Steve Jobs on CLARITY
Here is a 10-point summary of how Steve Jobs (SJ) created Apple - one word says it all - CLARITY…particularly when linked with another, FOCUS.
I’d suggest those who do a ‘deep dive’ ‘into the weeds’ (both strong candidates for most over used expressions of the year) - would benefit from SJ’s thoughts. I Know I get terribly confused/conflicted with too much unfocused data.
1. Words are powerful, but more words are not more powerful—they’re often just confusing.
2. The further you get away from one word, the more complicated things get.
3. Rather than seeing less choice, customers see less confusion.
4. Clarity propels an organization - not occasional clarity, but continuous 24/7/365 in-your-face, take-no-prisoners, kick-ass clarity.
5. The more things you ask people to focus on, the fewer they’ll remember.
6. Never underestimate the degree to which people crave clarity & positively respond to it.
7. SJ’s most important concern was making things easier for customers. Apple was there to serve them, not the other way around.
8. You’ll get more accomplished when you converse with people rather than present to them.
9. SJ had no patience for those who beat around the bush. He'd cut you off if you rambled. He ran his business as if there were precious little time to waste.
10. "You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains." —Steve Jobs
It is not that simplicity is so great it is the alternative, complexity is so bad.
do not confuse simplicity with ease, there are no silver bullets, anyone who thinks this is easy is stupid, to quote the sage.
i can only point to the "5 Ps" I wrote about recently. the first two are especially relevant for retail punters. Have an investment philosophy and process that is understandable and delivers over time, doable (given your skills and experience) and have an investment process to implement that philosophy. That should be very simple and not complex. additionally, you should also have conviction in the approach because nothing works all the time and your conviction will surely be tested.
to invert the thought process what i see as a road to failure is going too broad and shallow instead of deep and narrow, ie adding complexity through volume, believing that there are many money-adding opportunities and chasing them, again spreading yourself too thin and adding complexity, jumping from philosophy to philosophy as the market mood impacts you, adding to the complexity of process, ie overestimating your ability -remember Munger and Buffet say they jump two feet walls, not 12 feet ones.
ive seen people go through their whole investing life with no philosophy, process or conviction in them, winning then relies on good fortune or privileged info. lol
finally, I would add that a simple, doable investment philosophy/process turns average investors into good ones and good ones into great ones, it's that important.
In case you need a bit of background, Occam's Razor is a decision making approach using the least amount of explanations..
So in one of my straws I mentioned briefly how I would make a selection using Occam's Razor and see if it is vastly superior to the alternative .
Right now I'm trying to apply this to all my thinking in finance and investing.
Problem is there are lots of approaches when I start searching for ideas.
Here'a a few I found from a search that I like.
Active versus Passive investing
I like the first approach and is one I'm trying to apply.
The second approach sounds good but is also too "academic" because you need to be good at maths and statistics to get this one right as Beta is not reliable measure.
Anyone got any other views or ideas on Occam's Razor?