Robert Greene’s Writings
Tactical Hell or Strategic Heaven - Which are you in?
If strategy is the art of getting results, of putting ideas into practice, then how are you
doing? Carrying business as a badge of honour might be the first clue. Managing
the immediate problems with a degree of aplomb might be another clue. You know
what hell feels like, heaven doesn’t feel how you imagine.
Changes are occurring too fast for any of us to
really process them in the traditional manner.
Our strategies tend to be rooted in the past.
avoid the immediate temptation
to fight back on the same level
as the opponent
Move from a general goal — get
better — to a specific goal that you
can work on with a realistic
expectation of improvement
achieve sustainable improvements
in a wide variety of health, safety,
wellbeing and other areas.
Whatever success you are now experiencing will
actually work to your detriment because you will not be
made aware of how slowly you are falling behind in the
fast transient cycle. You think you are doing just fine.
You are not compelled to adapt until it is too late
Those who try to control too much
lose contact with reality, react
emotionally to surprises.
The big win?: 1%:50%
It is easy to constantly remain on that abstract
level, where any idea can have a semblance of
truth to it. It is a disguise for the inability to bring
ideas to the concrete, to provide examples.
Baby step to get going?
Mental Representations
The magnifying effect
The reason that most people don’t
possess these extraordinary
physical capabilities isn’t because
they don’t have the capacity for
them, but rather because they’re
satisfied to live in the comfortable
rut of homeostasis and never do the
work that is required to get out of it.
They live in the world of “good
enough.”
Relief in the moment (giving in)
You have stopped improving. People
often misunderstand this because they
assume that the continued ____ is a
form of practice and that if they deep
doing it they are bound to get better at it.
Busy as a badge of honour
Start the day with emails
Patient Persistence Payoff
Quality of our attention and
the amount we give. [This
isn’t about time]
Oliver Burkeman’s show
Bias for Effort Daniel Ariel - heuristic
pay for effort
Self interruptions
The inability to do that to me signals the inability to
think things through; and to disguise this with all kinds
of interesting language that says nothing.
These abilities gradually
deteriorate in the absence of
deliberate efforts to improve
Tactical Hell
You have to start
where you are.
Intention on it’s own isn’t enough
People are using the
language of change,
dawning the cloths
Willpower or intention alone won’t help you. Low
level experimentation. Change your environment.
Start with How then move to
Why (once motivation rises)
Fluency builds understanding
the difficulty of Self regulation
laundry list of health care, education, minimum
wage, the environment, on and on. This is not
strategy, but the usual slicing of the salami, the
usual tactics disguised as strategy.
Early changes that you need.
Let get let off the hook with
just using the language.
No measurement
Judge the action (Robert Greene)
Ego gets in the way
Heuristics - Rules of Thumb
Cognitive Bandwidth - Scarcity
Managers do….
Leaders do….
Strategic Heaven
Monitoring the environment
POV of the present
The work of leaders
Strategy is the art of getting results
This isn’t what I thought
heave would be like.
What it is
Maintaining the focus and the effort
required by purposeful practice is
hard work, and it is generally not fun.
This is like Solving a puzzle
The work of leaders
This isn’t it.
What it isn’t
POV of the future
Always working on a better plan
Plan to get there
We will find the disproportionate
things looking at lots of things.
Meaningful positive
feedback is one of the
crucial factors in
maintaining motivation.
Not a flywheel, use a biological metaphore
Internal if mental
representations
are accurate.
Context setting
Leaders are looking for
relief in a situation
Articulate how you believe the
world works, explain it to
yourself, out loud
Gaining expertise is
largely a matter of
improving one’s
mental processes
Operate at the edge just beyond your
comfort zone in a focused way with clear
goals, a plan for reaching those goals,
and a way to monitor your progress.
Oh, and figure out a way to
maintain your motivation.
Try, fail, reflect, tune
Generally the solution isn’t “try
harder” but “try differently”
Neural plasticity
New neural connections
Dampen down our emotional responses
You will run into obstacles,
therefore you have to be
failing. 50% of the time!
Show mathematical equation from
information theory
“but in essence these
representations are preexisting
patterns of information—facts,
images, rules, relationships, and so
on—that are held in long-term
memory and that can be used to
respond quickly and effectively in
certain types of situations”
Excerpt From: Anders Ericsson.
“Peak: Secrets from the New
Science of Expertise.” iBooks.
You already have most of what you
need.
culling out my weakness
improving areas
example of Eddie pissing off Dave
Move from negative/aversive to
neutral then to positive
Marshall Goldsmith
Mental representations
Develop that feel,
you see more,
it opens up options
Go for the 0.25% of something today, not trying to
solve the problem of the contract today
Audience Journey
Move To (what could be)
Move From (what is)
The Big Idea
Getting more of what you want and less
of what you don’t want is….
Move from one manner of Being
(Inward Change)
Move to a new manner of Being
(Inward Change)
Move from one manner of Doing
(Outward Change)
Move to a new manner of Doing
(Outward Change)
Tactical Hell or Strategic Heaven - Which are you in?
If strategy is the art of getting results, of putting ideas into practice, then how are you
doing? Carrying business as a badge of honour might be the first clue. Managing
the immediate problems with a degree of aplomb might be another clue. You know
what hell feels like, heaven doesn’t feel how you imagine.
à la Nancy Duarte, Resonate
Robert Greene
Too much harm is being done to those around us. We
already know what to fix but by unwittingly valuing
effort we defeat our noble intentions. We are stuck in
tactical hell with visions of a strategic heaven that are
deeply flawed.
Typical Day
- email
- mtg
- interruptions
THE MESSAGE
You are already standing on the path that will lead you
out of this hell. All you have to do is take the first step.
What does tactical hell look and feel like?
Our days are filled
with seeking relief
Getting more of what you want and
less of what you don’t want is….
Those who try to control too much
lose contact with reality, react
emotionally to surprises.
What is maintaining our tactical hell?
Move From
Number 1 priority get the
dangerous stuff out of your inbox
Emotional Triggers
Move To
Tactical Hell
Strategic Heaven
Reactive
Probing
Tired
Energised
Frustrated
Optimistic
Confident
Curious
Status Quo
Emergent
Homostasis
Uncomfortable
Scarcity
Settled
Self-Assessment
Feedback
So where does this coming from?
What we have are general goals;
be good people, do good things
We are satisfied to live in the
comfortable rut of homeostasis
and never do the work that is
required to get out of it.
We lack a basic plan for improving
This is why we are stuck.
What we need is a specific goal that
you can work on with a realistic
expectation of improvement
Willpower or intention
alone won’t help
This is going to be hard work
and it is generally not fun.
We have to cultivate the skill of
maintaining focus.
Our our self assessment biases
calibrate us to the wrong set point
(ala Goldsmith graph)
It is easy to constantly remain on that abstract level,
where any idea can have a semblance of truth to it. It is
a disguise for the inability to bring ideas to the concrete,
to provide examples.
The inability to do that to me signals the inability to
think things through; and to disguise this with all kinds
of interesting language that says nothing.
Strategy is the art of getting results.
Move from negative/aversive to
neutral then to positive
They are being master tacticians.
Empathise with Their Sacrifice and Risk
Sacrifice
Refusal of the Call
identify the Reward (new bliss)
Comfort Zone
The work of leadership isn’t what
people are actually doing.
Benefit to them
Risk
Ryan Olson’s point about
Andy Sharples
Or just improvising, bullshitting bastards.
Fear
Benefit to sphere
Vulnerabilities
Benefit to mankind
Leaders that are vulnerable & insecure
Misunderstanding
1st — Change your
environment so you can then...
Context recognition and setting
Obstacles
Can we alter these?
Politics
How do we alter these?
2nd — Change your
Mental representations
neuroplasticity
Example of patient persistent payoff
— We know what this stuff looks like
3rd — Experimentation
Trial, Failure, Reflection
Setting up a feedback loop for tuning.
Operating just beyond
our comfort zone
You have to do things to learn this.