Despite the head-scratching logic of repeatedly using boxes to describe what seemed like outside the box thinking (2x2 grids, a dubious overuse of 'bento') I found this to be an enjoyable, easy, and agreeable read. Strickler, perhaps best known as the CEO of Kickstarter, seems to be coming around to my view of value - it's not just a question of financial maximization. I admit this makes me a biased reader, but I'm just happy to have someone of his stature, success, and conviction on the team.
My notes from the book are here.
This Could Be Our Future by Yancey Strickler (March 2020)
Strickler sprinkles a number of interesting observations throughout his book that support his broader point about rethinking value to include more than just financial considerations. For example, he notes that in the USA 62% of personal bankruptcies are caused by the health care system, and that chain stores return a smaller proportion of their earnings to the local economy than do smaller local operations. He also brings up tactical examples that aren't obviously related to his idea yet I found interesting, such as how retailers try to open locations that do not force driving customers to make left turns. The most memorable comment was that continuity is a critical ingredient for a society, which I found valuable as an organizing principle for all of these otherwise loosely related observations.
I couldn't fully agree with everything Strickler said regarding a 'default' worldwide setting to maximize financial return. First, most of the world needs to maximize financial return since most of the world doesn't have money. The data is tough to nail down, but from my estimate it could be up to 75% of the world that can be considered low income or impoverished. If we use the data he cited that people are better off increasing their income until they reach around $75,000 per year, then that 75% number goes up even higher. I think much of what Strickler writes about applies only to people like me (though this isn't necessarily an issue, since we are the only types of people who would read this book without tearing it to shreds, on the grounds that it advocates a too-slow approach to solving poverty).
The most important note in the book was that ideas can only survive on their own merits for so long. In order to become something more significant, an idea requires support (and supporters). In my managerial work, I've recently found myself placing an increasing emphasis on making decisions that harness the existing energy in the team, using the logic that such decisions already have 'support' in the form of obvious, present energy. I'm going to look for the right way to blend Strickler's thought about supporting ideas into my evolving framework so that I am not just identifying the visible energy, but also thinking about where it may be lurking just out of sight, waiting to beckoned out onto the main stage.
TOA Power Rating: Three bentos out of four.
Footnotes / director's cuts
0a. Book recommendations
Sometimes one book will lead me to another, so I thought I would start highlighting these connections as footnotes to the main reading review.
Strickler references a book called Not for Bread Alone, written by Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic. A few things about the book caught my eye, notably Matsushita's idea that a businessman had a duty to earn a profit so that part of it could be taxed, or the revelation that Matsushita thought an appropriate 250-year goal for a consumer electronics company would be to eradicate poverty in the world. Not sure if that is big or hairy or audacious enough goal for the academic types to reference in business books, but it's good enough for me to add Not for Bread Alone to my book list.
0b. Book idea
Strickler points out how single-stream recycling might be an example of financial concerns causing broader system problems. Single-stream means collecting from one bin rather than having separate bins for each material. This means cheaper collection but it complicates the step of converting used material into a new product because the recycling plant must sift through everything. If the overall output of new product goes down, then this reduces the overall effectiveness of recycling in exchange for an optimized collection step. If The Goal ever needs to be recycled, perhaps this example is the starting point for the next edition.
