates, myself....
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Reminds me of the bit in "Dead Poets Society" where poetry is marked on a two dimensional axis: Perfection versus Importance.
Rip out this page of the book, I say. In fact no, rip out this whole book.
Now I see where our management team got their 'proactive' and 'synergy' and other buzzwords.
Thank you VERY MUCH Stephen Covey...
I go down to the nearest lumber yard and get me a good solid piece. It fixes everything from old tvs to points-of-view.
What's next? Weight loss? Stop smoking? Speed reading?
decisions are taken for you...
On the other hand, when will all this misleading titles cease?
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
A matrix is nothing more than a piece of graph paper with stuff written in the little squares.
Geez, you could make 2x2 matrixes of anything and make it sound like you're accomplishing something. How do you guard against backfitting a matrix to agree with a preferred solution? I didn't expect the review to give a complete understanding of this method, but I wish it were just a little more informative.
1 - The primary goal of the book is to show how to use the 2x2 matrix to improve decision-making.
2 - More specifically, it shows that the process of distilling business problems into two opposing axes can be useful.
3 - This book shows how to use 2x2 thinking to gain a better understanding of the key tradeoffs in decision-making and to identify solutions which transcend those tradeoffs.
Sounds interesting? Read the book! Sounds a bit to practical? Go watch T.V.!
After reading the above blurb about putting it on a 2x2 grid, I had a strong image of Robin Williams at the board drawing graphs as the student read, then afterward saying 'excrement', or some such. I expect that in the case of this decision-making thing, it can actually make sense to use the method. For judging poetry, though, no.
Also, I agree with the posts elsewhere- my first thought on the topic WAS the movies.
http://www.2x2matrix.com/downloads/chapter1.pdf
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
The truth is though, that once a corporation gets to a certain size, the more stuff like this becomes vital. And the only way a hard working engineer is ever going to be able to get his voice heard (or interpret what he is told) is to understand the processes and procedures that upper management uses.
Books like this are invaluable if you want to be a succesful engineer in a corporate environment, because no matter how many times you yell at your boss "this just isn't logical!!!!" your message isn't going to get across unless you can speak their language. Being an engineer isn't about exclusively knowing the numbers and running the experiments (we generally call those people "scientists"), it's about organizing your resources and abilities in a way that the general public will believe and buy into.
My biggest role models haven't been the cynical yet super intelligent underdogs, they've been the cynical yet super intelligent Senior engineers who got there knowing how to play the corporate BS for what it is. I say books like this should be required reading for any engineer who wants to be taken seriously in a corporation, and subsequently getting your inovative ideas across.
simple but effective boss matrix:
Evil
Harmless
by
Competent
Incompetent
Thus, if
-Competent, Evil deal with by steering towards co workers,
-if Incompetent Harmless, hang out with, senl lots of 'feel good' memos and cutsie emails,
-if Incompetent Evil - HIDE
-if Competent Harmless then upwardly delegate as much work as possible.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
seeker: "Master, can you help me to be more decisive?"
master: "Sure, here's how to decide anything. Make a 2x2 matrix and put your choices in it. Then choose the best answer."
seeker: "Ok, I assigned the variables randomly because I couldn't decide where to put them... now, which one is the right choice?"
master: "Uhhh.... I didn't realize you were a borderline intellectual functioner."
There is no right answer. Heute die wilt. Do or do not. yadda yadda...
Just print the section below, and drop a quarter on it. Wherever it lands, voila! That's the answer. Could this be any easier?
Maybe a 1x1 matrix test would be.
NO YES
stuff |
http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
This admission does not allow you to review the book. This is kind of like letting a priest sell you a bible, or a politician tell you how great his party is doing. It's a little *too* close to conflict of interest.
sig not found
From the movie Donnie Darko:
Donnie: Life isn't that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.
Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.
Donnie: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!
When all your problems in life and business can be neatly summed up into 4 absurdly simply outcomes, nothing beats the power of the 2x2 decision matrix. Examples:
........... Worship ... Don't Worship ......| Great ...... Hell .... Live it up!
........... Competent .... Not Competent ..| Yeh, right ....... Hell ..| Hell ...... Finally, someone honest!
Is there a God, and should I worship him?
God
No God | So-so
So what, if non-idiots wish to ruin the pea-brained genius of this matrix with questions like "What if there is more than one god, or that a single god might not care about Christian ideals?". This matrix can show you the only way to live your life correctly. And who can forget the sarcastic logic of Scott Adams, in this comic strip favorite:
Bosses:
Good
Evil
Finally, someone has discovered this breakthrough in philosophy that proves you are screwed no matter what you do. Before this, people actually had false hopes of something better, but they need not suffer under any such illusions today!
Pick up your copy at your local Barnes And Noble bookstore today, for these and many other incredible matrices!
N- "I asked you for your advice on which pill I should take, now instead of 2 choices I have 4. Are you messing with me? Or is this that 'new math' crap I heard about?"
M- "Okay, I'll skip the mystic mentor method and go straight to Telling You What to Do (tm). What you REALLY need is more choices..."
(an hour passes)
N- "Okay, so I can either fly to Bogota and look for a bearded man selling mule rides near a banana stand, or I can call my cousin Mikey and ask him to think of a prime number, or I can tap my heels together three times..."
M- "Damn, you're too stupid to get it aren't you. I guess you're not the One. Give me back my pills."
N- "ha ha ha ha ha, I'll just sell them both, and screw you and your philosophical dilemmas. I don't need Ultimate Awareness, I've got UltimatePasswords.com"
Yep. Now I feel far less judgemental.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Actual link to the sample chapter so you don't have to give your email to them.
I had lunch with a gentleman this afternoon who is of the opinion that math is the gateway to higher understanding of things throughout one's entire life. I am curious to what other people think in this aspect.
This is a good example, I think, of where math can help real world problems. However, the idea of isolating core issues and pitting the two against one another does not require an understanding of mathematical principles. From my point of view, many mathematical concepts and relationships work well in the abstract world as well as that on paper.
Is the whole "Math is Life" concept a bunch of fluff that serves itself or can it really be applied in a *real* sense often? Is math a highly important part of excelling in greater understanding?
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
You've already modified your personality to deal with what people demand of you. Why not spend some time intelligently introspecting and modify your personality so you're happier and get better things done?
case 0: a solution for p=np does not exist. case 1: it is unknowable whether a solution exists. case 2: it is knowable whether a solution exists but even if it does it is unimplementable. case 3: there is a solution to p=np, so keep trying to find it.
There, I used the matrix. I'll work on case 2, who wants the others?
in link form
I didn't know I was so annoying. My last post. Been nice being with you all fellas!!!!
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
so I am sticking with my dice
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The problem with airport books is that they are exceedinly selective in the research that they draw upon, and it is never fairly evaluated. Also conclusions are jumped to with great alacrity.
If you really want a good decision making book, my first recommendation is Jonathan Baron's "Thinking and Deciding". It is an undergraduate textbook, which I think is very geek friendly. Indeed, it is a bit too geek friendly for my wife's students, so she uses more basic text books.
I don't know what the reviewed book contains. I do know how management people use what they call the "2 by 2 matrix". If that is the only tool discussed in the book, then one should probably give it a miss. Any decision making book that doesn't discuss Bayesian reasoning is not something I would recommend to any geek. Baron's book I would. (And I have no connection with Baron).
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
You would be amazed at how evenly something can be divided by hand.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
How about thinking outside the box?
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
I don't know much about HtWFaIP or WHMC, but Seven Habits is good stuff. Most books are focused on letting you do the same stuff you've been doing more efficiently. Seven Habits tells you to figure out better stuff to do, and some tips on how. You are deceiving yourself if you think you just naturally do a good job of ignoring what people tell you you must do and instead do the right thing. It is very helpful to have a book to remind you of why and how you should do the right thing, even if you already know. And I'll guarantee that you haven't thought out how to do the right thing as well as Covey has.
By your argument, anyone with Design Patterns on their desk is a fool, because they should already know that stuff intuitively. That's true, to a degree - the stuff in Design Patterns should look very familiar. But you haven't spent the time weighing the pros & cons and communicating them clearly that Gamma et al have, and you need Design Patterns. If you think you don't, you probably need it more.
How do you choose?
This matrix concept is clearly inferior to the Jump to Conclusions mat.
90% Professional Slacker
Why not use a matrix appropriate to the size of the problem? After all, most geeks have access to octave or scilab.
"Just place an X on the line between 'Fear' and 'Love'"
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
...is the 1x1 matrix. It has been used to great effect by great minds like the US President.
I find that one of the challenges of being an effective manager is to develop an arsenal of different techniques. You may have your "natural" management style that's perfect for one person on your team, or for one type of problem that you need to solve, but that style may not be as effective on another person or problem.
A well written "management self-help" book gives me ideas for approaches I may not have considered. If I try out and and I like it, that becomes part of my "natural" management style as well. Just because a management book suggests a technique that you didn't think of yourself doesn't mean that you're not an effective manager with other methods.
Of course, a badly written management self-help book is crap, like any other badly written book.
I could almost feel my hair getting pointy just reading the blurb. And for some reason, I'm craving synergy. I think I'll go write a mission statement.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...in order to decide to buy the book or not.
if they know of a matrix that would represent adding more hacks to a bad codebase or cleaning up the code so that it's easier to add plenty of features down the road?
Color me skeptical, but I find it hard to believe that complex issues can be reduced to a simple 2x2 matrix. My initial impression is such a method will do nothing than promote false dichotomies to the detriment of real analysis.
It does, however, sound like the ideal method to present choices in PowerPoint.
That's not a compliment, just so we're clear.
-- Cerebus
In short it's a decision matrix that says believing in god is a better choice than not believing in god. Being an atheist I have to admit it's about the most convincing argument I've ever seen, largely because it's purely logical. Here is the short of it:
God exists------God does not exist
Wager for God-------Gain all--------Satus quo
Wager against God---Misery----------Status quo
Read all about it here.
Please excuse the horrible formatting, I suck at html.
Question everything
I was under the impression that all of this was handled by The Architect!
:)
-JT
My idea of "matrix decisionmaking" would be examining the variables and constraints, creating a linear set of equations therefrom, putting them in standard form, throwing the coefficients into a matrix, and applying the Gauss-Jordan method and/or simplex algorithm to them to find the coefficients that max or min Z.
Or you could graph it if there aren't too many dimensions...
But you couldn't do much linear programming with only four (2x2) elements.
Perhaps then this book could make my life easier!
Less Stupid/Less Pointless: A cookbook.
Less Stupid/More Pointless: The Zombie Survival Guide.
More Stupid/Less Pointless: A Dummy's Guide.
More Stupid/More Pointless: This book. Or this post. Take your pick.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
There's nothing like artificial quantification and psuedoscience to make a manager feel like he knows what he's doing.
For the tinfoil hat crowd out there.
Here is a link to the sample chapter mentioned in the slashdot story.
Oh give me a home where no signatures roam....
is one self-help book I wish more people would read.
Yeah, but the equation isn't balanced.
Geez, you could make 2x2 matrixes of anything and make it sound like you're accomplishing something.
[1 3
2 -1]
Therefore God exists, respond!
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
[Photocopy at library,
Download from Internet]
S
get the sample chapter here
Personally, I find that what's in Design Patterns is intuitive. I shouldn't need a reference book. Being less than perfect, though, I do.
I also find that it's intuitively obvious that I should delegate responsibility, not just work. Being less than perfect, sometimes I find myself convincing myself that I shouldn't, or arguing ineffectually with others about it. Having the reasons clearly laid out is a benefit.
If you never find yourself doing the wrong things out of expedience or stupidity, more power to you. One wonders why you're posting to slashdot instead of changing the world. Otherwise, having an inspirational and well thought out text to help you do the right things is a good thing.
I'm posting Paid For Placement on this article.
and while I'm at it, where the heck are all the Funny +5 that many of the posts above so deserve!
Never critisize, condemn, or complain...
When I got to the point in his book were he discusses having 7 children I got just a bit nauseous.
Overpopulation pressure is the underlying cause of most of our current problems, from global warming to terrorism. If population had been stable for the last few decades these problems wouldn't even exist.
He "effectively" raised them on a sort of mass production basis, giving each new one progressively less attention as it popped out, until one really messed up. He then, heroically, saves the little f*ck up.
The Good News from the Catholics -- Rome & Italy have a declining population when they can't use birth control. Uh, right.
I 2x2 decided I will never buy this book
Wrong way:
Right way: It was downright frightening. Apparently, the right way to talk to people is to just rearrange their sentences a la Eliza (M-x doctor), paying no attention to any semantic content. In fact, I think I fed that conversation (the son's side) to Eliza, and got similar results.My only hope for the future is that not many people took that book seriously. Yes, I would like the Turing Test to be successfull one day, but turning us all into mindless chatterbots is not it.
>|<*:=
so you will need one just to decide which one to use then...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Wacky vs Sober
Rational vs Emotional
Constructive vs Destructive
Leader vs Follower
As good as any I suppose, and maybe a bit more amusing.
Of course, you can take the test at this link, if you feel so inclined, and have nothing better to do.
Personality types described as follows here
All a good bit of entertainment. and better than some of the other stuff I've seen around [smile]
Some example results:
You are a WRCL--Wacky Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a golden god. People gravitate to you, and you make them feel good. You are smart, charismatic, and interesting. You may be too sensitive to others reactions, especially criticism. Your self-opinion and mood depends greatly on those around you. You think fast and have a smart mouth, is a hoot to your friends and razorwire to your enemies. You hold a grudge like a brass ring. You crackle.
Although you have a leader's personality, you often choose not to lead, as leaders stray too far from their audience. You probably weren't very popular in high school--the joke's on them! You may be a rock star.
You are a WRDL--Wacky Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you an enemy of the state. You are charismatic and winning and a very dangerous enemy. You favor justice over compassion, and would almost rather see your opponent fail than you succeed. You impact the lives of those around you more than any other personality. People remember your name and respect you. You are a tremendous amount of fun to be around and astonishing to watch. You are generally abstinent in your habits, and you like things tidy and ordered.
When picking teams, it is smartest for others to pick yours.
You are a WRDF--Wacky Rational Destructive Follower. This makes you a hacker. Your thirst for knowledge can be damaging to your possessions--you like to take things apart, even if you then forget to put them back together. You demand respect and, no matter how much you are respected, seldom feel it is adequate. You are tenacious, and will stick to a task long after weaker minds have given it up.
Socially, you are awkward, and get into arguments and make people uncomfortable. One recommends counting to ten, holding back comments unless warranted, and listening more than speaking. Still, your no-holds-barred approach to socialization can be strangely endearing, as long as you are funny and self-deprecating. You feel misunderstood, and you probably are.
You are a WEDF--Wacky Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you a menace to society, depending on how you channel your energies. You chew your fingers and have an addictive personality. Properly guided, you can be enormously productive--otherwise you run amok, stir up trouble, and generally have a hell of a good time.
To your friends, you are a source of relentless entertainment. You often get into trouble, but you almost always find a way out. You are strangely popular and feed off others' energy. You live hard, seize the day, and although your more sober friends would like to see you settled down, you generally have fewer regrets and better memories than they do. Your tenet is that, at the end of the day, one regrets only what one didn't try. You are right. You could benefit from outside help in balancing your highs and lows. Or perhaps cutting back on the caffeine.
You are an SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I guess I agree that it would bother me if they kept those books on their desk. A little. Since you had loads bad to say and nothing good to say, it sounded as if you were condemning people for reading them. I see now that you are condemning people for displaying them as books they refer to frequently.
I still disagree with you about the book's value, but not as sharply as it first seemed. When I picked it up, I expected it to be self-help buzzword laden bullshit. When I read it, I got some value out of it, and I recommend it to people. It surprised me.
Employees that need training are willing and not able
Because you don't want to optimize the number of logic gates in a digital circuit scheme.
This has nothing to do with that.
"The models range from highly business-oriented strategy, marketing, and employee-motivation frameworks, to personally oriented frameworks that help structure time, understand personality conflicts, improve leadership skills, and evaluate career transition opportunities."
That sounds like straight from Dev::Bollocks
Tels
World War II might have gone a different way if not for "operational research," which sought decision-making rules for the precise allocation of resources. I hope that anyone with an MBA has heard at least of the Simplex Algorithm from 1947, and thinks of Game Theory as something absolutely precise about best strategies given well-defined input. Even dumbass Excel comes with a suite of tools, both linear and nonlinear, for performing optimizations, and today's desktops are capable of running what-if scenarios that would have required supercomputers just 10 years ago.
This 2x2 matrix idea seems awfully damned fluffy, considering how much is known about optimizing complex systems. Definitely an "airport book," as another Slashdotter described it.
the 2x2 matrix is often just a glorified illustration of the ability to recognize false choices. It's not so much inspiring that an executive would whip out a 2x2 matrix after many months of corporate strategy meetings, as it is depressing that so much time was wasted beforehand.
Any time you feel a conflict, it is because there are two (or more) elements warring against each other. Sometimes it's just a matter of realizing that we've told ourselves that we can only have one or the other, and discovering that we can instead say "both", which is what the upper right areas of these little matrices are about. Most of us don't need months of corporate meetings to recognize that.
false choices... dichotomies... double-binds... 2x2 matrices... all related.
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
"My point is that if you have to learn this from a book and it is not common sense then you probably won't be a very good manager."
Common sense is rather uncommon.
Bah. I think that's only because geeks who aren't "math-n-physics-n-star-trek" geeks don't LOOK like geeks as often to other people. Mathematics impresses people as "geeky" because most (so-called) normal people don't spend the time to go too far beyond the basics - face it, even a lot of basic science work requires no more than introductory algebra (and when was the last time you actually had a practical use for "synthetic division" personally?)
While mathematics does tend to be under-appreciated in many contexts, I think some of its fans tend to be a bit too disconnected from the "real world" most of the time. I remember some of those bizarrely-contrived "word problems". And far too many people think that numbers are THINGS. (When, out here in the real world, a number is more like an adjective than a noun - i.e. a number by itself, without something to describe, is meaningless...)
I tend to think that people who are over-awed at mathematics are the same sort of people who think that being a chess master automatically makes someone qualified to command a real-world military force...
I further think that to have a "mathematics" academic department separate from its applications makes about as much sense as having "adjectives and verbs" as a subject separate from "language and communication". I'd be much happier to see mathematics taught in the contexts where it is used ("Pure numbers" math "geeks" can still exist - they belong in the "philosophy" department.)
Ironically, the most enjoyable math class I've had thus far was Statistics, which I thought EVERYONE was supposed to hate. Go figure. (Deep down, I think it's because Statistics is where they finally admit "Okay, mathematicians don't REALLY know what's going on in the real world, but we HAVE developed a decent system for making good guesses...")
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Complex Formula Not Complex Formula
Takes t>30'| (x+y)^2=(x^2+y^2+2xy) | x^(-1)=1/x
Takes t<30'| ln(e^x)=x | 2x2
If you can understand what's wrong with the matrix above, you don't need to read that book. If you can't, you need to understand the stuff above before reading that book.
if you really want to imporve your thinking/decision making skills then do yourself a favour and buy/go to the library and read some Edward deBono. Or try the online daily passage
There's no fancy gimics just thinking skills backed up by phd level psychology, physiology and medicine and thirty years of practice.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Appropriate: Leaders vs. Managers
Bogus: Pointy-Haired Bosses vs. Blathering Idiots
Now, if anyone can tell the difference between these types of people, this might Appropriate and Powerful :-).
That this is just astrological theory without the subtleties?
Sure dude, be a good geek and throw out the work of the old-time geeks; Just because you never mastered assembly language you were never able to see that mysticism is your usual mix of code from the boards without a common RTL.
So I guess I'm endorsing the book... Which I have. had. Since it came out. Because someone's going to have to go after these guys for theft of IP at one time.
But oh, wait, that stuff has been in the public domain for so long that it seems anyone can just pick up some pieces, apply some polymorphism and call it theirs.
So just as its properly called GNU/Linux, this ought to be called Mystic/Matix.
And don't even get me started about the Matrix and how it's simply derived from the tree of life.
I say Go Ancient Geeks! your stuff was so solid its still running today.
Does the book mention Goldratt's Theory of Constraints at all?
First things first : 1) I'm drunk, so I may be overreacting, and 2) I did not read the entire thread, so that post may be redundant ... Anyway :
... meaning at most 4 complex or hypercomplex numbers ... Moreover, according to your description of that book and the theory behind it, seems like every entry in that matrix has 2^2 (Low or High for two parameters) possible values ...
... That may be a good solution for ruling humanity as a whole, I dunno, not there yet, however ... Even at a high corporate level (say "CEO"), isn't that a bit simplistic ? Isn't that trying to think like each employee does not exist as an individual, but is a drone that obeys a program ? This does not seem logical to me, and I guess the whole crap about this is to rationnalize human behavior, so ...
2x2 matrices
Well
The thing is, humanity has became what it is because of a phenomena known as "emergence". Sure, most people (myself included) will behave in a very predictable way most of the time. However, what makes us human, and what lead humanity to evolve (as a society) is the fact that some elements do not always behave as they are meant to. That can have pretty awful consequences, but most of the time, it leads to progress.
I believe that trying to exclude that factor and forget what makes us different from machines is a big mistake, because, in the first place, you don't have the same point(s) of view as the people or groups you are describing using your decision matrix ; it does not account for that, therefore I think it is bogus.
I sense much beer in you. Beer leads to intoxication, intoxication leads to hangover. Hangover leads to sobering.
Excellent examples would include the following:
- Pessimism/Hope vs. Ignorance/Information
- Mistake/Deliberate vs. Dishonest/Honest
- Impractical/Practical vs. Difficult/Easy
- Not Salty/Salty vs. Inexpensive/Expensive
- Unemotional/Emotional vs. Unpleasant/Enjoyable
After such inspirational examples, the book is largely redundant.Oh Crap... I can't decide on which book store I should buy this book from... damn it.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
"Mr. Wizard, get me out of here..."
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Faking things initially, will eventually lead to the action being natural if you keep repeating it. For example, I was shy, scared, etc to approach girls at clubs/school/etc. Then I read pickupguide.com, fastseduction.com (and some other stuff), and started faking being confident. After approaching 50 or so girls, I started becoming confident. Guess what ? faking it did me a lot of good....
It was the gayest book ever.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Competent vs. Incompetent
Aggressive vs. Passive
Where the Aggressive-Incompetents are to be contained and avoided, Passive-Incompetents are ignored, Passive-Competents are trusted with semi-important tasks, and Agressive-Competents do the planning, key tasks, and keep the agressive-incompetents from ruining everything. I usually found myself in groups of 4 with one of each represented.
I told a historian/economist friend about my little matrix, thinking myself very clever and original, and he shut me right down saying, "Yeah, Otto Von Bismarck came up with pretty much the same thing 80 years ago." Still, the model has served me well, through school and professionally, though I never thought it original.
And now some manage-oids are trying to make a buck with the same old thing with a new name. So what else is new?
Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a multiple criteria decision making method when you are faced with a small number of choices, yet each choice has a bunch of attributes that are difficult to formalize.You can Google analytic hierarchy process for about 74,600 links. I actually implemented the AHP into a program called SELDON for the Macintosh back in the OS 8 days. Sold the program as shareware for $29. Now SELDON sits in a dusty folder on my Windows machine awaiting the days when I, or someone I partner with, have time to port SELDON to java for cross platform support. Before the Asimov estate gets all in a huff, SELDON is an acronym for System for Effectively Legitimizing Decisions Objectively and Naturally. (heh heh)
-- I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
If you put a false dichotomy on one axis, and a false dichotomy on the other, you get 4 squares of who cares.
Voicemail is the most enormous waste of time.
Quick--which is better--a quick three line e-mail, or listening to some idiot ramble on for a couple of minutes as he gradually gets to the point and remembers the three things he needed to tell you? Now add to that the fact that you need to sit and write down the details of his ramblings, and often play the message twice to make out bits of it. Aargh!
I make a point of only listening to voicemail when I've run out of e-mail to respond to, and only responding to voicemail with e-mail. I note this in my directory profile. I also used to have my voicemail message say "If your message is urgent or important, please send me e-mail or an instant message... if not, please speak after the tone."
Another good trick is to let your voice mail fill up until it disables itself.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is nothing new. Google yourself on "Greimas semantic rectangle". SciFi readers may also remember this from Michel Duval's analysis on Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."