The typical ten-year-old violinist can’t tell the difference between a cheap instrument and a Guarneri.
A harried traveler simply wolfs down a hamburger, not really worried or aware of its provenance or flavor.
And a bureaucrat buys whatever is cheapest and meets spec, without regard for how well it is designed or the supply chain that created it.
Enthusiasts will work their whole lives to be able to tell the difference in how an orchestra sounds, or how the chocolate is tempered or the simple elegance of thoughtful engineering.
And then, once we do, the incompetent or mediocre stuff isn’t worth much.
In order to appreciate the truly great work, we often end up becoming disappointed with the rest.
December 12, 2020
Toddlers whine. Most adults figure out how to lose the habit, because it’s toxic. And yet it persists.
Whining is a seductive package deal. When it works, it gets us attention, it lowers expectations, it gains sympathy and it forces people to identify with our pain. And it helps people feel as though they’re not responsible.
Often, the amount of whining is totally unrelated to the level of discomfort, and it seems to increase with how much privilege people perceive they deserve.
So why avoid it?
Because it changes our outlook on the world. When whining becomes a habit, we need to continue it, so we begin to interpret events as opportunities to prove that our whining is justified.
And because over time, people hate being around a whiner. The selfish desires of the habitual whiner eventually become clear. We realize that our shared reality is the world as it is, and that the whiner isn’t actually being singled out. And through practice, we learn that the best way to make things better is to work to improve them, not to demand special treatment. Reminding myself of the perils of whining is helpful indeed.
Optimists run the risk of being disappointed now and then. Whiners are always disappointing.
December 11, 2020
An almost magical idea, a tiny little word, a chance to make it real.
If someone tasks you with carving something profound into a block of granite, the emotional overhead is probably too high to do our best work.
But if you simply want to jot something down, all you need is an iota, a tiny glimpse of what might work.
It turns out that just about all granite-worthy ideas begin as jots.
Simply jot.
December 10, 2020
“You’re welcome,” is not the same as, “it’s my pleasure.”
and
“No problem,” is not the same as, “I’m happy to help.”
These sentences are the closing parentheses of a simple conversation that opens with “thank you.”
We have to say something. The “thank you” demands acknowledgement.
It could be, “okay, now we’re even.”
Or we could express satisfaction at having the ability to make a contribution. We can continue the infinite game instead of simply walking away.
That might be more satisfying all around. A wave is more powerful than a grimace.
December 9, 2020
Humans do it all the time. Sometimes with great success. Not just easy-to-measure and profitable endeavors like sports betting or the stock market, but essential human interactions like, “what’s the best way to welcome a kindergarten student on the first day of school,” or “If we arrange the intersection this way, traffic will flow better.” In matters of public health and engineering, the ability to have a good idea about the repercussions of our work is urgent.
When dealing with a prognosticator, it’s worth asking three questions:
“What’s your track record?” It’s unlikely we’ll be right every single time, but once we adjust for luck and statistical anomalies, do you regularly outperform the others, or are you simply loud about it?
“Can you show your work?” It’s hard to trust someone who has a secret method. While this might be a competitive requirement, it’s more likely that the person has simply had a lucky streak (streaks are statistically likely).
“Have you taught your method to others?” This is a variation of the previous question. If people are using the method to successfully predict the future in other areas, then we’re seeing a resilient and robust approach to understanding how the world works.
Rules of thumb (the topic of my very first book, co-authored 34 years ago) are a stand in for the sort of rigor that is far more common today. With our predictions etched into the memory of the internet and more data available than ever before, we ought to be better at predicting what’s going to happen next and determining who’s good at that and who isn’t. But belief is a strong force, widely held, and sometimes it takes us a while to realize that confidence and volume are not a replacement for seeing things as they are and understanding how they work.
December 8, 2020
If I was admitted to a prestigious business school and scheduled to begin in January or even September, I’m pretty sure I’d defer.
Take a gap year, take two.
For many students, the two most important parts of the top-tier MBA are getting in and getting out. It’s about selection and certification.
For the last seventy years, the most famous graduate schools in business have been honing a particular model of teaching and value creation. They excel at a sometimes-magical sort of classroom experience, one that uses exclusivity and status and real-time high-stakes interaction to create an esprit de corps as well as occasional moments of real growth. And when the programs work, the $350,000 in tuition and opportunity cost for two years can be repaid with a fancy job that brings leverage and impact to the certified graduate.
The scarce degree is a signaling mechanism for a certain group of consultants and investment banks eager to hire people who have been filtered out and paid their dues as a way of showing commitment to a specific career.
It’s predicted that more people will apply this year than ever before. In uncertain times, the process feels reassuring. For most students, the elite MBA is about the prize at the end, not the learning or the experience.
Due to the pandemic, many of those in-person interactions moved online. And if the schools are honest about it, the interactions they offered online aren’t very good. Instead of the result of nearly a century of improvement, they’re often slapped together, and they’re filled with compromise. The people who built them weren’t charged with improving what was on offer on campus, they were supposed to come up with something that would either augment it or be a less-expensive and less-prestigious alternative for people who couldn’t participate in the ‘real’ program.
My alma mater was proud to have shifted online in a matter of weeks, but they certainly realize that if it didn’t have the fancy name on it, it wouldn’t have been worth much.
After a semester or even a full year of this, it’s quite possible you won’t have really gotten to know your peers, nor will you have learned much more than you could have from a close reading of twenty books.
And for many, that’s okay, because they’re paying for the certificate, not the learning. I wrote about this twenty years ago…
When I taught at the NYU graduate school of business, I was amazed. Not by the caliber of students, which was very high, but at how little emotional enrollment and intellectual curiosity many of them had in learning what was on offer. A few realized how much they could learn, but many of the students were simply concerned with what was on the test.
When I started the altMBA five years ago, I probably chose the wrong name for it. Because I didn’t set out to replace the business school. Instead, the goal has always been to use a new medium in a new way, to create a thirty-day experience that does what it does better than it could be done any other way.
As a filtering/certifying/sorting mechanism, the elite MBA remains a profitable path for the few people who end up at McKinsey and similar institutions. But most of us don’t have those jobs and don’t want to do that work. Instead, we have the opportunity to level up and figure out how to find more relevance and impact in the work we choose to do. We don’t need a certificate–instead, it’s about learning to see and exploring how to make an impact.
The altMBA and its parent, Akimbo, are now independently owned and run, a B Corp. committed to doing work that matters. But the mission hasn’t changed–to use this new medium in a productive way to help people level up. If you’ve been wondering, “is this all there is to work,” it might be a good time to check out the altMBA. If you’re ready to lean into the process and the learning, without giving up your day job or focusing on scarcity, the altMBA could be a good fit.
No teachers, no gurus, no tests, no accreditation. Simply community in service of finding a better way forward.
The Early Decision admission deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday.
If you know someone in traditional education who is eager to push their medium forward, I hope you’ll point them to what they’re building at Akimbo. At 2% of the cost, it shouldn’t be better than what the famous schools are offering online, but I’m pretty certain that it is.
Education and learning are often very different. And online is not simply the same as sitting in a very big classroom but with a keyboard. It’s an entirely new form of pedagogy, one that’s about doing, not complying, about possibility, not coercion.
We have the chance to make things better. To learn and to lead. Together.
December 7, 2020
The old adage was always wrong. “Say whatever you like, but spell my name right.”
And now it’s even more of a trap.
The temptation to get the word out is overwhelming. There’s so much noise and so much hustle going on that we might believe that it’s okay to trade our standards and principles and position for some attention. At least for a minute or two.
The latest viral video is for an online dating site, and it features Satan as one of their customers. Nicely shot, sort of funny, with just the right amount of inside humor, there’s no arguing that it got attention.
But it burned trust. It established an image that contradicts the position they worked hard to earn for more than a decade.
There have always been shortcuts to attention. But the only purpose of advertising of any kind is to cause action, and action only happens when there’s trust involved.
December 6, 2020
The only way to train a group of sea monkeys is by triggering an instinctual reaction.
The best way to train a dog is with tiny tasty treats, combined with calm and consistent feedback. Some dog owners resist this approach, because it doesn’t seem like the dog is really engaged or paying attention or learning anything if there’s too direct a connection between the actual treat and the action of the dog.
It’s tempting to resort to punishment instead, because it’s not only immediate, but for some trainers, it can relieve frustration and requires less patience. But punishment creates trauma.
Humans make up a lot of stories about what motivates us, but sooner or later, many of our stories involve feedback. We’re not sea monkeys, but we’re well aware of how the world around us treats us.
The most persistent changes in behavior happen when the story is so ingrained, we forget all about the feedback that reinforced it in the first place.
But it still started with the desire to be seen, to be treated with respect, to receive the dignity we each deserve. Ring a bell?
December 5, 2020
When a small enterprise offers a lousy user experience, the person in charge learns about it, fast.
Customers leave, visitors bounce, complaints roll in. It’s expensive and it undermines the goals of the organization. Fortunately, in a small organization, the person with the ability to make change happen hears about it and can take action.
In a large organization, like my bank, the resources to make things better are dramatically bigger and largely underused.
That’s because the person who should take action has other priorities. Not only aren’t they exposed to the valuable feedback that frontline workers get (because the organization doesn’t reward ‘bad’ news), but they haven’t prioritized getting the user experience right.
It seems more important to please the boss, go to meetings and keep the numbers on track than it is to fix what might not feel broken.
Spend some time in the store.
Visit your own website to get work done the way a customer would.
Answer the tech phone calls for a few hours.
And figure out how to turn the user experience into a metric that’s as easy to measure as how much money you made last month.
December 4, 2020
Unlike natural phenomena like orbiting planets or geologic formations, there are no consistent and perfect laws of human behavior.
If we’re talking about groups of people, if we’re teaching, leading or trying to predict future behavior (all three are related) then we’re making a generalization.
And perhaps we don’t realize it, or aren’t clear that we are.
“In general, in many settings, most kindergarten kids have trouble getting through a long day without a nap.”
That’s not quite the same as, “all kids need a nap.”
Useful generalizations are essential to productive interventions and generous leadership.
Without generalizations, it’s almost impossible to begin to serve people.
And there lies the trap. If we stick with them too long, or insist that they are absolute, or fail to seek out the exceptions that all generalizations have, then we end up excluding or ignoring people who need to be seen. Which betrays all the work we set out to do.
We begin with a market or an audience, but we ultimately serve the individual.
December 3, 2020
