Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We do everything according to our documented documents—except when we don’t.

Mr. Zuckerburg at Meta has created a superintelligence group to do something wonderful in AI. He is using the tried-and-true documented management practice of the skunk works. The skunk works is a special place where you put some really smart folks and tell them to do something wonderful, something that is not possible back at the factory where everyone follows the rules. Break the rules; break the mold, and do something wonderful.

We do everything there according to the tried-and-true. We’ve been mistaken many times in the past. We went to the trouble to record those mistakes and learn from them. We have rules and guides and procedures and all those things work for us—until they stop working for us.

One day, we wake up and our smartest folks are frustrated with all these lessons learned. “Okay,” they groan, “we won’t do stupid things. We won’t do the stupid things that the average folks did last year. We aren’t average. Trust us on this one.”

Then these smartest folks need a new gadget today so they can do something wonderful. “Hold on there,” replies someone in the chain of someones who buy new gadgets. “It’ll take a few days to get the right signatures of approval and then the bids from at least three suppliers and then…”

Then these smartest folks just give up and go to another company that doesn’t have any rules or lessons learned.

So Kelly Johnson at Lockheed created a skunk works to build airplanes that couldn’t be built. So Steve Jobs created a skunk works to build the Mac computer. So Mr. Zuckerburg created a skunk works to build superintelligence. So… the list goes on and on. Some of the famous skunk works created famous things. The great majority of skunk works didn’t invent sliced bread or something as wonderful as sliced bread. They tried, failed, and lapsed into oblivion.

We do everything according to plan, according to lessons learned, according to documents until we don’t. We hit the wall of invention and re-invent the exception to the rule. We try. Sometimes the exception works.

Let’s remember, however, that the exception is the exception. Excellence is an exception. Don’t expect wonderful from the exception. The lessons learned were learned by smart folks who worked hard. Sigh. No one said this would be easy.