That’s a pretty powerful combination. Some customers gravitate toward the option that offers ease, quality and convenience, while others prefer low price. If you can do both…
One way we’ve seen that done is with scale. Many people prefer the big box store to the local merchant. Not only is it often cheaper, but the selection might be dramatically better, the parking might be easier and in some rare cases, the service is better as well. How is this possible? Because volume pays off in almost every way that matters to the customer.
Another way is with proprietary insight. If a company has a production process, a patent or some other barrier, they can often deliver something faster and cheaper… a barrier that a competitor without that shortcut can’t overcome.
A third way is with herculean effort. When the people who work on the team simply care more. Caring is work, and caring is in short supply. An organization staffed with smart people who care can often run circles around a lazier competitor.
Most of the time, though, you’re probably unable to rely on one of these approaches. If that’s the case, the next best option is to choose. To actually be better (regardless of price) or to actually be cheaper. But pretending that you have both doesn’t work very well.
It costs a lot but it’s worth more than it costs.
October 19, 2020
The word has a very specific meaning, which is why it’s so powerful.
If we accept behavior that’s unacceptable, we’re compromising on something that we thought was too important to compromise on.
And that’s how we end up with the unacceptable becoming commonplace.
October 18, 2020
Uncomfortable limbo happens when we’re seeking firm footing and there isn’t any. The discomfort comes from not knowing, from our unlimited desire to get through it to the other side.
And comfortable limbo is a place to hide. We lull ourselves into complacency, because the limbo of being in between feels safe, with no responsibilities.
Amazingly, two different people can experience the same limbo in totally different ways. It’s not the limbo that’s different, it’s us.
October 17, 2020
Not the other way around.
It feels safer to say that we’re born with talents and gifts, that we have a true calling, that we’re looking for what connects with our passion.
That’s not useful (because it means you spend a lot of time shopping around) but it’s also not true.
New research confirms that random choices lead to preferences, and then it follows that preferences lead to habits and habits lead us to become the person we somehow decide we were born to be.
If you had grown up somewhere else or some time else, there’s little doubt that you’d prefer something else. The things we think we need are simply the things we’re used to.
And if you like what you like simply because you have a pattern, that means that you might be able to like something else if you could develop new patterns.
In short: If we commit to loving what we do, we’re more likely to find engagement and satisfaction. And if what we do changes, we can choose to love that too.
October 16, 2020
There’s the unalterable momentum of physical objects as understood by physics: objects in motion tend to remain that way. A fast-moving baseball hitting your head hurts more than a lobbed one.
But usually, momentum is only conceptual, and it’s based on our habits and our difficulty in understanding (and ignoring) sunk costs. We stick with a pattern, a leader, an employee or a project much longer than we should.
The behavior that keeps someone from getting hired is trivial compared to what it takes to get fired. And at some level, that makes sense. When we’re not committed yet, the cost of looking around and switching our choice is small. But once we’ve emotionally committed to a cause or a project or a person, the cost of change is high, partly because it involves feeling as though we made a mistake.
But compounding that initial choice by doubling down on it is the actual mistake.
Digging a deeper hole rarely gets us to the other side.
October 15, 2020
There are two sorts of projects.
In the first, you’ll need to show your work. Show us why the logic holds up. Tell us how this has happened before. Explain the best practices you’ve learned from and the standards you’re following.
In the second, you’re taking a leap. Simply guessing or going on instinct.
Either path can work, the problem is when we confuse them. Perhaps we’re doing something that is based on what’s come before, but we refuse to examine, measure or compare, insisting that history doesn’t apply. Or worse, when we’re going on instinct and assert that it’s actually a reliable, proven path forward.
If the stakes are high and the outcome needs to be reliable, we hope you’ll be able to show your work.
And when it comes to the part of the project that’s yours and yours alone, the part that isn’t based on what’s come before, show no work. And plan accordingly.
October 14, 2020
In Colonial America, they had private fire departments. If you didn’t voluntarily pay your dues, the firemen wouldn’t put out a fire–they’d watch your house burn and make sure it didn’t spread to your neighbor’s house. [or this!]
While this is a vivid way to ensure that everyone pays their dues, it’s such an inefficient way to support the fire department that it was replaced with the smarter alternative: a smaller tax on everyone, automatically collected. Even if a few manage to avoid paying their share, the blanket protection, which also leads to fire inspectors and building codes, clearly makes the case for universal protection.
We don’t let citizens opt out of paying their taxes, because community works better when group consensus leads to group action. It’s more efficient to provide services this way, and far more important, it creates a culture of ‘us’, which changes behavior from selfish to generous.
There’s a balance, neither extreme works. It’s up to us to think hard about where the (unstable, hard to find) balance lies.
October 13, 2020
When people around you do something that makes no sense or is self-defeating, it might not be because they’re stupid.
It’s more likely that they don’t believe what you believe, don’t see what you see or don’t want what you want. It might be different measures of time, of status or desire. If we hope to understand behavior, and ultimately to change it, we need to see the stories behind it.
Because, in many ways, we’re all irrational sometimes.
October 12, 2020
When does it snap into focus?
Because we don’t like to be wrong.
And more than that, we don’t like to be confused.
So when we encounter something new, we pause for a second until we think we get it. Then we lock it in, and it’s ours.
But what if we’re wrong?
What if our understanding of what we encountered wasn’t useful, accurate or true?
Suddenly, there’s a conflict. A conflict between being wrong and being confused. Because the only way to stop being wrong is to be momentarily confused. To jump from one state to another.
The magic is in waiting a few beats before you lock it in. Getting comfortable with ‘confused’ is a stepping stone on the path to becoming wise.
October 11, 2020
Perhaps it should be, given how much time is spent trying to make things more and more beige.
Bland is not a helpful goal.
The goal could be to become useful, remarkable and worth seeking out. To do something that’s hard to replace, groundbreaking or thrilling. Generous work that makes things better.
Beiger doesn’t help.
October 10, 2020
