What’s Enough Waterproofing?
Apparently I’m not the only one in the world struggling with the relationship between inputs and outcomes because there was a lot of reaction to the idea of slack time as presented in “Can Main Street Innovate?” and then the next day to being whole-ass or half- when it comes to effort.
Andrew, for example, pointed out that you might not know what was a good use of time and effort until well after the fact, and so any work building domain expertise might end up proving to be rewarding. Matt, on the other hand, pointed me to Parkinson’s Law, which is the idea that the scope of a job to be done will expand to fill the time allotted to complete it, but further noted that Toyota demands a 0% defect rate in manufacturing because if its goal was something more realistic (like 0.1%) then the actual result would likely be something unacceptable (like 0.2%).
This was all rolling around in my head when we met with some folks who do waterproofing for a living. In talking about their business, they noted that they have three types of customers:
Long-term owners who want and will pay up for waterproofing that will last for decades.
Short-term owners who want and will only pay for sufficient waterproofing to pass inspection at sale.
General contractors that only care if the waterproofing will last through warranty period on their work.
And so these three types of customers make very different choices about what designs and materials to employ, some of which will work longer and perform better than others. In other words, when you see an example of work after the fact where someone ostensibly did a “bad job,” it may be the case that it wasn’t a bad job at all, but was exactly the job the customer wanted done given his or her goals with regards to cost, durability, and longevity.
The reason this is relevant here is because a fair question to ask is if customers (2) and (3) are half-assing it. Further, if most of us make choices most of the time that optimize for our desired outcome rather than the objectively best outcome, does this mean that we all spend most of our time doing things that are not our best? And if that’s true, is that depressing?
I think the answer to that question is yes, but also that it’s not as depressing an answer as it might seem on its face.
See, Brent, Mark, and I then hit on this line of thinking again in a separate conversation about what a common north star for our portfolio companies might be. “What about high-single-digit organic cash flow growth?,” I suggested.
“Maybe,” Brent and Mark responded.
And the reason that’s a maybe is because depending on the circumstances, high-single-digit organic cash flow growth might be a perfect goal for one company but a wholly inappropriate goal for another even if high-single-digit organic cash flow growth might be better than the alternative. Instead, we want to target a goal on a case-by-case basis that puts us at that moment in time on the spot we want to be on the efficient frontier between risk and reward.
So given all of the choices, the question is “What’s enough waterproofing?” And while I want to say, do it right, I think the answer is actually “It depends.” Because doing something the best you can is both time consuming and expensive and therefore might not be right or optimal. But also beware the Toyota problem, which is that if you don’t at least try to do the best, you might end up much worse off.
Or as the waterproofers pointed out, leaks are inevitable. It’s only a matter of when and how big.
-Tim
