Why can’t you come up with a strategy? Goal paradox and guidance

This article first proposes a common dilemma: the goal is clear, but an effective strategy cannot be found. Then, it introduces the expert perspective, pointing out that this may be due to the excessive focus on the goal, which leads to insufficient innovation and the "goal paradox". It is of practical guiding significance to advertising and marketing practitioners.

I don’t know if you have ever encountered this situation:

Planning a plan is always more complicated than how to start. You know what problem you want to solve, but you are stuck on the strategy output. You watch time slip away in your entanglement and irritability. Why can't you come up with a strategy? The reason may be that your goal is too clear.

Yes, problem solving is the basic thinking of planning, and solving problems requires clear and definite goals. So how can having clear goals lead to a blockage in strategy output? This is most likely the goal paradox at work!

Kenneth Stanley is an OpenAI researcher, a representative expert in global innovative thinking and cutting-edge technology, and an artificial intelligence scientist.

He said, "When we studied artificial intelligence, we found a fundamental flaw in human beings. That is, 'single-goal-oriented thinking will hinder creativity and innovation.'"

What's the meaning?

He believes that not only machine algorithms, but you will find that almost everything humans do is goal-oriented. But goals are sometimes useless when we deal with major issues and cannot help us achieve innovation. You can only achieve your goals by looking for them without a purpose. This goes against our intuition and our understanding of real life. This is the goal paradox.

I think the goal paradox is probably the reason why you can’t come up with a strategy, because the goal is clear, or even repeated, and you feel that it is still the same old routine when you start, and you can’t write it down, so you are entangled in the moment before you start, and you don’t know what to do. In essence, it is because you have encountered difficulties in the creativity and innovation of the strategy.

I believe that many marketers have encountered this situation. They always feel that the strategies are the same and they are the same no matter how they are done. In the end, they just do the strategies perfunctorily and form a vicious circle of planning goal paradox. I just want to say that in fact, I have already given a solution to the goal paradox in four words! Do nothing and rule! Here I will simply share my views and experiences for communication.

1. Fuzzy Precision

1. Greatness cannot be planned

In this world, it is impossible for someone to accomplish something amazing and have a goal at the same time. Many great things are byproducts that happen by accident or by accident. There are countless such cases. The most relatable one is probably that when you were young, you and I had a goal to go to Tsinghua University or Peking University. However, the goal paradox does not mean that you should not have a goal, but that when you have no goal, you are more likely to inspire innovation.

2. Do nothing and achieve everything

There is nothing wrong with having a moderate goal, which helps us master the rhythm and clarify the direction of progress, but don't reverse every step precisely to achieve the goal, otherwise you will fall into the trap of being programmed.

It means to have a goal in mind but blur it, and develop the ability to do things without the consciousness of setting a goal. This is more conducive to releasing potential and stimulating creativity. The effective output of strategy is not simply to reverse the thinking based on a goal. Einstein said: The answers to all difficult problems are at a higher level. Problems at the same level are difficult to solve by thinking at the same level. In other words, the solution of strategic goals is not linear, and the breakthrough points are often related. This tests the ability to output divergent strategies.

In actual planning, seemingly precise goals are sometimes not precise enough, because precision means oversimplification or over-focusing, and some key related issues may be covered up, and this may be what we need to solve first. Therefore, it is sometimes very important to moderately blur the goals and rethink the goals. At the same time, you will find that when many people can't think of anything, the solutions are all kinds of strange. Some people drink to get drunk, some sit in a daze at the bus stop, and some blindly browse all kinds of weird gossip...

It’s simple, it’s all about letting your thoughts wander and trying to awaken the creativity of your brain.

2. Consensus is not necessary

These strange methods may seem cliché and random, but they coincide with the new algorithm invented by Kenneth Stanley.

After discovering the goal paradox, Kenneth Stanley and his colleagues invented a new algorithm that works in a very counterintuitive way without setting any goals, which is called the "novel search algorithm."

He gave an example of a robot that learns to walk, but it doesn't necessarily look like it is learning to walk: to train a bipedal robot to walk, the traditional machine learning concept is that it must walk in small segments before the machine can learn to walk. However, his training concept is to let the robot do something different from before. The more novel the idea, the better. As long as the robot adopts a new method, it can get a reward. In the end, the experiment proved that the results of the new training concept are far better than the traditional version. This novel search algorithm has spawned a new field called high-quality diversity algorithm.

The value of this algorithm lies in finding the best result among diverse options by combining interesting and high-quality goals. The process of finding a strategy is similar to novel search, and we need to find the best strategy among diversity.

This is the experience I have shared many times. Creativity can be discussed, but strategy can only be communicated. Because creativity is random and is a collision of diversity, while strategy has no high or low, no right or wrong. It is just to choose the most appropriate one among the diverse options. This choice cannot be solved by discussion, but depends on the level of cognition. In a planning project, there is no need to reach a consensus on strategy. We can only inspire each other and make the final decision by one person.

Because from the perspective of the goal paradox, cooperation can lead to convergence and consensus, but it also means eliminating the possibility of greatness. Strategy is not compromise, integration, or balance, especially in the strategy of the competition, the biggest failure is the convergence of strategies.

However, when a group of people enter a room together, everyone wants to reach a certain consensus, which in itself leads to a lack of diversity and compromises in strategy. Finally, think about how to effectively output strategies. I believe you already have the answer. In fact, the goal paradox tells us that we should pursue possibilities rather than achievements and results.

Lao Tzu might say that all this is just ruling by doing nothing.

Author: Little Monk Kunkun, WeChat Official Account: Marketing Zen Meditation Center