Shang Yang
Moving the pole
Prove you mean it before you ask
Records of the Grand Historian, Life of Lord Shang
The new code was already drafted and he went and moved a piece of timber first. This is about what the timber solved.
What actually happened?
The laws were written and not yet published, and he was afraid the people would not believe them. He had a pole thirty feet long set up at the south gate of the capital and offered ten pieces of gold to anyone who would carry it to the north gate. Nobody moved; they thought it strange. He raised it to fifty. One man carried it across and was handed fifty on the spot — to make clear that there was no deception. Then the laws were published. The act had nothing to do with their content.
A rule takes effect only once it is believed
A rule nobody expects to be enforced does not exist. So the first spending on a new system should not go on explaining the content; it should go on one small, certain thing you can deliver immediately. Prove delivery first, argue content second.
Rather than announce that promotions now follow the new standard, run the new standard once and pay out, however small the case. After that people listen.
The reward has to be unreasonable
At ten nobody moved; at fifty someone tried. He was not economising, he was manufacturing a signal impossible to ignore. The stranger the price, the further it travels and the longer it is remembered. On this particular job, proportionate is ineffective.
Reward the first person who reports a hole in the process so publicly that everyone is startled. For six months afterwards candour rises. The money bought that, not the report.
Credit has to be paid in advance
He delivered before he had a single achievement to point at. The order cannot be reversed: you cannot say that once the reforms work people will naturally trust them. A system's credit must exist before it starts asking anyone to pay, or the first demand is met at a discount.
Ask the team for a quarter of overtime and promise to make it up afterwards. With no record of having made anything up before, the promise is discounted on day one.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you are introducing a rule and you doubt anyone will take it seriously.
Ask first: before I ask anyone for anything, which visible thing have I already delivered?
Where it goes wrong: repeating the announcement instead of delivering once; keeping the cost of the first proof so low that the signal is invisible.
Lines to keep
They thought it strange and nobody dared move it.
He paid the fifty on the spot, to show there was no deception.
Doubtful action wins no name; doubtful work wins no result.
Same situation, other people are asking
We fell into the same hole again.New people, same mistakes.I have replaced the people and the same fight came back.We punished the person who did it and it happened again.The same mistakes keep happening · all 9 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.