On the topic of What and How

This quote comes from a source that might be unexpected; general George S. Patton, Jr., Commander of the United States' Third Army during the battles in Europe in 1944-45 - but nevertheless, it's an interesting quote:

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

It's interesting because it does not only have military relevance; in fact, this is the case in most situations: if you tell people how to do things; well, they might do just that - but what if they had better ideas, which they simply keep in due to reverence towards your authority or similar reasons?
Of course, you can give people your opinion if they ask how to do things done - but it would in any case be a good idea to encourage them to come up with their own ideas on how things should be done. They might actually surprise with their ingenuity, and come forward with suggestions you never imagined.
(Translated from Noget om hvad og hvordan, originally published July 25th, 2013)

The killing of a good idea

The other day I read an interesting piece on Eric "Astro" Teller, who heads the Google X department that does stuff, which seen from a perhaps slightly more earthbound view would be regarded as an R&D department for high-flying ideas.
The point is that when you run a department, which is limited (and who aren't these days?) with regards to time, manpower and other resources, it is imperative that one does what one can to kill ideas early - you simply must go to work with the mindset: "how do we kill our project today?"
It is an extreme interpretation of Linus Pauling's view on how to get good ideas: get a lot of ideas; hereafter you "simply" have to find out which ones should be discarded. And it is in excellent thread with so many other theories about failing quickly and celebrating mistakes, something at which we probably all should be better.
If there is just one good idea that you simply aren't able to kill, it would be worth it.
(Translated from Mordet på den gode idé, originally published April 28, 2016)