I hope you have dreams. Dreams are precious, and they open the door for what happens next.
Some dreams are tactical. They’re very specific executions of a possible future, designed to create a certain kind of happiness.
And some dreams are strategic. They might be short on specifics, but they help us understand exactly the change we seek to make in the world and the way it might make us feel.
If your dream is to be a vaudeville star working nightly at the Rialto on Broadway, that’s specific and tactical.
If, on the other hand, your dream is to pursue your craft in front of an audience that appreciates you and makes it possible for you to do it again, that’s strategic.
The more we talk about them, the more tactical they become, as if a dream doesn’t count if it isn’t imminent.
But getting the strategic part right is far more important. The feeling and contribution you’re going for, not what it looks like on your resume.
The problem is that people are often terrible at helping with your dreams.
Perhaps you might get lucky and find someone who cares enough about you that they’ll happily give useful feedback and advice about your tactical dreams. What a precious gift. They’re celebrating your journey at the same time they’re helping you see how you can improve the tactics you’ve chosen.
Tactical dreams are almost certain to never work out the way we hope. We need all the help we can get to understand what we’re actually hoping to accomplish and why. We need to learn to see the strategy behind the tactics we’ve chosen. Because once we can settle on a strategy that works for us and the audience we care about, our tactics can change over time.
Too often, we believe that the first set of tactics we’ve settled on is our true calling, the only way to accomplish our dream. And then we get trapped, and turn away from those that might help us figure out what we really need to be focusing on.
On the other hand, folks who criticize your strategic dreams might mean well, but they’re probably keeping you from making a real impact. To protect you, they pull you down instead. They’re hoping to prevent you from failing at anything. That’s not helpful.
It’s easy to get confused and to simply hope that people will cheer us on, regardless of how realistic our tactics are.
But if the people around you are afraid to criticize any of your dreams, you’re likely to find yourself in a tactical bind one day soon.
November 4, 2021
There are two confusions. The first is that the next big idea must be fully original. The second is that it have no competition.
This is almost never the case.
Henry Ford didn’t invent the car, and there were plenty of social networks before the dominance of Facebook. Madam CJ Walker didn’t invent haircare, and Ray Kroc definitely didn’t invent the hamburger or the french fry.
The same is even more true for thriving, important local businesses of manageable size.
The future of all of these types of organizations isn’t based on a lack of customer choice. It’s based on customer traction.
When there’s a compelling reason, often due to execution, care and people (combined with a network effect), then a new organization can thrive. Because people want what it offers.
Once you realize that you’re not looking for something original and alone, you have countless options. Because the opportunity is to simply solve a problem, to show up in the world with leadership and generosity and make things that people choose.
The hard part is showing up to lead.
We’ve been indoctrinated to join a ‘safe’ venture instead of seeking out something worth leading.
And that’s the reason that innovations often stall. Because it’s easier to be skeptical than it is to say, “I’m leading.”
And the reason that projects often fail in the early stages is because leaders can get scared of competition and choice, when it’s actually competition and choice that are the symptoms that you’re on to something.
In the middle of all the trauma and change in our lives, we are all on the cusp of a huge multiplication of new business models, new funding models and new ways of being in our communities. If you’ve been waiting for a moment to start a project bigger than your own hourly contribution, this is truly the best moment I can recall.
November 3, 2021
Voting with a capital “V” is fraught. It happens rarely, it’s fairly permanent and thus momentous. We bring identity and media and politics into a swirl, spending billions of dollars to create something that feels both fruitless and participatory at the same time.
Voting uses a 5,000-year-old method to, in a tiny moment of time, have people raise their hands and make a choice.
These sorts of Votes are a ceremony that adorns the way we govern.
But Voting with a capital V actually confuses us about the power we each have to speak up in all sorts of informal ways. We vote (with a small v) every time we discuss who to invite over for dinner, what sort of car to buy, and particularly when it comes to work and commerce, how we’ll accomplish anything as a team.
And technology, which has made it easier than ever for us to collide with other peoples’ ideas (and to collude with them), hasn’t done much to institute useful new ways to vote and to be heard. And when we feel heard, we’re far more likely to connect and commit.
Instead, we rely on traditional status roles, on caste, on signals of strength. We rarely adequately reward wisdom or a good track record when making these decisions, and often the decisions that are confirmed create more team divisions instead of building connection and resilience.
What if we could build a voting layer into our teams and our culture? What if it were community-based, resilient and easy to use? And what if that voting layer allowed us to create new forms of value, new projects and better ways to connect and decide?
For the last year, I’ve been noodling on a plan for a DAO that creates the conditions for a new form of widespread tally. Dozens of really smart and passionate people helped me think about the tech and the implications. The plan I’m sharing below is filled with examples, traditional ideas, new technologies, cultural shifts and a different way of changing the culture while building a layer of the internet.
But this is bigger than me. As I’ve written about before, describing the project and running it are very different things… It needs dedicated leaders ready to commit to building something for the long haul. So I’m publishing the idea here, giving it away and hoping that many people around the world will copy it, improve it, develop it, share it and make it work far beyond what I’ve described.
Here’s the plan for Pluralism. And the published web version. (Static backup version).
Make it yours. Have fun.
¶
November 2, 2021
It’s such an odd thing to say.
The benefit of the doubt is withheld from many of us, options are unevenly distributed and indoctrination is real.
And yet… no matter where we begin, we each get the choice, every day, to choose to lead.
It’s tragic that the brainwashing runs so deep that we’ve hidden that choice from many people. But it’s there, in areas big and small.
My friends at Akimbo continue to open doors for people who are ready to make that choice. The altMBA’s Regular Decision Deadline is tomorrow, November 2nd for the upcoming altMBA January 2022 session.
And Thursday is the last day to enroll in the next session of the legendary Story Skills Workshop.
The world is changing faster than it ever has before, and we can choose to lead those changes or simply follow them.
November 1, 2021
This is almost never true.
For just about any issue, behavior, company or movement, the vast majority of people are neither. They might be unaware, they might be unconcerned, they might have a different priority list.
Forward motion happens from two things:
First, creating synchronized, persistent action among the people who are with you.
Second, creating a path where some of the inactive decide to join you.
Insisting that someone choose sides might feel like the satisfying and urgent thing to do, but it rarely leads to enrollment and action.
Most of the challenges we face are things we’ve faced before. It might be a personal situation or a business one, but it’s not new.
If what you’ve done before works, it’s not a problem any more.
If you need to stick it out because there’s no other way through it, it’s not a problem, it’s a situation.
But if you think it’s a problem, then the hard work is deciding to try something new, as opposed to the predictable but unsuccessful path of doing what you did before.
That’s not the same as the challenge we face when a new problem arises.
A new problem doesn’t need fresh thinking, it needs clear awareness. We can begin by acknowledging we have a problem, identifying the constraints, the boundaries and the assets involved.
And then we can go to work to solve it.
Because ultimately, that’s our job. To solve interesting problems.
October 31, 2021
From, “Pay attention, I want you to buy what I made.”
to…
“I’ve been paying attention, and I think I can offer you what you want.”
October 30, 2021
The best way for a movie studio to outperform is to attract and encourage creators with vision, drive and commitment.
And yet, the key executives might be spending their time and focus and effort on micro-managing the end credits on the next movie or setting up a press junket.
The best way for a marketing team to grow sales and market share is to help design a product that uses a network effect and builds remarkability and engagement right into the item itself.
And yet, the team just spent three hours arguing about where to shoot the next commercial.
That small business will probably be most transformed by creating sell-through and market demand for their new product, But it’s overwhelmingly urgent to focus on a shipment that’s delayed, even though the supply chain can’t be fixed.
It goes on and on. For a job search, fixing your resume isn’t nearly as important as shipping a personal project. For a restaurant, creating a reason to come back with friends is more important than getting all the normal things right…
We can’t fix this problem until we see it, and then we need to be clear with ourselves and with our colleagues about where that leverage point is.
October 29, 2021
When the cost of topping off your battery is less than the catastrophic risk of running out of juice, it pays to add to your reserves.
That’s the entire point of having a tank. Going near empty isn’t nearly as effective as building up a cushion. Have your emergency on your own schedule.
October 28, 2021
Quality is defined as consistently meeting spec. A measurable promise made and kept.
Effort is what happens when we go beyond our normal speed. When we dig deep and exert physical or emotional labor and focus on something that is out of the ordinary. Effort is the opposite of coasting.
Often we’re taught that quality is the result of effort. That if you simply tried harder, you’d come closer to meeting spec.
And yet, when we look at organizations or brands or individuals with a reputation for quality, it’s not at all clear that they accomplish this with more effort. Because that’s simply not sustainable.
The people who work at a Lexus plant aren’t more tired at the end of the day than those that make the Cadillac Escalade. It’s not about effort. The same is true for the Dabbawalla who never misses a delivery. In fact, focusing on effort (and the effort of your team) is almost guaranteed to ensure that your quality problem will persist.
Persistent quality problems are a systemic issue, and if you’re not working on your system, you’re not going to improve it.
“How do we do this work?” is a much better question than, “who isn’t trying hard enough?”
October 27, 2021
