Key Definitions

great visions don't fail, they default.

default

noun, plural defaults

1.

Defaults are the behaviors made comparatively easy, obvious, or safe by our systems. If the default behaviors from your systems do not match your desired behaviors, the defaults will persist and your vision will fail.

a.
Easy: removes effort. The option that costs the least work, money, or physical demand.
b.
Obvious: removes deciding. The option already in front of you, so no choice is required.
c.
Safe: removes social risk. No one will question, label, or penalize the choice.

Any one of the three is enough for a behavior to be a default, and a behavior can have two or all three.

Systems, as used here

Systems are the source of defaults. Systems include:

  • Tools and structures: what people work with and inside, such as software, spaces, roles, and reporting lines.
  • Processes: the formal steps work moves through, such as how a request gets approved or a project gets handed off.
  • Policies: the written rules about what is allowed, required, or rewarded.
  • Ways of working: the tacit knowledge and unwritten or informal habits a team keeps, such as how meetings run and how disagreement gets handled.
  • Metrics: what gets counted and how it's scored, such as targets, ratings, and dashboards.
  • Language: the words a workplace uses to describe work and people.

Derived term

default literacy noun. Learning to read the behaviors your everyday work systems make more likely, and to talk about them without blame in words your whole team shares.

Usage

A company wants more innovation and collaboration. Its performance management system sets individual goals once a year, limits the total number of goals, has one manager rate the work, compares people with each other, limits how many high ratings are available, and ties pay increases to the annual rating. Helping a colleague or trying something that might fail takes time no goal counts and can cost you your pay raise, so the easy, obvious, and safe move is to focus on your own goals, prioritize work for the manager who evaluates you, choose work you get the credit for, and only do extra effort if you have extra time.

See the evolution of this idea

Earlier posts use earlier wording. The definition on this page is the current one.

Understanding Defaults, the full collection on Substack.

Nicole Eisdorfer, PhDBack to Writing
Home