I read many such books as I set about trying to become a better, more effective manager.Most, I found, trafficked in a kind of simplicity that seemed harmful in that it offered falsereassurance. These books were stocked with catchy phrases like “Dare to fail!” or “Followpeople and people will follow you!” or “Focus, focus, focus!” (This last one was a particularfavorite piece of nonadvice. When people hear it, they nod their heads in agreement as if agreat truth has been presented, not realizing that they’ve been diverted from addressing thefar harder problem: deciding what it is that they should be focusing on. There is nothing inthis advice that gives you any idea how to figure out where the focus should be, or how toapply your energy to it. It ends up being advice that doesn’t mean anything.) These sloganswere offered as conclusions—as wisdom—and they may have been, I suppose. But none ofthem gave me any clue as to what to do or what I should focus on.

If you need to imagine in concrete detail how you would notice that a problem disappeared, you are challenged to leave vague descriptions like “I’ll be happy”, “I’ll be less annoyed” behind.Vagueness in the end is a cognitive avoidance mechanism. It is easy to ruminate on general emotions and thoughts but very hard to imagine concrete outcomes and changes. We would rather not face precise thoughts, emotions or memories because they can be painful. Better to stay at a safe but vague distance.