Comprehensive: covering completely or broadly. First known use 1614. Synonyms: all-embracing, all-inclusive, broad-gauge, compendious, complete, encyclopedic, cover-all, cyclopedic, embracive, exhaustive, full, global, inclusive, in-depth, omnibus, panoramic, thorough, universal. Antonyms: imperfect, incomplete, partial.
words
single-minded
single-minded: having only one purpose, goal, or interest; focused on one thing; having one driving purpose or resolve. First known use 1836.
Synonyms: bent (on or upon), bound, decisive, do-or-die, firm, hell-bent (on or upon), intent, purposeful, resolute, resolved, set. Antonyms: faltering, hesitant, indecisive, irresolute, undetermined, unresolved, vacillating, wavering, weak-kneed.
In American thinking to be single-minded is always positive. It means to be wholly focused.
Always positive?
Margins of Error
The United States has enjoyed the most favorable margins of error. Risk-taking could flourish under such circumstances.
It is protected by two natural barriers, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its neighbor to the north – Canada – is culturally a cousin and has never been a threat. Its neighbor to the south – Mexico – was defeated in wars and lost large pieces of territory to the U.S. It, too, has never posed a threat to the security and stability of the U.S.
The indigenous population – the American Indians – were driven from their territorial homelands, killed in wars, placed on reservations. The nation has access to immense natural resources, chief among them land.
Margin of error: An amount (usually small) that is allowed for in case of miscalculation or change of circumstances.
Risk (noun): A situation involving exposure to danger, the possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen, a person or thing regarded as likely to turn out well or badly, as specified, in a particular context or respect; a person or thing regarded as a threat or likely source of danger; a possibility of harm or damage against which something is insured; the possibility of financial loss.
risk (verb): Expose (something or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss; act or fail to act in such a way as to bring about the possibility of (an unpleasant or unwelcome event); incur the chance of unfortunate consequences by engaging in (an action).
Ockham’s Razor
Isolate: To cause a person or place to be or remain alone or apart from others; to identify something and examine or deal with it separately.
Simplicity: The quality or condition of being easy to understand or do; the quality or condition of being plain or natural; a thing that is plain, natural, or easy to understand. Late Middle English. From Old French simplicite or Latin simplicitas, from simplex.
Sophistication: The quality of being sophisticated; development to a high degree of complexity; the quality of being aware or and able to interpret complex issues; the characteristic of having, revealing, or proceeding from a great deal or worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture. From medieval Latin sophisticatus, “tampered with”.
Elegance: The quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner; the quality of being pleasingly ingenious and simple; neatness.
KISS: The acronym for “keep it simple, stupid” is attributed to Kelly Johnson, an engineer at the U.S. weapons company Lockheed. Although there are several other variations, the principle states that systems work best if they are kept simple. Complexity should be avoided. Johnson had given a team of design engineers a set of tools, then challenged them to design a jet aircraft which can be repaired by an average mechanic under war conditions with these tools only.
There is nothing original about KISS, however. To Leonardo da Vinci is attributed “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Mies van der Rohe, widely regarded as one of the masters of modern architecture, stated time and again that “less is more”. Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the French aristocrat, poet, writer (The Little Prince) and pioneering aviator has been quoted: “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
William of Ockham (1288-1348), an English Franciscan friar and one of the major figures of Medieval thought, wrote that “among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected”.
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was an American philosophical movement that began in the early 19th century. Transcendentalists emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and avoiding conformity.
Many of the transcendentalists’ suggestions for how to live life were based on the assumption of readily-available resources, and especially on the idea that one shouldn’t be too careful about wasting resources, because often good things come out of failure.
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
“Hitch your wagon to a star.”
“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.’”
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Henry David Thoreau:
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”
Amos Bronson Alcott:
“We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.”
WBS
WBS stands for work breakdown structure. Wikipedia defines it as: „A hierarchical and incremental decomposition of the project into phases, deliverables and work packages. It is a tree structure, which shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an objective; for example a program, project, and contract.
In a project, the WBS is developed by starting with the end objective and successively subdividing it into manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility (e.g., systems, subsystems, components, tasks, subtasks, and work packages) which include all steps necessary to achieve the objective.“
Wikipedia goes on to claim that WBS was developed by the United States Department of Defense and was introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1957 to support the development of the Polaris missile program.
Breaking down complexity into its component parts in order to focus on what is truly critical is hardly a development of any human organization of the 20th Century. Surely it is has been fundamental to human thinking for quite some time.
Analysis and Intuition
Good decision making in the American context means a healthy balance between objective analysis and intuition.
Intuition: The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. Late Middle English denoting spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication. Latin intueri, to consider.
Empiricism. Observation. For Americans, intuition is experience-based knowledge, called on immediately. Intuition is more than a spontaneous thought, a “gut reaction”, a hunch. Americans trust the judgement of the experienced, the wise, of those “who have been there”.
But not to the exclusion of objective analysis. Americans are constantly coming up with new ways to quantify what is deeply human, what in its essence cannot be quantified. It’s a question of balance. When to go with the objective analysis, when with intuition? Can they be combined?
Star Trek. A brilliant television series. Late 1960s. Deeply human, created with little frills, eye-candy, special effects. Instead it tapped into the human imagination, the greatest source of special effects. Kirk is intuition. Spock is reason. Tension between the two. But it worked.
People Driven
Americans are skeptical of business processes that attempt to replace human judgment. They believe that decision-making is inherently human. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgment, a person or a group of persons makes the decision. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgment.
Analysis defines the situation, the options, their respective risks and benefits. Experience informs about how the situation could/should be dealt with. And intuition influences the decision.
Decision: A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration; the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question; a formal judgment; the ability or tendency to make decisions quickly; decisiveness. From Latin decidere “determine”.
Analysis: Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation; the process of separating something into its constituent elements; the identification and measurement of the chemical constituents of a substance or specimen.
Scope Creep
Scope creep is when a task or project grows beyond its original intent, requiring more people, time and money than originally planned. It is typically a result of poor task definition, change control or internal communication. A precisely defined decision limits scope creep.
Scope: The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant; the opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something.
Creep: To move slowly and carefully, especially in order to avoid being heard or noticed; moving very slowly at a steady pace; occur or develop gradually and almost imperceptibly; increase slowly but steadily in number or amount. Old English crēopan, meaning to “move with the body close to the ground”. Of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kruipen.
According to Economic Recovery Measures, Financial Rescues Have Only Temporary Impact by Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush-era tax cuts and its extension during the Obama presidency, in addition to the deficit-financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, account for “almost half of the $18 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019.” Deficit-creep.
Decision-Making Process
Germans are process oriented. They think through how a task is best completed. Germans set up work processes which are logical, structured, can be monitored and optimized. Since there is no action without first a decision to act, Germans focus on how decisions are made.
The more complex the decision, the more carefully Germans consider how they make it. Who will be affected by the decision? Who has the final say about the decision? Who has what rights and responsibilities? Germans believe that routine, yet complex, decisions are best made with the help of a decision-making process. And the better the process, the better the decisions made.
The Germans are methodical. In order to maintain Überblick (overview) and Durchblick (throughview) they distinguish carefully between specific steps and their individual requirements within a decision making process. Germans believe that a methodical approach minimizes mistakes.
They also assign a generous time frame to an important decision. In order to move carefully through the process they allow for the repetition of certain steps. Germans believe in moving to the next step in a process only after the preceding step has been completed properly. Patience and thoroughness are critical.
A methodical approach means a well-structured process with sequential action. The clearer the process, the tighter and more logical the sequence of the individual steps, the better coordinated all of the related activities.
Method. Latin methodus, Greek méthodos: The path of analysis, the route to somewhere; a set way to reach insight; a specific way of doing something; the path to a specific goal; based on a plan; well thought through.
German education stresses methodology. University students receive their degrees after demonstrating in a thesis that they have mastered the methodologies current in their field of study. The first part of a thesis goes into great detail about the specific methodology of analysis applied to the subject.
Sequence. Latin sequentia: order of things; to place similar things in line; repetition of a musical motif; shorter pieces of a movie put in a specific order; series of cards in a row.