One of the greatest, most-cited books of our recent times is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.

In the book, he outlines two ways that the brain operates:

• System 1 is the fast, intuitive stuff. You might call this "instinct"
• System 2 is where you slow it down, process the information, and deliberate more

You might have a quick reaction to say that one of these is better than the other. But one of Kahneman's points, at least to an extent, is that both systems of thinking come with their own issues, or "cognitive biases" that we have to be aware of.

Interesting fact: Kahenman also notes, in somewhat of a deterministic way, that even being aware of these cognitive biases doesn't mean you can do anything about them.

But, at least if you know about them you might be able to make sense of your decision-making ex-post facto.

The reason I bring this up is because I've noticed a similar pattern in the way things happen in business. In simplest terms, I'll break it down like this, using "Type 1" and "Type 2" to differentiate from Kahneman's "Systems":

• Type 1 moves are things you can mostly accomplish on your own
• Type 2 moves are things you have to rely on the expertise, decision-making, or help from others to accomplish

One pattern I've noticed is that the time that we perceive we need for Type 1 and Type 2 moves is often distorted from reality.

In particular, Type 1 moves can often happen much faster than you think. If you need to, for example, validate a new idea...you can email 30 people, ask them for their feedback, and see if they'd be open to signing up, buying, testing it, etc. Instead, people often take the long route of trying to create a landing page, even running ads to it, etc. in order to test the idea.

Type 2 moves, on the other hand, often happen much more slowly than you initially expect. Hiring might be a classic example of this. In theory, you could find the right candidate quickly if you have a large network. However, the process of posting the job, doing an initial screening, conducting several rounds of interviews, making offers, then onboarding people will take longer than you might estimate.

The value that I've extracted from this analysis is an appreciation of small, nimble teams. In today's world, when you can hire others on a contract basis, or use simple, inexpensive software to take care of tasks, the advantage of remaining a small organization (or a team of 1) continues to grow.

Then, even when there are Type 2 moves required, your lean team can move faster than a large bureaucratic organization.

Have you seen this principle play out in your work? Do you mentally organize or categorize your work in some other way? Let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Gerard Dawson

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