We make our own taste, and call it reality
Most of us say, "this is better, therefore I like it."
In fact, the converse is what actually happens. "I like it, therefore I'm assuring you (and me) that this is better."
Hitsville
The latest episode my Akimbo podcast is about hits. (Click then scroll down to see all the episodes, or, even better, subscribe for free…)
The hit that sweeps an industry, like a thresher through a wheat field. The one that everyone is talking about. The lines down the street, the box office record, the career maker.
Isn't that what creators dream of?
There are three ways a hit happens:
- Many people who love a particular medium (music, the theatre, books) coalesce around a single new title.
- Many people who rarely spend time in that medium make this title the one thing they're going to engage in.
- A few people consume that title over and over again.
It's rare to invent something that works on all three levels. Black Panther is not like the DaVinci Code which is not like the Grateful Dead.
You can build something that the cool kids love. You can build something that the bystanders love. Or you can build a cult favorite. Best to do it on purpose.
[PS we're going to record an episode of Akimbo today. The episode is going to be about 'live' and of course, we're going to record it live at 10 am ET. Feel free to tune in and join us.]
[Also, Bernadette's new book is now available. It's worth your time.]
300 seconds
Not stalling.
Pausing.
How many decisions or commitments would end up more positively if you had a five-minute snooze button on hand?
Esprit d'escalier* isn't as hard to live with as its opposite. The hasty one-liner, the rushed reaction, the action we end up regretting–all of them can be eliminated with judicious use of the snooze button. It's a shame there isn't one built in to our computers when we're communicating online…
When in doubt, go for a walk around the block.
*The feeling we get when we think of a witty response on the way home instead of at the dinner party, when it would have been the perfect put-down.
When well-meaning people can’t see it the same way
Yes, there are a few people who are mendacious, who are not seeking what you're seeking. And yet, most of the time, there are plenty of good people who disagree with you–they want a good outcome, but the narrative they bring insists on getting there in a very different way. They have different glasses on and are using a different map as well.
People don't believe what you believe, and they don't know what you know. Some of the gaps:
Authority–because the world works better when things are coherent and predictable and someone is in charge
Freedom–because people free to speak up and find their own path are able to weave a civil society out of chaos
Affiliation–because being in sync and engaged with others makes for a happier life
Conformance–because doing what you’re told is safer and telling people what to do is easier
Inconsistent–Change is fine if it makes things better, even if you want to call me a flip flopper
Consistent–Because it’s safer to stand for something and not reconsider it
Hero—Someone needs to save the day
Bystander–There's too much on the line, and I'm not the one to do it this time
What will they say?–keep an eye on those that are watching me
What will my mom say?–doing the right thing, even if someone is looking, and especially if no one is
Belief–because it’s a narrative to quiet the chatter in our head
Proof–because science works
Change–because things can get better if we let them
The status quo–because change is risky
Civility–because we’re working to keep it all from falling apart
Conflict–because if you can’t handle it, get out of the way
The long haul–because none of it is worth it if we poison ourselves
The short run–because the long haul manages to take care of itself
Service–because our heroes sacrificed for others
Profit–because making a profit is the market’s way of rewarding service
The strongest–because the pack moves fastest if the strongest are supported and rewarded
The slowest–because we’re only as good as the way we treat the weakest among us
The cusp–because progress is interesting
The middle–because proven is better
Family first–because you take care of your own
Community first–because everyone is in your family
Emergencies–because this pain needs to be addressed right now
The long game–because the emergencies never end
Show your work–because finding an error in my math helps us both, transparency pays
Opacity—I don't need you cherry-picking an argument with me
Pay it forward–because someone did it for me
Put your own oxygen mask on first–because I might not get another chance
The big hill
There's a commuter shortcut near my house.
To make it work, you need to accelerate the SUV up a really big hill, breaking the speed limit by ten or twenty mph. Then roll a stop sign, avoid a few kids walking to school and gun it on the downhill.
All to save three minutes.
Meanwhile, the other commuters arrive at work with their psychic energy saved for the real work. The hard work of confronting the status quo.
The first shortcut is selfish. It wastes resources and engages in risk to help no one but the driver.
The other work, though, is priceless. Those are the hills worth taking.
[PS hint: There's another session of TMS coming up soon. If you have an idea worth spreading, it might be for you. We always alert our keep-me-posted list first with all the details. Find out more here.]
Where are the movie stars?
I'm sitting in a crowded lobby in Los Angeles, surrounded by 100 or so people. Not one of them looks like a movie star. No one has perfect hair, a perfect family, a perfect life.
I'm at a fancy conference in Boulder. There are a thousand CEOs and founders here. Not one is gliding through her day the way the folks on magazine covers are. Not one has a glitch-free project and the clear sailing that the articles imply.
And here, at the gym in Yonkers, I'm not seeing a single person who looks like he could be on the cover of Men's Health.
Role models are fine. But not when they get in the way of embracing our reality. The reality of not enough time, not enough information, not enough resources. The reality of imperfection and vulnerability.
There are no movie stars. Merely people who portray them now and then.
Rubbernecking
A traffic jam can teach us quite a lot about human nature.
In the US, when there's an accident on the side of the road, traffic in the other direction slows down. People voluntarily slow down and look over at the carnage.
This is nuts.
These very same people would never pay money to go to a movie filled with car wrecks that hurt real people. And yet, they do it from their car. It turns out we're very interested in things that are happening in real time, right next to us.
Not only that, but the jam created by this voluntarily slowdown can last for an hour or more. And yet, when it's your turn, when you get to the front of the line, instead of saying, "well, I got punished for the bad behavior of the 1,000 people ahead of me, I'm going to fix that and speed up now," we say, "hey, I paid my dues, my turn to look…"
And of course, the nature of variance means that human-controlled cars on the highway have to go much slower when they are closer together. And so the slowdown ripples backwards, because instead of leaving plenty of space so that they can all speed up quickly, we inch together, ensuring that the jam will take even longer.
Every time you think that the human beings you seek to serve are rational, profit-seeking, long-term decision makers, visualize a rubbernecking traffic jam.
Your kitchen table
You open the door and the vacuum cleaner salesperson comes in, and dumps a bag of trash in your living room.
Or a neighbor sneaks in the back door and uses a knife to put gouges on the kitchen table.
Or, through the window, someone starts spraying acid all over your bookshelf…
Why are you letting these folks into your house?
Your laptop and your phone work the same way. The reviews and the comments and the breaking news and the texts that you read are all coming directly into the place you live. If they're not making things better, why let them in?
No need to do it to yourself, no need to let others do it either.
Taking advantage of complexity and inconvenience
That’s why we need you.
Because of the arcane forms, the changing regulations, the difficult vendors. Because of the policies that don’t make any sense and the software that keeps getting less intuitive.
If your job involves facilitating and sensemaking, this is good news for you.
After all, if we made your job too easy, we wouldn’t need to hire you…
Clark Kent’s shoes
Back when Superman used to change into his outfit in a phone booth, the question was: where does he put Clark's shoes? Because even if he could compress them with his super strength, they'd be ruined.
Organizations that need to adopt different personas often get into trouble.
Consider ConEdison, which is completely failing here in NY during the recent storms (and of course, it's nothing compared to what people in Puerto Rico or other parts of the world have gone through).
On one hand, most of the time, they're invisible. They're a boring bureaucracy, optimized for stable jobs, predictable if not low-cost processes, mediocre customer service and average (or below average) user interface design. They're a monopoly and they act like one.
But then, when things break, they're expected to act like heroes, like people who truly care. They are expected to hustle, to find the edge of the performance curve, to really step up.
Unfortunately, their shoes don't compress very well.
We know it can be done. We see heroic organizations do great work. But ConEd doesn't.
John McAvoy, the CEO, is probably pretty good at steering a boring monopoly. I have no clue. But he hasn't built much in the way of heroic response capability. And every time something breaks, that becomes obvious.
Small businesses sometimes wrestle with the opposite. They get their accounts by acting like heroes, performing miracles on an emergency basis. But when it comes time to regularly do the work, to show up and show up and show up, they don't have the resources or the patience to do so.
The opportunity is to choose. To truly embrace one and buy precisely the right kind of shoes.
The alternative is to invest the resources to have two teams that can do one or the other. And to tolerate the fact that when the other team is working, you're not at maximum efficiency.
Systems are a miracle. Until we try to force a system that's good at one thing to do another.
Then we just ruin our shoes and end up annoying everyone who trusted us.
(PS comic book geeks will recall that Clark's shoes were made out of a special kind of miracle foam that looked just like a boring Florsheim brogue but could be compressed into a really small ball. And of course, there's no such thing available to the general non-superhero management class, sorry).