“Doing the Right Things” vs. “Doing Things Right” #9

TL;DR: The R&D chief demanded 50% headcount growth; the finance VP demanded a 15% cut in fixed costs. The two targets are mathematically incompatible. Most managers' first instinct is “doing things right”: communicate, present data, prove the contradiction, and negotiate the numbers down. But when your bosses have no intention of talking, that road dead-ends. The way out is “doing the right things” — decode the real force behind each number, accept a bounded cost, and aim your energy where it truly matters. Dividing targets is avoiding judgment; decoding is where a manager's value lives.

1. Two Orders, One Deadlock

When he was Vice President of Product R&D for the China business unit of a well-known international company, he ran into a deadlock nobody could untie. That year, the division president who oversaw product R&D demanded a 50% increase in team headcount, while the finance VP simultaneously ordered a 15% reduction in fixed costs. Put the two orders side by side and grade-school arithmetic settles it: they are mutually exclusive — adding people necessarily raises fixed cost, and cutting cost necessarily means controlling headcount. This is not a difficulty problem; it is a math problem. Yet each boss delivered his own requirement, no one said which took priority, and no one admitted the other might be an obstacle.

Facing that situation, the first instinct of the vast majority of managers is “doing things right”: talk to both bosses, lay out the data, prove the contradiction is irreconcilable, and fight to have the targets reset. It looks professional, reasonable, impeccable — but it rests on one premise: that the targets themselves can be bargained over. Once that premise fails, “doing things right” becomes a dead end.

2. Reading the Code Behind the Numbers

He did not argue immediately. After fifteen years at the company, he knew that the three words “can't be done” would never be accepted as an answer. He spent weeks re-examining the budget structure: the main body of fixed cost — office space, IT infrastructure, equipment depreciation — is rigid spending that does not grow linearly with headcount. The incremental cost of hiring is mainly salary and training, and part of it gets classified as direct project cost rather than fixed cost. In other words, the very number “cut 15%” lives in a gray zone of accounting definitions.

More important was where it came from. How did the 15% arise? He judged that higher management had pressured the finance VP, who decomposed the pressure downward without alteration. Whoever proposed the number did not understand what it would mean at the execution level — it was, in essence, a pressure signal being relayed, not a reasoned execution plan. The intent behind the 50% headcount growth, by contrast, was far clearer: build stronger technical capability to prepare for the next stage of business expansion. One target was an intent; the other was pressure. Their weight was entirely different.

3. The End of the Road for “Doing Things Right”

With that judgment in hand, he still wanted to fight for one formal conversation. This is the textbook move of “doing things right”: put the problem on the table and persuade your superiors with facts and logic. The opportunity came after the third business review — every core metric had been exceeded, and both bosses were in excellent spirits. He offered to drive them to the airport, stopping en route for dinner at a steakhouse in Pudong they favored. After a few rounds of drinks, he pulled two printed sheets from his briefcase, clearly listing the two targets and his budget derivation — rigorously argued, logically complete; any rational person would concede the two goals could not both be met. He was doing exactly what every professional manager is taught to do: communicate, coordinate, align expectations.

Then, without a word to each other, both bosses pulled out their phones and looked down. No response, no discussion, not even eye contact. Recalling the moment later, he said: “I actually felt happy. I understood immediately — it is impossible to satisfy both of them, absolutely impossible. And they won't argue with each other either.”

At that moment, “doing things right” reached its end. When your superiors have no intention of having the conversation, all the data, logic, and communication skill lose their object. But it was precisely this failure that freed him from the frame of “doing things right” and turned him toward a more fundamental question: what, exactly, is “doing the right things”?

4. From 1.8 to 1.7: A Risk Calculation for “Doing the Right Things”

In that silent instant, he ran a quick risk calculation in his head. Meet both contradictory targets at once? Impossible. Do only one of them? The performance rating drops from 1.8 to 1.7 at worst. At this company, ratings above 1.8 are rare; a 1.9 requires endless upward explanation. He had held steady at 1.8 for years — the ceiling within the system under anything but exceptional circumstances. What did falling from 1.8 to 1.7 cost? Virtually nothing. And a VP who completed the hiring task and delivered above-target results could not possibly be fired for failing to cut fixed cost by the full 15%. “There are only two risks: the boss kicks you out, or the sky falls. Neither is possible. What risk do you really have at this company? Only one — that you don't dare to act.”

“Doing things right” demands that you eliminate all risk and satisfy everyone. “Doing the right things” demands that you accept a fact: some contradictions cannot be resolved, and some people cannot be persuaded. What you can do is bear a bounded cost and then aim your energy at what truly matters.

5. Decode, Don't Divide

Once he saw it clearly, everything became simpler. He stopped trying to prove the targets unreasonable with ever more refined data; he stopped spending energy on “how to explain that it can't be done.” He concentrated all of it on what he believed was right: expanding the team at a steady pace, hiring the right people, and genuinely raising the level of capability.

That year he hired more people than the 50% target required. Fixed cost did not fall 15%, but the team grew, project delivery quality kept improving, and customer reputation accumulated steadily — solid results that, in any clear-eyed evaluation system, weigh more than a 15% on paper.

He later summed up the experience in two words — “decode” and “divide.” To divide is to cut the boss's number into small pieces unchanged and hand them out, pretending every piece can be digested — the ultimate form of “doing things right”: it looks responsible, but it evades judgment. To decode is to read the real force behind a metric: which one is strategic intent, which one is transmitted pressure; which deserves full effort, which only needs to be quietly endured. “Doing the right things” is not about abandoning method — it is about fixing the direction first, then discussing method. A truly excellent manager is not the one who completes every target, but the one who knows which number deserves his energy.

6. Epilogue: The Deeper Meaning of Two Kinds of “Right”

“Doing things right” and “doing the right things” seem to differ only by word order, but they point to two fundamentally different management philosophies. “Doing things right” presupposes that the targets are right; it asks you to execute flawlessly within a given frame. “Doing the right things” presupposes that the targets may be wrong; it asks you to judge before you execute. The former is instrumental rationality; the latter is value rationality.

The essence of this story is a person waking from the inertia of “doing things right” and deliberately choosing “doing the right things.” That turn does not require arrogance or confrontation — it requires clarity: seeing the gray zones in the budget structure, seeing how “noise targets” arise in an organization, seeing your true risk floor, and then calmly bearing the cost that clarity imposes.

Years later, speaking with a new generation of managers as a coach, this story became his most-used example when explaining “strategy decoding.” He always says: don't fret over things that were never real. Put your energy on what you can change — make the product good, make the team strong. If the boss is wrong, it doesn't matter. You are doing the right thing.