One Reasonable Decision at a Time
FrequencyJune 01, 202600:05:59

One Reasonable Decision at a Time

The Colorado River is on track for its driest year in over a century. Lake Powell sits at 24% full, Lake Mead at 32%, and the original compact allocated more water than the river ever produced — states drew on reserves that weren't really there. Seven states know the system is failing and still can't agree to act. Soren Kaplan's Inc. piece calls it what it is: the tragedy of the commons, where the shared cost is invisible and the resource collapses one rational decision at a time.

Inside organizations, the resources draining the same way are talent pipelines, team capacity, and market trust. Pause hiring through an AI transition, run the team lean, cut the development budget in a hard quarter — each looks defensible alone. Kaplan's fix: name the shared resource and put a number on it, build accountability above the individual team, and act before the cheap options disappear. Chuck weighs in on which resource he sees deplete first, and whether leaders ever catch it in time.

https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/the-colorado-river-shows-how-organizations-quietly-destroy-their-own-future/91350336