One show can make Netflix’s year. One stock can make the numbers for an investor. One player can drive a team to victory.
The key is, “I’m not sure which one it’s going to be, but it’s going to be one of these.”
The challenge with falling in love with the potential of just one egg is that we often end up making the entire basket the same. That’s no longer a portfolio, it’s one bet over and over again.
The best portfolios have elements you’re pretty sure are wrong. They often end up being right.
June 28, 2023
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an invisible burden, until it’s not. Ignoring the changes in our climate makes our days easier, but not our years.
We can avoid the bank balance, not work on the annual budget and ignore the results of that ad we just ran. It’s tempting because the reality we create for ourselves can provide a sort of shock absorber, allowing us to focus on how we’d like things to be, as opposed to how they are.
The reporter of symptoms isn’t the cause of the symptoms, and avoiding the report doesn’t improve your status.
This is one of many reasons why entrepreneurs are drawn to the magical thinking that often goes with external funding. After all, if you’re focused on a story that gets you an investment, you can avoid the reality of a P&L, at least for now.
The problem with this avoidance is that we’re always concerned about reality butting in when we least expect it.
The Ponzi scheme operator is constantly wondering when the plan will go bust. Reality is your enemy.
On the other hand, a cash-flow, profitable business doesn’t need to worry about what private investors think.
If your blood pressure is okay, you don’t have to avoid going to the doctor to have it checked.
June 27, 2023
Crisp faces many opponents: entropy, laziness, time, compromise and false shortcuts. And fear. Most of all, fear.
Things rarely become crispy on their own. Instead, it requires care and effort. An ume shiso hand roll begins with a crisp piece of nori, but within a minute or two, though the ingredients are the same, it becomes soggy instead of tasty.
Uniforms, service, linens, insights–they can all be crisp if we care enough.
June 26, 2023
The alphabet is one. 26 letters, no more. One order, that’s it.
The Beatles are another. John, Paul, George and then Ringo. The Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, The Supremes.
The astrological zodiac gets us to twelve, but I’m having a really difficult time finding a memorable set with more than that.
When we start talking about trees or stars or even colors, the list isn’t clearly finite. Anatomy or species don’t work either. There’s always one or a hundred more to add. And human lists like saints or countries are hard to put in a memorable order, same with the US states.
The Great Lakes are five, the planets are eight. I wonder where we find a list of 30 to 100 items. And no fair picking something in Latin or involving multiple dimensions of advanced math.
There must be some sort of human or cultural limit that makes the alphabet a natural exception to our desire for this sort of knowable set.
I know this has nothing to do with our regular programming, but I’d love your best riff on this. Here’s a simple form. I’ll publish some of the winners.
UPDATE!
Here’s what I learned from your generous and thoughtful responses:
- In the US, a lot of people went with the 50 states. That’s partly because it’s such a foundational concept in our political mythology. It’s also more than 26, which few human sets seem to be. BUT, there’s no obvious order to the states, and the ones we invent aren’t particularly useful, except to remember all of them.
- On the other hand, the one I heard the most that fit the criteria was the periodic table. Here, the order is real. Atomic number doesn’t mess around. It says something about our science literacy (along with the anarchic way the elements were named) that most of us can’t name 100 or more elements. But the real insight for me is that this set wasn’t invented by humans. We discovered it, we didn’t invent it.
- And the other big insight was that perhaps I was looking in the wrong place. It may be that a well constructed popular song with interesting lyrics is the perfect example. There’s a finite list of words, they have to go in a certain order and it means something to us. I’d put the Cat in the Hat on this list as well.
Thanks all.
June 25, 2023
…perhaps we should stop.
Unless the going was the point.
The empty part of the drawer is what makes it a useful tool.
Same goes for a filing cabinet, a toolbox and a calendar.
Slack is underrated.
June 24, 2023
The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?”
The right question is a little more nuanced and far more important,
“We’re seeking to make a change in part of the world. How do we find the right people and tell them the right (true) story that helps them get to where they’re going–and that they’ll tell to their peers?”
It’s worth breaking this down and understanding the components:
make a change: Any project that seeks to maintain the status quo is difficult to grow. You’re here to make a change, and being clear about what that is is the first step.
the right people: Nothing worth spreading is built to appeal to everyone. So who is your someone? What do they want, fear and believe? How do you shift from being mediocre to being specific?
the right (true) story: Marketing is never about the full experience of all the facts, specifications and impacts of your product or service. It’s the story we tell ourselves about it. A story of status, affiliation, of change and fear. If that story is true, then you can continue to build on it over time, and users won’t end up disappointed.
that helps them get to where they’re going: It’s very difficult to prove a prospect or customer wrong. Hard to get them to want something they don’t want. The opportunity lies in helping them get what they wanted all along.
and finally…
that they’ll tell to their peers: Not to everyone, but to people who trust them. Why would they do that? They won’t do it for you, they’ll do it because it raises their status, increases connection or gives them some other form of satisfaction.
Promotion might make sense after you’ve got all of this figured out.
June 23, 2023
Treasure it when you find it. Offer it when you can.
One of the greatest joys of being an author is the other authors. The game theory would indicate that authors are competitors–there are a scarce number of publishers, of bookshelf slots, of readers. But, being the only author in the world wouldn’t just be lonely, it wouldn’t work very well. Books actually sell best next to other books, not in the supermarket.
But more than that, peer support comes when people are part of something bigger than themselves. When they see their work as a craft, and a chance to turn on a light or raise a standard.
In every field, our best work can feel lonely, because we don’t have a guarantee, a map to follow or a crowd of people sure that it’s going to work. That’s when peer support means the most. And when it contributes to the evolution and forward motion of a field.
“Peer” is a job title, and it’s earned. One way to earn it is by finding the others, connecting them and leading them. We spend our lives looking for peers to accept us, but in fact, we have the chance to establish the foundation for our peers to find each other.
While most people say that when they’re a stranger in a room, they’d like to be warmly greeted, it’s also true that we hesitate to be the greeter when a new voice arrives. That’s a natural instinct, and worth pushing back against.
Organizing your peers feels awkward. Who are you to invite three or four others to a weekly mastermind check in? Who are you to speak up about a new idea that isn’t obvious or easily defended (yet?). Well, if not you, who?
Thank you Steve, for the shout out, and more than that, for decades for showing us how it’s done.
June 22, 2023
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of value.
Showing up on time for a meeting is a project (airlines! traffic! weather!) and so is building a skyscraper. That next podcast you’re going to publish is a project, and so is cooking dinner for guests.
There’s always uncertainty because we’re dancing with the future, with random events and often, with other people.
And there’s a need for management because left to its own devices, a project isn’t likely to get done on its own.
The unpredictable nature of future events means that there will often be unexpected speed bumps. No project manager has a perfect record, because the cost of being completely perfect in the face of unknown is too high. And yet, there’s a huge gap between great project management and simply providing earnest effort. If unexpected events happen to you more than the average expected rate, if you’re often better at finding excuses than a way to avoid needing an excuse, it’s a sign that your next project could benefit from a more intentional approach to shipping great work on time.
It’s not a surprise that we’re all pretty unsophisticated at project management. We’re pushed to begin with our very first assignments and creations in first grade, and we make projects, with increasingly higher stakes, all through school. And yet, no one ever teaches us that this is a skill that can be learned and delivered with strategy and technique.
The hallmarks of earnest amateurism are:
- lots of resources available for emergencies, shifting time away from planning and contingencies
- embrace of a narrative that this particular interruption is unique and couldn’t be planned for
- the thrill of getting close to failure and making it work at the last possible moment
The professional, on the other hand, invests heavily to be sure that none of these three exciting things happen. And when surprises happen, they expect them, accept them and simply shift to the other route.
The most exciting thing about professional project management is that it trades away excitement for systems thinking and intentional action. We make heroes out of people who show up with the last-minute save, but the real work is in not needing the last minute.
And it’s helpful to realize that it’s a skill, a choice, a set of tools to be learned, not something we’re born with. Very few successful organizations feel as though they’ve underinvested in project management. By the time a project is worth doing, it’s worth doing with intent.
June 21, 2023
Culture seeks shortcuts.
The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?”
If we know the answer to that, a whole bunch of time gets saved, and fear is reduced as well.
The labeling goes beyond which team, cadre, tribe or village someone is part of. It extends to the ways we demonstrate which box we’ve chosen–fashion, pro sports, even the tech we use or how we speak. The search for safe shortcuts becomes an end to itself.
And then it can get toxic. When we start dividing people by race or identity, by background or caste, we end up losing dignity and nuance for the false shortcut of putting someone into a box.
But in our quest to put everyone in a box, we leave a lot behind. We ignore the chance to interact with someone who can teach us something. We sacrifice the benefit of the doubt in exchange for what feels like security. And we take away the humanity of people who don’t make it easy for us to find a niche for them.
Pigeonholes are best for pigeons.
PS my new LinkedIn course is free this week.
June 20, 2023
