Dan Berlin

So long as you bear the consequences of failure, you are the ultimate Responsible Party. For example, while you might choose to delegate the responsibility of figuring out how to handle your illness to a doctor, it is your responsibility to pick the right one, since you will bear the consequences if he does a bad job. Or if you were building a house, would you go to an architect and say "show me the kinds of houses I can build" or would you tell the architect what kind of house you want to live in? This is especially true when it comes to money. If you delegate the oversight responsibility for your finances to others, they typically won't hold themselves as accountable for your money as they would their own and they won't fire themselves if they are doing a bad job. Only the ultimate RP can do that. #principleoftheday

Get rid of irrelevant details so that the essential things and the relationships between them stand out. As the saying goes, "Any damn fool can make it complex. It takes a genius to make it simple." Think of Picasso. He could paint beautiful representational paintings from an early age, but he continually pared down and simplified as his career progressed. Look at each one of the pictures and steps and appreciate the genius of his simplification. Not everyone has a mind that works that way, but just because you can't do something naturally doesn't mean you can't do it--you just have to have creativity and determination. If necessary, you can seek the help of others. #principleoftheday

I constantly see people form wrong opinions and make bad decisions, even though they've made the same kinds of mistakes before--and even though they know that doing so is illogical and harmful. I used to think that they would avoid these pitfalls when they became aware of their blind spots, but typically that's not the case. Only very rarely do I hear someone recuse himself from offering an opinion because they aren't capable of forming a good one in a particular area. Don't bet on people to save themselves; proactively guardrail them or, better yet, put them in roles in which it's impossible for them to make the types of decisions they shouldn't make. #principleoftheday