Thắng Tất’s Notebook

The notebook no longer lived in the drawer. At the end of the month, Thắng Tất flipped back through what he had written and copied three things he wanted to remember onto a fresh page:

1. If it still hurts, you can still see the way. Agents can fix errors, but they aren’t bothered when someone has to report a problem for the third time. That feeling is the part of the job no one can replace. On days when everything is “fine”, ask yourself whether you’ve stopped looking.
2. Hardship sets the problem. It doesn’t solve it. When the usual path is blocked, list what you have before complaining about what you lack. Sometimes the answer is an existing button, used in a way nobody has thought of.
3. An initiative is tailoring, not invention. Borrow a good practice from somewhere else, adjust it to fit, and measure it in time and effort saved.

Underneath, in smaller handwriting, he added: The yarn lady never had to report it a fourth time. She works alone, but there is more than agents behind her.

On a new page of the notebook, under the heading “Clinic”, there were three lines:

1. Agents know the why of knowledge. People have to go looking for the why of circumstance. When it comes to general knowledge, the machine is already ahead of us. But the why that lives in one clinic, one patient, one particular hour, you only see by going there, empty-handed, like an immigrant.
2. Renting an agent doesn’t mean letting go. The result is your effort multiplied by the agent’s. Let go, and however good the agent is, you get zero. Our job is to keep hold of the part only the customer can contribute.
3. Go ninety-five percent of the way yourself before you ask. When it’s done, say it and write it down. An answer only sinks in when you’ve already made room for it. And what you know only truly has value when others can use it without having to ask you again.

In the margin, he wrote in small letters: For the first time, the agent knew more than I did. It turns out that’s not when my job runs out. It’s when my job moves.

This time, he wasn’t the one who had changed. But Thắng Tất still wrote down three things:

1. The loudest objector is often the one who has been right the longest. They aren’t afraid the new thing is wrong. They’re afraid it’s right, and that there’s no place in it for them. Before you argue with their reasoning, ask what they’re afraid of losing.
2. Change before you are forced to change. If you stand outside and object, the change still comes, just without you in it. Step in, and you get to steer.
3. The best stability is dynamic stability. Ten percent a week is far easier than a hundred percent overnight. And once change becomes a habit, people stop being afraid of it.

At the very bottom, he copied out Lực Sỹ’s line: I was sad for two years and didn’t know it. Then he added, smaller: And me?