Each of us understands that different people are swayed by different sorts of arguments, based on different ways of viewing the world. That seems sort of obvious. A toddler might want an orange juice because it's sweet, not because she's trying to avoid scurvy, which might be the argument that moves an intellectual but vitamin-starved sailor to take action.
So far, so good.
The difficult part is this: Even when people making an argument know this, they don't like making an argument that appeals to the other person's alternative worldview.
Worth a full stop here. Even when people have an argument about a political action they want someone else to adopt, or a product they want them to buy, they hesitate to make that argument with empathy. Instead, they default to talking about why they believe it.
To many people, it feels manipulative or insincere or even morally wrong to momentarily take the other person's point of view when trying to advance an argument that we already believe in.
And that's one reason why so many people claim to not like engaging in marketing. Marketing is the empathetic act of telling a story that works, that's true for the person hearing it, that stands up to scrutiny. But marketing is not about merely sharing what you, the marketer believes. It's about what we, the listener, believe.
More on this here.
November 21, 2015
The opposite of NIMBY, the opposite of isolation.
Building a fortress is expensive. It cripples your tribe. And it won’t work.
Modern fortresses amplify fear, destroy the value that's at the heart of the connection economy, and don't actually pay off. It's far more valuable to live in a community of hard-working, trustworthy refugees and (former) strangers than it is to become isolated.
To be clear, the threat might be real. And the fear certainly is. That's not in question. The question is: What to do about our fear?
Let’s begin with this: In the long run (and the long run keeps getting shorter), even the biggest fortress can’t keep ideas out. Ideas move at the speed of light now, and they don’t need a carrier pigeon or an infiltrator to carry them. It's okay to detest an idea, but it's foolish to build a wall to protect against it.
Even though this is clearly and demonstrably true, fearful leaders want to do more inspections, insist on more pat downs, build bigger walls. Walls that won’t keep ideas out.
And building a fortress cripples us. It turns people into spies and informants. And spies and informants are so busy being afraid that they fail to actually build anything of value. Not to mention that doing the right thing, doing it in a way we're proud of, is part of who we are, all of us.
Human beings thrive on the quest for total control, for a day that feels like it's up to us. That quest is compelling, but it turns out that we're in danger of building a world where the fruitless search for control is undermining the future we hope to create.
Remember the St. Louis.
November 20, 2015
…isn't.
Your big break might be a break, but in the long run, it's certainly not big.
Breaks give us a chance to do more work, to continue showing up, to move a bit further down the road.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it, "your big new start."
The most important lesson is this: If you spend too much time looking for your next big break, you'll be stealing your opportunity to do your best work. Which is the the most important break of all.
November 19, 2015
Does this group have a loyalty oath?
Brittle organizations are focused on which end of the egg you open. Are you wearing the team jersey the right way, saying the incantations each time, saluting properly…
Resilient organizations are more focused on what you produce, and why.
Petty dictators care a lot about words, about appearances, about whether everyone is genuflecting in precisely the same way.
The problem with words is that they easily lose their meaning. Say something often enough and it becomes a tic, not an expression of how you actually feel. Not only that, but words rarely change things. Actions do.
It turns out that it's a lot easier to sign up for a tribe that doesn't ask you to think, or take responsibility for your actions. But, in the long run, those are the very things that lead to the changes we seek.
"Use your best judgment, care about your impact, do work that matters…" are significantly more powerful instructions than, "Do it this way. Say it this way. Behave the way I told you to."
November 18, 2015
One way to make something is to pre-process all the inputs. Make sure that you've worked the supply chain so that the raw materials are precisely the same every time. Guarantee that the working conditions are identical. Isolate all your processes from the outside world, so they're reliable and predictable.
The other way is to use natural light. Take what you get. Make the variability in your inputs part of what you create.
If you need to control your conditions, by all means, control them. Own that. It costs a lot and you need to make it worth it. It's foolish to expect that you can regularly wrestle variation into perfection without tools and effort. This is how modern surgery is done, and it's a good thing. Hospitals don't hesitate to invest time and money in controlling every element they can control.
Or, take the path of natural light. Embrace the idea that the conditions will never be ideal, which of course makes them always ideal. Because the thing about natural light is that whatever it is, is.
You can make this choice about the way you make ketchup, your hiking & camping methods or the way you do photography. Less equipment, less repeatability, more engagement. HT Paul.
Also: Thanks to you, we've already had 20,000 free downloads of the Thanksgiving Reader. Special thanks to Arianna Huffington and Cool Hunting.
November 17, 2015
In ten days, just about everyone in the United States will celebrate the best holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. I’m hoping that this year, you and your family will help me start a new holiday tradition.
At its best, this is a holiday about gratitude, about family and about possibility. It brings people together to not only celebrate the end of the harvest, but to look one in another in the eye and share something magical.
In a digital age, one where humanity has been corrupted by commerce at every turn, there are very few Thanksgiving piñatas stuffed with coins, no huge market in Thanksgiving wrapping paper, no rush to the stores. We mostly save that for the next day, when the retail-industrial establishment kicks into high gear.
I’m delighted to point you to the Thanksgiving Reader . The file you'll find there is free, it’s printable, it’s sharable and it might give us something universal and personal to do this Thanksgiving.
The idea is simple: At your Thanksgiving celebration (and yes, it’s okay to use it outside the US!), consider going around the table and having each person read a section aloud.
During these ten or fifteen minutes, millions of people will all be reading the same words, thinking about the same issues, connecting with each other over the essence of what we celebrate. After all the travel and the cooking and the hassle, for these ten or fifteen minutes, perhaps we can all breathe the same air and think hard about what we’re thankful for.
It’s free to download and share. I hope you’ll let some people in your life know about it and incorporate it in your celebration this year. There’s no commercial element involved—after all, it’s Thanksgiving.
Please share. And we're happy to hear your suggestions.
Thank you for everything you do, and for the difference you make to your family and the people who care about you.
[and for international readers, in troubled times…]
Wherever you are, you could celebrate Thanksgiving today. Or any day.
Not the Thanksgiving of a bountiful Massachusetts harvest before the long winter, the holiday of pilgrims and pie. That's a holiday of scarcity averted. I'm imagining something else…
A modern Thanksgiving would celebrate two things:
The people in our lives who give us the support and love we need to make a difference, and…
The opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves, something worth contributing to. The ability to make connections, to lend a hand, to invent and create.
There are more of both now than there have ever been before. For me, for you, for just about all of us. Thank you.
[Backup download in case the other one has too much traffic: Download The Thanksgiving Reader]
November 16, 2015
It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do.
The story is told of a focus group for a new $100 electronic gadget. The response in the focus group was fabulous, people all talked about the features of the new device with excitement.
At the end of the session, the moderator said, "thanks for coming. As our gift to you, you can have your choice of the device or $25."
Everyone took the cash.
Surveys that ask your customers about their preferences, their net promoter intent, their media habits–they're essentially useless compared to watching what people actually do when they have a chance. The media wastes their time and ours handicapping politics based on polls, on changes in polls, on expectations based on polls—it's sad. Polls are always wrong.
The best part of show & tell has never been the telling part.
November 15, 2015
If every person in Iceland bought your product, loved your music, read your book, would it be enough?
Iceland has a tiny population, but if you had all of them, would it be enough?
Of course, you don’t have to go to Iceland to get 320,000 customers. Geography is just one way to seek out edge cases.
Most successes aren’t the result of trying to be a huge success and settling for what you get. They are the result of focusing on exactly what you need, and getting it.
November 14, 2015
For each person who cares enough to make something, who is bold enough to ship it, who is generous enough to say, "here, I made this,"…
There are ten people who say, "I could have done it better."
A hundred people who say, "Who are you to do this?"
A thousand people who say, "I was just about to do that,"
and ten thousand people who don't care at all.
And all of that is okay, because the person we need, the one we cherish, the one we would miss, is the first person, the initiator, the one who cares.
Thanks for shipping your work.
November 13, 2015
Attention stops being paid, compromises are made, quality goes down.
Expectations aren't met.
Expectations are lowered.
Customers drift away.
Budgets are cut, because there are fewer customers.
Quality erodes even more, because there's less to spend, and employees care less.
Repeat.
The alternative is the quality ratchet:
Over-focus on quality.
Expectations go up.
Sales rise as a result of word of mouth and customer satisfaction.
More money is spent on quality.
Repeat.
Often, organizations don't realize that they're falling down the abyss until extraordinary efforts are required to make a difference. But it's always easier to fix it today than it will be tomorrow.
And here's the hard part: You don't fall down the abyss all at once. You compromise, you cut corners, you don't bring as much to your work, and nothing bad happens (at first). So the feedback loop is broken.
Working your way back out works the same way: You work harder, you raise your standards, you invest, and nothing good happens (at first).
The challenge is to have the guts to care even when you're not apparently rewarded for caring.
November 12, 2015
