Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s lifelong business partner at the investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, was famous for his powerful mental models and clear thinking.
One of his favorite mental models was *inversion. Invert. Always invert,” he said, “Don’t just think about what you want. Think about what you want to avoid…How can I hurt these people I want to help?”
Inversion helps you see aspects of a situation you might otherwise miss. Here’s an example:
What would I do if I wanted to completely destroy the productivity of a team, if I wanted to make them as ineffective as I possibly could?
That’s an inversion question.
Before you click through to see my list, make a list of your own in your mind or in writing. What would you do to completely destroy the productivity of a team?
Here’s what I’d do…
- I would make sure that they are as far from their customer as they could. No direct feedback, no real understanding of why they’re doing what they’re doing.
- I would make sure that the team is missing at least one key skill, so that they frequently have to wait for tasks to be completed outside their team.
- I would require them to get permission and approval to do anything of substance. I’d really limit their scope of authority.
- I would scatter the team across time zones so that communication in the team has to happen asynchronously. Ideally, in this negative world, I would try to make it so that they have almost no overlapping hours on their team.
- I would ensure that the metrics that we use and the things that we track value individual utilization. Everyone should seem maximally busy all the time. And along those lines, I’d build in disincentives for collaboration. You only get credit for things that you own.
- I would try to build a culture on the team that we’re unique, and what has worked elsewhere won’t work here, because we’re special. That would make us immune to influence from success stories elsewhere.
- I would try to create rivalry within and around the team.
- I would ignore toxic behavior from team members who would be hard to replace.
I could keep going, but I think that’s a pretty good list. Of course, the point isn’t to do these things. These are things to avoid or undo, and they teach us about how to create a team that’s as productive as it can be.
The most shocking thing about this list to me is that I didn’t have to stretch and list crazy things that nobody experiences. This is a list of real things I see in organizations every day. They’re already set up to make things bad for the team.
Which of those things looks most like your current reality? It’s probably hurting the productivity of the team.
For example, suppose you write down, “I would make sure that the team is missing at least one key skill,” you might immediately think, “Wait a minute. Most of my teams are missing at least one key skill. They’re constantly having to coordinate with each other. What other team structures could I consider?”
The funny thing about mental models like inversion is once you’ve used one, it just seems obvious and it’s easy to dismiss the insights that you get from something like this, because once you see them, they’re clear to you.
In the middle of a problem, though, that insight is hard to find on your own.
But what if you could cultivate that kind of clarity in your work, in your decision making all the time?
That’s what happens when clients engage us for coaching. We give them massive leverage, massive increases in clarity and decisiveness. As one client put it, “I got more done in this hour than the whole week.”
We’re taking on a few more coaching clients this quarter. Contact us to see if you’re a fit.
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