"Upside decay means that an organization doesn’t get any lucky breaks.
You’d think that being on the lookout for missing positive tail events would be enough to spot upside decay. But it’s too late to be useful. We need to observe an organization over a long period of time or have access to a generous chunk of its history. By the time we identify the presence of upside decay, it will already be far advanced.
What’s worse, upside decay has corrosive effects on organizations. Trying to connect with people becomes sluggish and hard. Things which were easy become longer, slower, more tedious. Problems that are left unattended will metastasize. Motivated people can still push projects through and deal with problems, but it takes all their time and energy and burns them out."
This has so many implications for organizations, governments, society, everyday life.
You’d think that being on the lookout for missing positive tail events would be enough to spot upside decay. But it’s too late to be useful. We need to observe an organization over a long period of time or have access to a generous chunk of its history. By the time we identify the presence of upside decay, it will already be far advanced.
What’s worse, upside decay has corrosive effects on organizations. Trying to connect with people becomes sluggish and hard. Things which were easy become longer, slower, more tedious. Problems that are left unattended will metastasize. Motivated people can still push projects through and deal with problems, but it takes all their time and energy and burns them out."
This has so many implications for organizations, governments, society, everyday life.