Kenneth Stanley: Set The Right Objectives

1. Discard Security Blanket Thinking

Stop relying on assessment, accountability, objectives, and metrics as a ‘security blanket’ that only makes you feel better but doesn’t actually work for complex problems; instead, acknowledge the inconvenient and difficult reality of innovation.

2. Avoid Strict Ambitious Objectives

For ambitious goals, avoid setting strict objectives and associated metrics, as this can paradoxically block your ability to achieve the desired outcome and lead you down deceptive, dead-end paths.

3. Embrace Subjective “Interestingness”

Overcome the cultural fear of subjective judgment and actively engage with the question of ‘what is interesting,’ especially for experts, as this ‘magic sauce’ of human intuition is crucial for innovation and requires deep insight.

4. Proliferate Stepping Stone Candidates

For complex problems, generate and explore a diverse ‘portfolio’ of potential ‘stepping stone candidates’ or experiments, understanding that some will not pay off, but this proliferation is essential for discovering true progress.

5. Tolerate Risk and Failure

Embrace and tolerate the risk of experiments not working out, as this willingness to accept failure is crucial for allowing new ‘stepping stones’ and innovative solutions to proliferate and ultimately lead to breakthroughs.

6. Adopt Evolutionary Experimentation

Approach ambitious goals with an evolutionary mindset by trying numerous small experiments (‘mutations’), propagating those that yield interesting insights, and doing so ‘blindly’ without knowing the ultimate best results.

7. Prioritize “Interesting” Stepping Stones

Shift accountability from solely metric-driven progress to recognizing and rewarding ‘interesting’ stepping stones, even if they are not objectively detectable by conventional assessment techniques, as these are the true drivers of innovation.

8. Cultivate Effective Serendipity

Instead of strictly pursuing objectives, actively create situations and environments that set you up for effective serendipity, as many important discoveries and innovations arise unexpectedly.

9. Disseminate Interesting Discoveries

Establish systems and cultures that facilitate the dissemination of interesting discoveries and effective practices throughout relevant social networks to foster widespread improvement and innovation.

10. Empower Individual Peer Judgment

Foster a peer review culture that disentangles individual judgment from monolithic global views, allowing experts to express unique assessments, follow up on potential, and build upon ideas that others might not immediately recognize as valuable.

11. Avoid “Too Much Sense” Ideas

When seeking revolutionary outcomes, be wary of ideas that ‘make too much sense’ because truly transformative stepping stones are often counterintuitive and appear strange or nonsensical at first, making them less likely to be pursued by others.

12. Pursue Unpredictable Paths

Intentionally deviate from predictable paths or what others expect you to do next, as predictable actions are likely to be pursued by others, while unpredictable ones offer opportunities for novel and truly innovative contributions.

13. Embrace Novelty and Deviation

Actively seek novelty by pursuing ideas and paths that haven’t been tried before and fundamentally differ from past approaches, as this deviation from the familiar is a core component of interestingness and drives innovation.

14. Continuously Deviate from Comfort

To maintain innovation, intentionally expend energy to deviate from comfortable, successful, and predictable paths, even if it’s scary, as sticking to what you’re known for can lead to a rut and reduce your innovative output over time.

15. Follow True Stepping-Stone Visionaries

Distinguish between speculative ‘visionaries’ who set ambitious goals without knowing the path, and true visionaries who recognize when the necessary ‘stepping stones’ and technologies have genuinely snapped into place, as the latter are the ones to follow for actual progress.

16. Focus on Interesting Explorations

Engage in explorations within a domain because they are ‘interesting,’ even if the grandiose objective is unrealistic, as this process unearths valuable ‘stepping stones’ that can lead to other useful and innovative side effects.

17. Strategically Tolerate Risk

Acknowledge that while some risks are too high (e.g., national economy), many domains, like scientific research, have ample room for risk-taking and experimentation; carefully assess tolerable risk levels for each specific system.

18. Reform Innovation-Focused Departments

Critically examine and reform departments explicitly tasked with innovation within organizations, as they often operate with objective-driven methods that are counterproductive and force innovators to leave to pursue their ideas.

19. Advocate for Principled Innovation

Use well-founded arguments (like those in the book) to advocate for a principled approach to innovation within your organization, even if it challenges the prevailing objective-driven culture, to empower change without appearing ‘wacky.’

20. Distinguish Objective Types

Understand that objectives are good when modest (achievable, done many times) but problematic when ambitious (don’t know how to do), and apply critiques primarily to the latter.