My son and I are working together to co-author novels in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Part of my personal journey of skill development has been to spend a lot more time reading science fiction and fantasy.
I noticed that one of the themes from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series parallels quite nicely with one of Michael Lopp’s articles in his Rands in Repose blog.
Brandon Sanderson presents Preservation and Ruin as two opposing forces that ultimately find their balance in unity instead of adversity. Rands shares a similar observation specifically in the software engineering world with his presentation of what he calls “Stables and Volatiles.” See https://randsinrepose.com/archives/stables-and-volatiles/ for details.
The “Stables,” much like Mistborn’s Preservation, like to keep things running. They take direction, play nice with others, mitigate risk, and tend to create and follow processes.
The “Volatiles,” on the other hand, are more like Ruin in Mistborn. Risk excites them. They like to “move fast and break things.” They build a lot of things that don’t work, but they also build the mind-blowing innovations that define new markets. And they build fast. To them, status quo is the same as stagnation.
During my time in corporate leadership, the greatest conflicts, the most epic philosophical battles, were between these two camps. The problem was as described in Rands. The two sides were unable to comprehend the value of the others’ positions. Decisions were right and wrong, good vs. evil, genius or imbecile.
As a leader over these factions, your challenge will be to avoid the temptation to referee between them to choose a winner and a loser. Just as growth and decay in nature are both crucial to a sustainable ecosystem, stability and volatility are also crucial to a sustainable long-term business. Your job is to recognize who on your team tends to favor preservation and who tends to favor ruin, and then position them so that their traits best serve the projects they’re responsible for.
You probably have a personal leaning in favor of one of these two factions. As you take on greater leadership roles, it will become increasingly important for you to personally see value in both the stables and the volatiles.
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