Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated
by Yves Morieux, Peter Tollman
5
Simple Rule Five
Extend the Shadow of the Future
In this chapter, we will describe a rule that creates feedback loops in a very particular and powerful way by exploiting the effect of time. What game theory calls the “shadow of the future” is the importance of what happens tomorrow to us as a result of what we do today. By extending the shadow of the future, we make the more-or-less distant horizon—that point at which our present behavior will eventually reveal its consequences—much more important and evident to us now. To extend the shadow of the future you need to create feedback loops that make people feel the consequences of how they deal with multiple performance requirements sooner, more frequently, and for longer periods of time.
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