Michael Lissack
Stories are a tool for helping yourself and others to recognize what is a part, what is a whole, what is salient, what is not, and what kinds of combinations make sense. This approach is exemplified by companies like Stripe, which conceived of payment processing not as a monolithic function but as a series of discrete services (identity verification, fraud detection, currency conversion, set- tlement) that could be accessed independently through simple APIs. This decomposition created a vastly more flexible system where developers could incorporate only the specific components they needed. 2. Look for recombinations. LEGO and its competitors have ap- peal precisely because they encourage combinations and recom- binations in a limitless fashion. They cohere around the idea of “see parts—combine—make wholes—bust into parts—recom- bine—make new wholes.” To make new things we first have to recognize that those that already exist are made up of separa- ble parts. Then we recombine those parts. In computer science this is known as object-oriented programming. In the home it is known as gourmet cooking. Organizations like Amazon Web Services exemplify this principle by breaking down computing infrastructure into fundamental components—computation, storage, database, networking—that customers can recombine to create custom architectures. This modular approach allowed for innovations that would have been impossible in a more tightly integrated system. 3. Recognize functionality as an important component and sep- arate it out as a new building block. This is key to innovation and to ongoing corporate success. Much like fashion designers recognize the value in separating their names and their designs, it is critical to learn to see how something is used as separate and distinct from the thing being used. Tesla exemplifies this approach by recognizing that the functionality of “energy stor- age” exists separately from vehicles, homes, or power plants. By
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