July 14, 2026

Beer Quote

In a recent message, I asked:

If a system is too hard to implement reliably, is it really a system at all?

Long-time friend and certified polymath Kieran McMillan replied with the perfect quote:

“The purpose of a system is what it does. There is, after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” —Stafford Beer (British theorist, consultant, and professor at the Manchester Business School)

I love it!

This reminds me of something James Clear said when we interviewed him on The Business of Authority:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

In other words, whatever outcomes you are experiencing right now are the direct and inevitable result of the systems you’re currently operating under.

Want different outcomes?

Change the system.

Yours.

—J

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