Peak Performance Newsletter #14 | Homeostatic Heuristics
On shifting our frame from the static ideal to the dynamic real.
Homeostatic Heuristics
One of the more limiting questions you can ask yourself is if something is the "right" thing to do. It's a very bad question masquerading as a very good question, and the reasons for its badness are insidious.
Asking if something is the right thing to do sounds smart because it quickly draws a line. It resonates with our moralizing mind. We like things to be black and white. It keeps them clean.
The problem with the question is the implicit frame it poses on reality. Rightness implies that:
I. Outcomes are the result of a single decision or moment, rather than a broader process
We love to zoom into the highlights and drill down into root causes, looking for the single moment that turned, or will turn, the tide. Narrative fallacy abounds and we forget that this sort of clarity is purely a post hoc invention.
The reality is that most of life is not like a robotics factory where failure can be drilled down to a clear single point of failure. Nor is it like a sports game where a decisive point turns the tide toward victory. Life is much better resembled by an organic process.
Why did your houseplant die? It's probably not just because you overwatered it. You likely were very consistent in watering it. But there was one week where it was cloudier than usual, and so the plant needed a bit less water. And then the next week it was more humid than usual. And so it needed less water then too. Because you missed the boat for 2 consecutive weeks, you overwatered your overwatered plant, killing it in the process!
Sure, the plant was overwatered. But if your key takeaway is that the right answer was to "water it less", you've missed the point. There's a hypothetical universe where it was sunnier and then drier than usual. You would've been underwatering it there. There's also a hypothetical universe where conditions persisted. You watered it perfectly there.
To return to my original point: Outcomes are the result of a dynamic continuum of moments, not a single decisive moment. There was no single decision that killed your plant above. In fact it was a belief in a "right" answer (the right amount to water) that did.
II. Decisions are make-or-break, irreversible, uninfluenceable
This simply isn't so. The vast majority of decisions we make are either:
Reversible
Sufficiently influenceable after being made that the making of the decision is in no way make or break for the outcome.
It is the belief in "rightness" that makes us forget that we can change course after we've set it.
III. The quality of a decision is necessarily weighed by right/wrong rather than the decision-making process
A much better question would be: has this been a sufficiently rigorous decision-making process? Have we done our due diligence to make the decision? Do we have processes in place to measure our results and understand where we need to adjust and how to improve in the future?
Rightness calcifies the entire consideration. We make a decision and move on, cutting off the invaluable feedback that drives continuous improvement over time.
The Cost of "Rightness" is in the second-order effects
We can see here the the issue with the question is not the 1st-order consequences of considering it in its own right, but in the 2nd-order consequences of the worldview the question imposes.
At its core, the issue is that being concerned with rightness cuts off our access to the learning process. Our need to be right, and now, doesn't afford us the experimentation and learning that continuously drives outcomes over time.
We can solve for this by expanding our relationship to any 1-dimensional point-oriented question (is this the thing) to a dynamic, continuous question. One way to do this is via the use of what I'll call a homeostatic heuristic: reframing any "is this right" question to a question framed as a homeostatic gauge, the components being:
A directional hypothesis: Do I hypothesize that I would benefit from more or less of this right now?
A feedback mechanism: When will I checkin to reassess if I still need more or less?
This shift is an easy one, yet its implications are profound. It drops the question into its full dynamic context, allowing for a continuum of change over time. The beautiful thing is we never need to establish what is "right". Your body doesn't try to hit a "right" temperature. It simply assesses 1) if things are within acceptable bounds and 2) if it needs to take action to move it back to acceptable bounds.
To make this tactical, here are some examples of reframing to homeostatic heuristics:
Should we implement a process? → Would we benefit from experimenting with more process?
Should we raise our prices? → Would we benefit from experimenting with higher prices?
Should I be more stern with my employees? → Would I benefit from being more assertive with my employees in certain contexts?
Should I jump into building or do more research? → Would I benefit from more research or more building at this point in the process?
These questions allow for dynamic feedback-driven change over time rather than binary, irreversible, one-off decisions. Most importantly, they open you back up to the driver of all outcomes over the long-run, learning.
One Question
What piece of information have you recently learned yet haven't translated to action or an updated worldview? What can you do to test or integrate it?