Dials to the right

Back when I worked in IT, I heard one of the best metaphors I've ever come across

For the tension between efficiency and resilience.

I was sitting with the big boss at the small consulting shop where I worked, helping think through database architecture for a large international client.

At some point, he pulled up the server utilization gauges and explained something I've never forgotten.

He said, in general, CEOs want every dial pushed all the way to the right;

Full capacity, all the time. Because on paper, that looks like the right answer.

No waste. Maximum utilization. Maximum profit.

But IT managers know better.

They optimize for all those dials sitting right in the middle.

Because they know that when something unexpected happened, (and something always happens) you need room to absorb it.

The CEO's version is efficient.

The IT manager's version is resilient.

I keep thinking about this lately, every time I see another round of layoffs in the news.

Because a lot of these cuts get framed as discipline,

And sometimes, sure, that's true.

But sometimes what's actually happening is:

A leadership team just let go of that IT guy

And they're setting every dial to the right.

The soundbite is that "AI is making these people unnecessary."

But given the state of AI maturity, I highly doubt that's the full picture.​

What seems more likely: They're stripping costs to juice profits.

But when you strip out all slack in essential functions

- Risk, customer support, engineering, design, product -

You're not always "getting lean";

You're becoming anemic.

You're creating a company time bomb.

The quality assurance.

The second set of eyes.

The time it takes to handle a crisis.

The person who catches the issue before it becomes one.

The processes that keep things running when something breaks.

In good times, that can look like needless overhead.

Until something unexpected happens,

And you need exactly the stability you spent this year optimizing away.

Not all layoffs are avoidable.

But some of them are the result of leaders who never learned the difference between a company that's maximally efficient

And a company that'll survive for the next 5 years.

Those are often not the same thing.

And one of them is a much better investment.

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