The only reason we need to go into detail about our resume, the details of our new idea or the features of a product is to cause action to happen.
And action is the result of tension, status or affiliation, and these are based on trust.
There are many ways to build that trust, and an instruction manual, a powerpoint deck and a set of bullets aren’t the only ones.
The art of project management includes the dance between velocity and possibility.
If you describe the outcome with specificity and remove as many variables as possible, you’ll get the work done with more speed, higher reliability and less cost.
That velocity, though, might encourage us to recognize that all sorts of options are available. There are countless chances to make the project better and to find new opportunities.
Exploring the possibilities in moments of high velocity almost certainly ensures that costs will increase, reliability will be impacted and you’ll miss deadlines.
That’s because possibility is the art of being willing to be wrong. It’s exploration. It’s far easier to explore on foot than it is on a high-speed train.
The best time to explore is before you scale your investments, your commitments and the size of the team.
We seek both velocity and possibility, but not at the same time.
Forty years ago, the royalty of rock spent the night in a studio to record one of the fastest-selling singles of all time. The documentary of the event is just okay, but it’s fascinating in how it shows us just how deep imposter syndrome lies.
Only a few stars seemed at all comfortable–Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross. On the other hand, Waylon Jennings felt excluded and stormed out halfway through. Huey Lewis said his legs were shaking. Some notable stars were too afraid to come at all. And Bob Dylan, the same guy who won the Nobel Prize, seems profoundly insecure the entire time, and it’s only when Stevie and Quincy Jones give him some reassurance that he’s finally able to sing at all.
We’d like to believe that if we only had the adulation, market success, and fan support of superstars like these, then we’d finally be comfortable and able to do our best.
In fact, it seems the opposite is true. Imposter syndrome shows up because we are imposters, imposters acting ‘as if’ in search of making something better.
Perhaps the best plan is to show up and not walk out.
Who are you to make things better?
How dare you raise your hand to help, offer an idea, take responsibility…
Perhaps it might be helpful to reframe that feeling as the generosity of improvement instead.
If not you, who? If not now, when?
All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later…
But it’s helpful to realize that all decisions involve a purchase.
When we decide to spend time or take a risk or make a commitment, our brains act in a way very similar to how we choose to make a purchase.
When you talk about a non-profit, introduce a new sort of behavior or invite someone to follow along, you’re actually selling. Finding the empathy to treat it like a purchase is worth the effort.
Even if it doesn’t cost money. Especially then.
I just received copies of the new reprints of four of my books in the UK:
I’m really pleased at how the books have stayed relevant and also delighted at what a good job the publisher did with the reissues. Also, the Italian version of This is Marketing just went back for its 14th printing.
You can find all of my books here, and the most recent one is here.
There’s a new episode of Tim’s podcast out today, and that gave me an excuse to point to my podcast page. There are hundreds of hours of interviews and conversations to choose from.
Also! The Marketing Seminar is on sale for 30% off today. And please consider checking out purple.space.
A common shortcut to cultural divisiveness is to find the single worst person in a different group and highlight and attack their behavior.
By making it clear and obvious that this is what THEY (the plural) want and who THEY are, it’s easy to walk away from a larger we. Their worst troll becomes their mascot.
And in a media-fueled culture that thrives on division, this is a convenient shortcut.
What happens, though, if we find the worst person on our team and tell them to chill out a bit. That people like us don’t do things like that. That their trollish, extreme behavior is magnifying differences instead of making it more likely we end up with useful cultural cohesion…
It’s surprising how much the outlier is willing to listen to the very people they’re counting on for support. And the folks you seek to win over are much more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if you have a history of discouraging bad behavior.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about politicians, sports fans, entrepreneurs or activists. More extreme division is unlikely to sell our idea and gain the support we’re looking for.
It’s negative when we say that someone is out of control. They’ve lost their self-restraint, and they’re doing things that they’ll regret later.
And it’s honest when we acknowledge that just about everything is out of our control. We can work to influence it, we can practice accepting it, but any time we’re engaging with others or with the future, we’re not completely in charge.
Control is elusive. If we accept the parts that are out of our hands, we can focus on the elements where we have leverage and influence instead.
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance.
Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out.
I don’t understand molecular biology, the history of Sardinia or much of agronomy–but that’s my choice. Now that information is widely and freely available, our sense of agency around knowledge needs to change.
It pays to acknowledge that this is a choice, and to be responsible for it. What else have we chosen not to know?
Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better.
If you’re not open to the tension that is caused by knowing you could do better, it’s unlikely you’re willing to do the work to get better. As you’re doing that work, there’s the satisfaction it brings, but also the knowledge that just a moment ago, you weren’t any good.
