Kathleen Eisenhardt explains how simple boundary rules work in unexpected places: burglars use them to decide which houses to rob, and the Weinstein Company used them to pick which movies to make. The rules succeed because they're specific enough to guide decisions without micromanaging every choice.
Chapters
Group of people who really need a boundary rule are burglars, as it turns out, because, you know, there's a lot of houses you can burgle, but you really don't want to get caught. So what does a good burglar do? What's the simple rule? Never burgle a house with a car in front. Turns out that is an extraordinarily good rule for knowing whether or not anybody's home. Moving on from burglars, how about the Weinstein Company? The Weinstein Company is a movie company, as I would think at least some of you know in the background there that you can look at. That is the Imitation Game, the movie which is a Weinstein Company movie. If you're a movie company, you see a lot of scripts. There are a lot of would be writers sending you scripts, sending you story ideas. How do you pick? Well, it turns out the Weinstein Company picks has a couple simple rules. One of them is always have flawed and sympathetic main characters. And the second is have a story that's about a basic human condition. So if you saw the Imitation Game, you know that Alan Turing is a truly annoying jerk. But you know, you like him, don't you? I mean, you really do. You do kind of like the guy. So he's a flawed but sympathetic main character. And then he's dealing with homosexuality, which then adds sort of a social problem on top of it. That's top of mind for at least some people. Another movie by them is the Silver Linings Playbook. Again dealing with mental illness, the Artist, the King's Speech, dealing with difficulties in talking. Obviously that's sort of their genre. Flawed but sympathetic main character, serious common human condition.
