The Next Corner

Big and small problems are, in key ways, the same. There is a crucial yet hard-to-understand concept here. Most people grasp the need to set priorities; they put the biggest problems at the top, with smaller problems beneath them. There are simply too many small problems to consider them all. So they draw a horizontal line beneath which they will n

The challenge is that life doesn’t line everything up for us and say, “Here’s where you should start.” Highly successful people know this. So every day they line up their priorities anew, find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls.

The great illusion in life and business that makes the kaizen philosophy of incremental improvements so poorly adopted, disregarded and overlooked, is that small things are just small things. This is objectively true, but a large number of small things is a large thing, and it’s easier, more inclusive of all team members, and therefore more achieva

the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet they cannot succeed as isolated individuals, either—that is anarchy. Instead, they require a seemingly con