What Is This Effort For? | Working Hard on the Wrong Problem

Hey Reader,

Welcome to The Compass, your written companion to The Strategic Thinker podcast. Here, we break down powerful insights and practical actions to help you think long term and build the life of your dreams.

This Week's Reflection

When you’re working hard on something, how often do you stop to ask what the extra effort is actually achieving?

I once put extra hours into work that felt strategic. It was aimed at the wrong problem.

The Idea Worth Sitting With

We tend to think about effort as a quantity. How much more should I put in? When do I stop?

The more useful question is about direction. What is this extra work actually for, and is it reaching the thing I think it’s reaching?

I spent the early part of my career in aerospace engineering, where that question answers itself.

In that world, ninety percent is a failure. So is ninety-nine.

A component that works almost all of the time is not a component you put on an aircraft. The cost of the exception is measured in lives.

So the standard is enormously high, and the extra effort is obviously worth it.

What This Looked Like for Me

Some years later, I was building analytical models. Complex ones, on projects I would eventually move off.

So I documented them thoroughly. I made the methodology explicit, and sometimes did extra work purely so someone else could follow the reasoning.

That was deliberate, and I thought it was strategic. Effort now, for a clean handover later.

Then I watched a few handovers happen.

The models were still hard to pass on, and the reason had almost nothing to do with my documentation.

The next analyst approached the problem differently. They would have structured it another way, and made their own judgment calls. My documentation explained my thinking perfectly well. It just couldn’t make my thinking theirs.

The barrier was never clarity. It was approach.

The extra hours weren’t wasted, exactly. They simply weren’t solving the thing I believed they were solving.

I’ve since scaled the documentation back. Formulas you can follow. Enough to work with. The handovers go about as well as they ever did.

In aerospace, the answer was clear, and the answer justified almost any amount of effort. In my models, the answer was clear too. It was just aimed at the wrong problem.

Insight of the Episode

"The question is never how good is good enough. The question is: good enough for what?"

This Week's Reflection Questions

Think of something you’re working on right now that you keep improving. What is that extra effort for?

And if you’re honest about the obstacle in front of you, is the effort actually pointed at it?

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It’s a Spark, just under four minutes long.

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Your future self is being shaped by the choices you make today. Stay focused on your direction, and take time to discover joy along the way.

Until next time, make your best next decision, and keep moving forward.

Greatness rewards the few who walk the path with intent.