That worked when three assumptions held. What got reported up was trustworthy. Intelligence applied properly produced sound judgement. And good people could overcome a mediocre system.
All three are now under pressure. You can’t diagnose from what gets reported up. The dashboards aren’t the issue. They’re showing you what people say they do, and that’s drifted from what they actually do. Cognitive research keeps showing intelligence and judgement decouple, so clever people build better arguments for the answers they already had. And Google’s Project Aristotle settled the third one across 180 teams: systems beat talent at scale.
So the answer isn’t already in the room. It has to be uncovered. That’s what the 4Es is for: Explore, Experiment, Envision, Enable. A method for finding what to build, testing what works, designing the system, and transferring the capability so it lasts.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund just ran this playbook at $1.8 trillion scale. Half the organisation now writes its own code. Time will test whether it lasts.
Build what doesn’t need you.
Long term support and advisory board member of Little Grey cells Club, Cecilia Weckstrom’s latest paper
Read the full piece here
