Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Keep your earth-shattering new thing quiet for a while. Once it works, shout. This is basic risk management.

Something has never been done before. That means it is difficult. I have a solution. I can do it or I think I can do it.

The best practice, in my experience of doing something or other for the first time, is to keep my mouth shut. Do the work. Make it work. Fly under the radar and keep it quiet.

Once it works, shout!

Since it has never been done before, the work carries risk—lots of risk. All prior efforts have failed. Simple logic shows that my effort will also fail, until it succeeds.

This is risk management. Do the work quietly, but do the work diligently. This isn’t easy, but it can work.