We see the same four steps, over and over:
Struggle: At the beginning, no one knows what you make or why they need it. They are unaware and distrustful too. Sometimes the struggle never ends, other times the story is so compelling and the value created so in demand that it appears to go by quickly. But the struggle is always there. Most marketing (as opposed to advertising) lives in this stage, because you're starting from zero.
Servant: As a soon-to-be-successful organization gains traction, it has a choice. It can move to servant mode, delighting and connecting customers, exceeding expectations and performing what seems like miracles. Or it can take profits as soon as it can. The former leads to scale, the short-term approach usually results in more struggle.
Bully: As the organization gains power (and constituents) it is under pressure to increase profits and market share and lock in. The market power leads to more market power and the ability to cause customers or partners to shift their strategy in deference. (To be clear, I define a bully as an individual or organization that uses physical or other power to cause someone less powerful to act against their enlightened long-term self interest to satisfy their demands.) "We make the rules now."
Utility: No organization stays in bully mode forever. The step after this is utility, the organization that serves a function, makes a profit, and is often taken for granted.
Bitcoin is still in the struggle stage. Microsoft clearly went through all four of these stages a decade ago. Federal Express skipped the bully step, as far as I can tell, and moved straight to utility. AT&T also followed the four steps. So did Standard Oil. Religions that last more than a few generations go through these steps too. During their hyper-growth period, AOL had the chance to become a generations-long utility, but probably worked too hard to exercise their power to gain scale before moving to the utility stage.
While the easy examples to find are the famous, international ones, this can happen on the micro level, within industries or locations or sects as well.
I'd like to believe that the goal is to figure out how to live a life in the servant stage, to create an organization that doesn't become a bureaucratic haven or an avarice-focused engine of profit. As markets shift faster (networks grow faster now than ever before in human history) there's more opportunity to find a sweet spot that dances between servant and utility.
October 9, 2014
The bottom of the stack is essential, but it always gets easier to take for granted.
Of course electricity comes out of the little hole in the wall when you plug something in.
Of course the email engine works every day.
Of course the chipset returns the right calculations.
Of course the webpage loads quickly.
Of course the car starts the first time.
Of course the fax machine always works with other brands.
Of course you can call someone across the world for ten cents…
All of these things used to be really hard, random in their reliability, precious when they worked. Today, for most of us, they're a given (but still important).
Value is created as you work your way up to the newer, harder, scarcer parts of the value creation process. And then we'll figure those out and the stack will get taller still.
When the stack catches up, when the work you do is work that's taken for granted, climb up the stack.
PS I have to finalize the print run, so pre-press signups for my new book (www.yourturn.link) end tomorrow. Thanks!
October 8, 2014
It's tempting to fall into the trap of believing that being good at math is a genetic predisposition, as it lets us off the hook. The truth is, with few rare exceptions, all of us are capable of being good at math.
I'll grant you that it might take a gift to be great at math, but if you're not good at math, it's not because of your genes. It's because you haven't had a math teacher who cared enough to teach you math. They've probably been teaching you to memorize formulas and to be good at math tests instead.
Being good at standardized math tests is useless. These tests measure nothing of real value, and they amplify a broken system.
No, we need to get focused and demanding and relentless in getting good at math, at getting our kids good at math and not standing by when someone lets themselves (and thus us) off the hook. If you can read, you can do math. Math, like reading, isn't optional, it's our future and it helps free us from our fear of creation.
"Can an eight-inch square pizza fit on a nine-inch round plate without draping over the edge?" is a question that should make you smile, not one you should have to avoid.
October 7, 2014
Small businesses rule our economy, and each successful small businesses is expected to get bigger.
Many successful small businesses are easily scaled. The owner has created something that can be repeated, a product that can be mass produced, a process that can be franchised. Scaling up serves more customers and benefits the founder.
But some businesses, maybe yours, are built around new decisions and new work on a regular basis. Those businesses are also under pressure to scale, and that might be a mistake.
To get bigger, the small business that's based on the insight, energy and passion of a few people might have to dumb down. It has to standardize, itemize and rationalize, so that it can hire people who care a little less, know a little less and work a little less, because, after all, they just work here.
Which means that in order to get bigger, the small businessperson sacrifices the very thing that brought in business in the first place.
What if getting bigger isn't the point? What if you merely got better?
It's entirely possible that you're a special snowflake, that your unique point of view and understanding and care are precisely what the market wants from you… if that's true, then hiring people to be almost-as-good-as-you isn't going to lead to more of what we seek. It just means that you're working harder than ever to cover for people who can't quite figure out how to be you.
An alternative: acknowledge your special sauce and hire people only when they help you do what you do best and uniquely. Don't worry about replicating yourself, focus instead on leveraging yourself.
October 6, 2014
You will often hear from people who will announce that it's all over, that this is the crisis that ends it, once and for all. The Cassandra sees the end of the road for the project or the brand or the culture. It's the end, now.
Cassandra is countered by the Pollyanna, who thinks everything is fine, will be fine and always is fine.
[Update: I got the details of the mythological Cassandra wrong, sorry. In legend, she not only says the world is going to end, but she's right, because she has the ability to see the future. And her curse is that no one listens to her! My point below, though, still stands enough that I'll leave it here:]
The thing is: failure almost always arrives in a whimper. It is almost always the result of missed opportunities, a series of bad choices and the rust that comes from things gradually getting worse.
Things don't usually explode. They melt.
October 5, 2014
Ambassadors do two things that are really difficult for most people within organizations:
1. They listen and send the notes up the chain. They're at the front line, and they listen to what's happening and figure out how to get the right people back home to hear what's being said.
2. They apologize. Not for things they did wrong, but for things that others did wrong.
If you work for a company that you don't own, if you interact with customers, you're a brand ambassador. The person who runs the cash register or answers the phone or makes sales calls is a brand ambassador, in the world on behalf of the amorphous brand, whatever that is.
I recently bought a few shirts from a big chain. They left the anti-theft tags on the shirts, which of course meant a drive and a hassle to go back to a different store in the chain to get them taken off.
Challenge number one is that the disrespected, overworked cashier will never be asked about what she learned from her interaction with me. There's nothing in place for information to flow.
And challenge number two is that she steadfastly refused to apologize for the hassle. It wasn't her fault, she knew, so what was there to apologize for?
We invented ambassadors because nothing can replace face to face interaction, particularly when messages travel sometimes quite slowly through complex organizations. Just like now.
This seems obvious, and it is, until you realize that organizations make two huge mistakes:
A. They don't hire brand ambassadors, they hire clerks and bureaucrats, and treat them and pay them accordingly.
and
B. They don't manage and lead brand ambassadors, don't measure and reward and create a cadre of people who can listen for the brand and speak for the brand.
Would you send the clerk on aisle 7 to speak to a head of state or vital partner on behalf of your company? Because that's what he's doing right now.
October 4, 2014
I've spent the last two years teaching and speaking and writing about doing work that matters, engaging with our lizard brain and finding the ability to dance with uncertainty.
All those interactions have led to: What to Do When It's Your Turn.
This new book is about leaping and fear and doing work that challenges. It echoes many of the ideas I've been writing about here for the last year or two, but it's completely original work, all illustrated in four-color, in a new format that I haven't seen used to create a book. Mostly, I wrote it to make it easier for my readers to encourage the change they'd like to see in the people around them (and in ourselves). I wrote it for you, and I wrote it for me, too, to help me get straight about what matters in doing work that makes a difference.
I'm trying to capture some of the energy I'm able to bring to a live engagement, and so far, the people who have read it have found it opens doors for them and pushes them to think differently about their work. And everyone has asked if they can have copies for friends. Hence this pre-order opportunity for my most loyal readers and those seeking to make a ruckus.
About the pre-orders: The book comes out in December. My plan is to distribute it horizontally, from reader to reader, from fan to fan, as opposed to top down via retailers and promotion. For that to work, though, I need a few thousand fans who are willing to take a chance on me and order a pre-pack. They'll get the very first copies from the printer and have an easy way to share it with friends and colleagues. After a start like that, the book is on its own.
I'm announcing this now because I'm about to go to print and need to know how many to make…
My hope is that people won't be able to resist sharing it, just as we enjoy sharing digital work online.
For many people, of course, they'll prefer to wait, to see what others say, and to avoid being an early adopter. That's fine. Books last.
But, if you're up for it, I hope you'll check out the video and dive in so I can make an intelligent decision about how many to print. Who knows, if this works, we'll be able to make the change we seek happen even faster. Thanks for sharing.
October 3, 2014
I wonder if this has always been true: When things start to go awry, we get frustrated at leaders (or employees or co-workers) who seem to be calmly considering the options and doing their best work instead of hyperventilating.
The amount of hysteria one demonstrates isn't at all related to how much work is being done (or how much we care).
October 2, 2014
Why is that? Is the world so unfair?
Actually, it might be because the other guys took the time and invested the effort to build a movement. They showed up, every time, again and again. They never contemplated that they might lose, even though they're wrong, sub-par or not as good as you are. Their operating system, corporate structure, political ideas or economic approach won.
Perhaps they told a story that resonated, one that resonated not with the better angels of our nature, but with our urgent desires. And most probably, they built a tribe, not one in their image, but in the image (and dreams) of those that wanted to belong.
But mostly, it's because they were prepared to spend a decade (or two or three) to change the culture of their part of the world in the direction that mattered to them.
October 1, 2014
I don't usually write about these, because they're almost always over produced and riskless affairs promoting me-too and banal products.
But, consider this new book promo from O/R. They're also giving 20% off to Google employees, which is a clever touch.
And then amuse yourself with this pitch perfect ad from GE. Big-time ad execs could never run something this self-aware on TV, but of course, we don't need TV anymore. Not when people (instead of networks) spread around the stuff we choose to watch.
September 30, 2014
