When you think back to the last ten years of your career or your company's history, how much of what you haven't achieved is due to missed opportunities (the product you didn't launch, the service you didn't choose to do, the effort you didn't extend, the stock you didn't buy) and how much is the result of doing your assigned tasks poorly?
____ % missed vs. ____ % incompetence
Now, compare those percentages to where you spend your time, your focus and your anxiety.
October 18, 2012
An organization that's run on emergencies and reaction to incoming doesn't know what to do when there are no problems.
Instead of seeking out new ways to delight, they run around looking for new emergencies, and if they look hard enough, of course they'll find them.
(Two reasons for this: emergencies concentrate the mind and allow things to get done, and history).
October 17, 2012
is to start with people who want what you want.
Identify, organize and excite people who are already predisposed to achieve what you had in mind and you're much more likely to have the outcome you seek. It's far easier (but less compelling) than turning strangers or enemies into customers/voters/supporters/colleagues. Over time, an engaged and motivated base of followers is the single best way to earn more followers.
You used to be stuck with whoever walked in the door or opened your mail. Today, you change minds indirectly, by building a tribe that influences via connections to others.
October 16, 2012
According to the economics of the industrial age, it's simple: Money spent creates output. If you use less labor or your system creates more output, your factory is being more efficient.
Machines can be more productive than people because once they're set up, they create more output per dollar spent. Lowering labor costs is the goal of the competitive industrialist, because in the short run, cutting wages increases productivity.
This is a race to the bottom, with the goal of cutting costs as low as possible as your competitors work to do the same.
The new high productivity calculation, though, is very different:
Decide what you're going to do next, and then do it. Make good decisions about what's next and you thrive.
Innovation drives the connection economy, not low cost.
The decision about what to do next is even more important than the labor spent executing it. A modern productive worker is someone who does a great job in figuring out what to do next.
[Take a listen to Krista Tippett's fabulous interview with Bobby McFerrin: On Being. These conversations go to the heart of the sort of high-productivity work we create today, but would make no sense at all just a generation ago.]
October 15, 2012
Not as catchy a title as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but I hope you'll walk through this with me:
I can outline a strategy for you, but if you don't have the tactics in place or you're not skilled enough to execute, it won't matter if the strategy is a good one.
Your project's success is going to be influenced in large measure by the reputation of the people who join in and the organization that brings it forward. That's nothing you can completely change in a day, but it's something that will change (like it or not) every day.
None of this matters if you and your team don't persist, and your persistence will largely be driven by the desire you have to succeed, which of course is relentlessly undermined by the fear we all wrestle with every day.
These seven elements: Strategy, Tactics, Execution, Reputation, Persistence, Desire and Fear, make up the seven points of the acute heptagram of impact. If your project isn't working, it's almost certainly because one or more of these elements aren't right. And in my experience, it's all of them. We generally pick the easiest and safest one to work on (probably tactics) without taking a deep breath and understanding where the real problem is.
Feel free to share the AHI, but please don't have it tattooed on your hip or anything.
October 14, 2012
The true story of the Seth Godin Action Figure: [Update: they may be all gone by the time you read this, sorry…]
It's a joke. But it's a real product, with tongue in cheek.
It was all for charity (the Acumen Fund gets all my royalties). An old interview with all the details here, including narwhals.
Years and years ago, I suggested this project to my friends at Archie McPhee because they're brilliant and funny and I'm jealous of what they do all day. And they (after six months of trying to persuade other, better authors to say yes) agreed.
And now, years later, after thousands of these little guys were sold, we come to the end of the line. Action figures are falling out of favor, they say, and they need to make room for bacon mints and flying pigs. And there's only a thousand left. Is your dashboard bereft? Here's your chance.
You can get yours for about half price! Just type in the discount code: pokethebox when you order (they tell me this is only for US orders).
Thanks, guys. Archie McPhee made me small, plastic, articulated and delighted, all at the same time. Now I know how Mr. Bill feels.
October 13, 2012
Given how essential it is to every aspect of our life, we spend very little time talking about or celebrating the civilized society we live in.
If civilization is stability, kindness, safety, the arts and a culture that cherishes more than merely winning whatever game is being played, we live in a very special time. There are certainly more people living a civilized life today than ever before in history. (And we still have a long way to go).
Given the opportunity, people almost always move from a place that's less civilized to one that's more civilized. Given the resources, we invest them creating an environment where we can be around people and events that we admire and enjoy. We move to places and cultures where we are trusted and where we are expected to do our share in return.
And yet…
There are always shortcuts available. Sometimes it seems like we should spend less money taking care of others, less time producing beauty, less effort doing the right thing–so we can have more stuff. Sometimes we're encouraged that every man should look out for himself, and that selfishness is at the heart of a productive culture. In the short run, it's tempting indeed to trade in a part of civilized humanity to get a little more for ourselves at the end of the day. And it doesn't work.
We don't need more stuff. We need more civilization. More respect and more dignity. We give up a little and get a lot.
The people who create innovations, jobs, culture and art of all forms have a choice about where and how they do these things. And over and over, they choose to do it in a society that's civilized, surrounded by people who provide them both safety and encouragement. I'm having trouble thinking of a nation (or even a city) that failed because it invested too much in taking care of its people and in creating a educated, civil society.
Your customers and your co-workers might be attracted to a Black Thursday rush for bargains and a dog-eat-dog approach to winning whatever game it is you're offering. But they come back because you respect them and give them a platform to be their best selves.
There are two kinds of users/creators/customers/pundits.
Some can't understand why a product or service doesn't catch on. They can prove that it's better. They can quote specs and performance and utility. It's obvious.
The other might be willing to look at the specs, but he really doesn't understand them enough to care. All he knows is that the other choice is beautiful–it makes him feel good. He wants to use it.
Acura vs. Lexus, Dell vs. Apple, New Jersey vs. Bali…
You can have both specs and beauty, of course, but only if you work at it.
October 12, 2012
When there's a change in your tribe or your organization or your trusted circle, you face two choices:
You can fight with the person creating the change, push back against them and defend the status quo.
Or you can fight for the person, double down on the cause, the tribe and the relationship, and refocus your efforts on making things work even better than they did before the change.
They're similar emotions and efforts, but they lead to very different outcomes.
October 11, 2012
That's another way to think about marketing.
We only sign up/pay attention to/pay for offers from marketers when:
What's promised is something we think is worth more than it costs
and
We believe you're the best person to keep that promise.
This applies to resumes, meetings and even the kid raking your lawn.
If your marketing isn't working, it's either because your promises aren't useful (and big) enough or we don't believe you're the one to keep them.
October 10, 2012
