Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
By: Bivek Renuji
Tags: Science, Management, Product Management

Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

There are more ways things can go wrong than right.

Imagine you are placing a deck of cards inside a box. Then you started shaking the box. It’s possible that the deck of card is reassembled in the same order after that vigorous shaking. But in reality, that never happens. Why? Because the odds are overwhelmingly against it. There is only one possible state where every piece is in order, but there are a nearly infinite number of states where the pieces are in disorder. An orderly rearrangement is incredibly unlikely to happen at random.

The difficulties of life do not occur because the planets are misaligned or because some cosmic force is conspiring against you. It is simply entropy at work. It is nobody’s fault that life has problems. It is simply a law of probability. There are many disordered states and few ordered ones. Given the odds against us, what is remarkable is not that life has problems, but that we can solve them.

You can fight back against the pull of entropy. You can solve a scattered puzzle. You can pull the weeds out of your garden. You can clean a messy room. You can organize individuals into a cohesive team.

When you are in a mission to change things always keep in mind that, changing your/people’s minds are harder than it looks. The more you believe you know something, the more you filter and ignore all information to the contrary.

The moment you start sharing new ideas, information, your knowledge etc. People will start thinking and searching google for what they believe. Our tendency to search for and favor information that confirms our beliefs while simultaneously ignoring or devaluing information that contradicts our beliefs.

This is why I started with Murphy’s law. When you plan something the probability of the things that can go wrong is always higher. For making any change you have to expend energy to create stability, structure, and simplicity. Successful relationships require care and attention. Successful houses require cleaning and maintenance. Successful teams require communication and collaboration. Without effort, things will decay.

It’s not easy to change the way people think, but that doesn’t mean that you should not try. We should and it is not going to be easy.

There will be another set of people the “know all types”. When you are driving a change, you should not waste your effort to convince these group. They will neither accept nor reject the change. These groups are like magnets of -ve energy. The more you fight against them, the more they attract -ve energy. So be focused on your views, these types will eventually die after the period of chaos.

Given the odds against us, what is remarkable is not that life has problems, but that we can solve them all.

Take the case of that box and deck of cards. If you add more cards to that box or increase the size of that box, it will result in more chaos.

Chaos is an after effect of entropy and entropy accelerates Chaos. The way to control chaos is to set examples. What this will do is people will start looking at that and the entropy effect will slowly come down and the chaos can be managed. Look at history, a leader emerges from every chaotic situation and people started following that leader. Eventually, the chaos would have ended or slowed down.

In chaos :

Try to always find something good to point out and something positive to contribute. Lead by example and set a standard in light of unreasonable expectations. In Chaos, leaders and people will be quick to point out mistakes and shortcomings. Counteract it by acknowledging your own work and bringing attention to your (and your teammates’) contributions Learn to keep speaking up and speaking out, and find solutions to every “but,” one at a time. When you know where your boundaries lie, you know when you have to speak up — or even walk. Rise above the dysfunction of existing leadership and be an example of the leadership that can work.

Above all, don’t allow yourself to believe that it’s an acceptable way to live or lead.

“Let things go wrong, but you should keep doing the right thing. It will slow down entropy”. More than anything this defines a character, a solid powerful character in you.

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