minimum guarantee while having the ability to capture the upside

highlights

2. https://hbr.org/1995/07/the-power-of-predictability
3. If some people flushed and chased prey, and then others ambushed, the probability that everyone would eat increased. Being part of a group offered physical protection, which the solitary hunter didn’t have, and gave the hunters confidence in their ability to predict the outcome of their expeditions.
4. People joined organizations to make their lives more predictable
5. The pin maker’s ability to get his job done depended on a complex sequence of events over which he had little control, but the events were predictable enough that he needed to concentrate only on
6. promised their employees not only economic security but also personal fulfillment and respect from fellow employees and the community, in return for performing a handful of clearly delineated activities.
7. Leaders of global organizations—indeed, leaders of all organizations—have focused on increasing predictability for their subordinates and thus for the organization as a whole.
8. managers learned to help employees calculate the consequences of their actions and gauge which activities would improve their standing in the company
9. Predictability in the workplace led employees to make sacrifices today, confident that they would be rewarded tomorrow
10. In sum, predictability built the trust that allowed people to synchronize their actions in mutually productive ways
11. The pin maker, who enjoyed predictability up and down the value chain, was able to spend his time making pins.
12. Even if people can’t know the odds of achieving a certain outcome, they are willing to accept uncertainty if they believe that their experience gives them an advantage.
13. but they enlist the best people and develop the best processes to improve the odds of a breakthrough.
14. People will go mad if punishment and reward are doled out randomly and if they cannot know in advance whether a given outcome will be a win or a loss.
15. What can I do to create value? but What do they really want me to do? How will I be evaluated and by whom?
16. Many managers explain the erosion of predictability inside their organizations by pointing to the difficulty of surviving in an unpredictable world.
17. Customers are fickle. Every decision has to be backed up by a flood of information. The government continually changes its tax and regulatory requirements. Political change often makes planning impossible, and savings evaporate, skills are devalued, and human interactions take sudden, unanticipated turns. Fortunes rise and fall with the performance of the stock market rather than of the company
18. All that unpredictability is real, but too often, managers think first about making their own lives more predictable
19. Golden parachutes, strategic restructuring, downsizing, and an emphasis on earnings per share all improve predictability for those at the top at the expense of those below them.
20. People will do whatever they can to find a world in which they can predict the outcomes of their actions and the consequences of those outcomes
21. By laying down a few rules by which people can succeed, companies such as Microsoft, Amway, and McKinsey simplify a complicated world.
22. Creating an environment in which people can predict the consequences of their actions goes hand in hand with ensuring predictability in an organization’s relations with both customers and suppliers
23. Cultivating relationships with a stable set of suppliers helps each side know what to expect from the other
24. Good marketing and consistently high quality help customers know what to expect from a company
25. If customers come to trust a company, they are likely to turn to it often to solve their problems and to learn about new products and services.
26. When a company takes the time and effort to share its strategy with suppliers, it motivates them to do whatever they can to help the company produce the best products, now and in the future.
27. Human beings have finite energy and finite time in which to expend it
28. ab Sign In](https://hbr.org/1995/07/the-power-of-predictability#)

Motivating People

The Power of Predictability

Referenced in:

• System-Design
• phrases-to-explore
• Predictable-Revenue