Here's a very simple framework I use when dealing with a crisis at work. The framework has worked well for me in the past. Sometimes simply having a framework for dealing with an unexpected event can inspire confidence and help you get your clients and team focused on solutions.
A colleague shared a Ted talk with me today from Simon Sinek, it's currently Ted's 19th most watched video.
It's about 18 minutes long and definitely worth watching. You can watch it on YouTube here.
Simon's theory is that most companies and individuals sell and talk about features; i.e. "what we do". He argues that this is a mistake. That the super successful individuals and companies sell their inspiration, or the "why we do it".
To make his point, he asks the question: what makes Apple so different? They're structurally the same as any other computer company. But for some reason, we will buy computers, MP3 players, phones, music, almost anything from them. Whereas for a while Dell sold great MP3 players and nobody would buy them. And Gateway sold great flat screen TVs and nobody was interested.
He argues that the reason is that Apple is selling the "why" while the others are selling the "what". Instead of saying we have the best computers or the lowest cost computers or the best designed computers (the "what"), they say: we're going to challenge the status quo with masterful design (the "why"). People don't buy what you do they buy why you do it.
The most compelling part of the talk is his comparison of TiVo (a failure) to Martin Luther King (an immense success). TiVo had the best product on the market and aggressively sold their features: ability to skip commercials, pause live TV, see recommendations, etc. Instead, they should have sold the 'why'. Something like: we want to give you control over the smallest aspects of your life, by giving you the ability to skip commercials, pause live TV, etc, etc.
On the other hand, in 1963, Martin Luther King was able to bring 250,000 people to Washington, DC on a hot and humid day in August. They all came on the right day and at the right time. He didn't send an E-Vite and he didn't Tweet about the event.
These people didn't go to DC for him or to hear a plan that he concocted. They went because of what he believed. They believed what he believed. He didn't even mention a plan. He talked about his "dream", which was the same as their dream. He inspired. They didn't go there for him. They went there for themselves.
Similarly, people don't stand in line for 6 hours the day that the new iPhone comes out for Apple, or for the new camera on the phone or for the new screen on the phone. No. They go there for themselves. They buy the phone on the first day because it makes them feel a certain way. Apple's cause or their "why" is aligned with their cause.
It's a great concept, and I've touched on this theory a bit over the years with colleagues and clients. But I haven't heard it articulated this crisply in the past. I suspect I'll be thinking (and perhaps writing) a bit about this in the coming weeks.
Here's an interesting framework to use when considering why a group or company misses projections. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it's interesting to think about it this way.
When you've missed goal by:
50% - Blame the strategy (it's way off)
20% - Blame the manager (you have an execution problem)
5% - Blame the team (they're either not paying attention or they're not accountable)
I've always believed that most business books never should have been written. Instead, the ideas in the book could have been summed up in a couple of blog posts or a long-form article. I prefer to digest business content in the form of a blog rather than a book. Too often business books are stuffed with superfluous examples and repetitive fluff in an effort to turn a somewhat simple concept into a 300 page, $14.99 book. Like most people that are apt to read a business book, I don't have the time or the desire to read a lot of fluff.
Hugh Macleod, the blogger, artist, and writer must share this opinion. He's an excellent business writer. He writes a bit like he's paranoid that the reader is going to get bored. He knows how to write books for people that are busy. He makes short and simple points (often with a real life example) and moves onto the next thing. He almost forces you to read faster than you normally would. He did this extremely well in his first book, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. Ignore Everybody was one of the best business books I've ever read. It's full of insightful ideas that are communicated concisely, without the fluff. I wrote a post on Ignore Everybody a while back where I called out some of the best tidbits. I highly recommend reading Ignore Everybody.
Over the weekend, I finished reading Hugh's latest book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the way to World Domination. While not as insightful as his first, it's just as inspiring. In short, Hugh asks his readers to develop and act on an Evil Plan. What's an Evil Plan? Hugh sums it up well in this line from the book:
"It has never been easier to make a great living doing what you love. But to make it happen, first you need an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs to get away from lousy bosses, from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate, and ACTUALLY start doing something they love, something that matters. Life is short."
The book is written with a sense of urgency that suggests that the writer has some personal interest in getting you to move on your plan. Now.
The book is a great reminder that with nothing but a laptop and an internet connection, we all have the power to shape our lives and careers and link up what we do each day with what we love and are passionate about.
If you're looking for a bit of inspiration to get off your butt and start moving on what you love, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Evil Plans. It won't be a waste of time and I guarantee that it'll at least make you challenge whether or not you should be working on what you're working on.
One of the challenges of blogging is deciding when a thought or idea warrants a blog post.
Often, I'll have a thought about something and it'll be months before it develops itself enough to warrant a 300+ word rant. And of course, most of my thoughts and ideas never make it onto this blog. This is either because I don't have the time or I simply don't put the energy into expanding the thought into long form.
If I have a thought that can be summed up in a couple of sentences, very often I'll simply Tweet it; Twitter is a great medium for things that pop into your head that you feel like sharing. Twitter doesn't require a lot of thinking, which may be one of the reasons why it's so widely used...
I think the challenge for many people that like to share their thoughts on the web lies in the middle ground: somewhere between a thought you can fit into 140 characters and a thought that is robust enough to blog about in long form.
Many people fill this gap by using short-form blogging communities such as Tumblr. They'll post photos, quotes, ideas, reblogs, etc. onto Tumblr to fill their "short-form blogging" needs. It allows people to share anything they want, without the 140 character constraint.
I've chosen not to use a short-form service like Tumblr. I like the challenge of the middle ground. I like the fact that if I want to share something online I have to make a choice about whether or not to Tweet it in a sentence or two or to make the commitment to flesh it out in a blog post. I think this struggle -- of whether to Tweet, blog or leave it alone -- forces me to think harder. And it causes the things that I'm most passionate and thoughtful about to bubble up and come out on these pages.
Over the last several weeks I've been lucky enough to talk with at least a dozen founders of web startups. It's fun to hear their passion, ask them challenging questions and talk about where they see their products and companies going. The thing that they all have in common is that they love to talk to about their businesses. This is a key component of success in business. Talk to everyone. It reminds me of an experience I had earlier in my career. Several years ago when I was working with a biotechnology startup we we were looking for a commercial application for a diagnostic device that we were developing. One of the promising applications was to measure levels of e. coli in meat. We believed that we held a market advantage in two areas:
We flew out to Kansas to meet with a potential customer, a large meat processor. We took a tour of their plant, talked to them about our product and everything seemed to be going great. They were interested in the device, it seemed we had identified a pain point that we could address.
But that night, after a few drinks and a lot of steak, we began to hear a much different story. It turned out that the beef companies were actually not interested in reducing the number of false negatives -- because it would increase the number of positive tests. And when there are positive tests, they have to shut down the plant, send people home and clean the entire line. This is extremely costly to them and they didn't want any more line stoppages than they already had. This seemed counter-intuitive to us. If the company let meat with e. coli out their doors and someone got sick, they'd be in big trouble. Surely they were interested in more accurate testing, right?
Not exactly. It came down to the law of small numbers. From our contact's perspective, the odds that the e. coli in the meat would survive the ride to the distribution plant and then the ride to the supermarket and then the ride to a customer's home and then the 5 or 10 minutes on the customer's 500 degree grill was extremely unlikely. Frankly, it wasn't a problem worth really worrying about.
Further, the time advantage we were excited about wasn't all that valuable either. We learned that the plant works in 8 hour shifts, and as long as the meat was tested and ready for the next shift, 10 hours was fine with them. Our time advantage was a 'nice to have' not a 'must have'. And in order to truly win in this business, our product needed to be a 'must have'. In short, by talking to the right guy, we found that we didn't have a market for our product.
The insight we gained from our trip to Kansas wasn't easy to get. We had to fly out there and talk to a real insider, off the record, to determine that we didn't have an advantage. And that's really the moral of this story...when you're working on a startup, talk to everyone that you possibly can. Insiders, outsiders, friends, family, users, anyone that will listen.
You'll be amazed at how much you learn from bouncing ideas off of other people. So often, businesspeople get burnt because they just don't know what they don't know. Talking to everyone prevents you from getting burnt.
It's very difficult to keep perspective on how lucky we truly are on a day to day basis. But Thanksgiving is a good day to stop and take a step back and consider all that we have to be thankful for.
If you have access to clean drinking water, an income of more than $4,000 per year and a college degree, you're better off -- much better off -- than 94% of the world's population.
I came cross this infographic that gives a bit more perspective. Lots and lots to be thankful for this year.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Some colleagues have been asking me about the best format for a business review. I thought I’d post my recommended agenda here:
The thinking here is that the person you’re presenting to wants to understand how you look at the business, how you’re doing, how you’re doing against goal, what your plan is to close the gap and, finally, some proof as to why they should believe in you. Obviously, any smart manager will poke holes in each section and look for your weaknesses. But generally speaking if you have a plan you believe in and can do each of these things well the meeting should go pretty smoothly.
There’s a great column this week from James Surowiecki in the New Yorker where he talks about the education bubble the U.S. might be facing. I recommend reading it if you get a chance.
Related to the column, over the weekend, I was thinking about how much more valuable a car is now than it was 20 years ago. These days, you can buy a beautiful brand new reliable car with good gas mileage with all the bells and whistles for about $12,000. When I was a kid the only people that had cars like that were the rich Dads. Today, there are rich people and lower middle class people driving around in the exact same car.
The reason for this is twofold: 1.) global competition has driven down the price of a car and 2.) car companies have become wildly more efficient, allowing them to build much more car for a relatively small amount of money.
The same can’t be said for college education. Global competitors can’t “import” a cheaper education and colleges and universities aren’t any more productive than they were 20 years ago.
Because of technology innovations and a more skilled workforce, the average worker at GM is much, much more productive than she was 20 years ago. This is not true of the average professor at Harvard. She’s still teaching about 20 students per class and it still takes 4 years to produce a diploma. At the same time, that professor is making much more than she was 20 years ago. Costs are increasing, output is not. And colleges simply pass the increasing costs onto students.
As Surowiecki notes in his column, some of this is inherent to the educational industry – it’s generally easier to improve productivity in a manufacturing environment than it is in a classroom. But it also points out the gross lack of educational innovation coming out of college campuses. The Occupiers should add that to their list of grievances.
I was listening to the Sports Guy's podcast the other day and he was interviewing Nathan Hubbard, Ticketmaster's CEO of ticketing. It was a fascinating podcast, I recommend listening to it if you're interested in the ticketing space or sports marketing in general.
He said a lot of really interesting things through the interview but the most interesting to me was when he talked about the end of rock and roll. He pointed out that music revolutions happen about every 50 years and the days of dominant bands with just a guitar, bass and drums are beginning to disapear -- rock has been around since the 1940's.
I try to follow new music pretty closely and I have to agree with Hubbard. Like everything else, computers are taking over -- even music production.
As evidence of this shift, take a look at the artists with the top ten selling songs in iTunes's "Rock" category right now and the song release dates:
Only three of these songs were produced in the last 8 years.
Conversely, here's the top 10 in the "Electronic" genre:
All of these were produced in the last four years.
I suppose it's no surprise that technology has changed the game for musical sound and production, but it's a bit eye opening to see how far it has come.
On Sunday I had the chance to check out the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York. It was a pretty amazing scene. Check out this blog that’s posting updated photos.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what the protest means and if these people are really onto something, or if this is just the latest rant that will go away when cold weather finally hits the east coast.
Last night I came across Thomas Friedman’s column titled, There’s Something Happening Here. In it, Friedman proposes that these protests could be a signal that we’ve reached a tipping point in capitalism, he points out this argument:
…these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits.
Yes, the rich are getting richer and the corporations are making profits — with their executives richly rewarded. But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off — drowning in housing debt and/or tuition debt — many who worked hard are unemployed; many who studied hard are unable to get good work; the environment is getting more and more damaged; and people are realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are.
On the other hand, he looks at it more optimistically:
Yes, corporations now have access to more cheap software, robots, automation, labor and genius than ever. So holding a job takes more talent. But the flip side is that individuals —individuals — anywhere can now access the flow to take online courses at Stanford from a village in Africa, to start a new company with customers everywhere or to collaborate with people anywhere. We have more big problems than ever and more problem-solvers than ever.
As we consider these arguments, I think it’s critical to keep in mind economies are cyclical -- we have good times and we have bad times. And occasionally, economies go through revolutions; in recent history, the U.S. economy has been through the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions – and we’re still in the thick of the last one, and we’re feeling the pain.
In this most recent revolution, when most pessimists point to the bad news, they point to the unemployment rate. But here’s an important statistic that often doesn't get talked about: the U.S. unemployment rate is 9%; for those with grad degrees it's 2%, college grads 4.5%, HS grads 9.7%, non-HS grads 15%.
This data shows us that our economy is going through the painful transition that we’ve experienced in every economic revolution: a mismatch between our growing job sectors and our citizen’s talent (this particular gap is amplified by the housing crash that viciously eliminated scores of jobs for less educated American workers).
In time, as it always does, the economy will naturally close this gap. But we can and should do a lot to speed up the process: skilled worker training programs, changes in high school curriculums to include skills the economy needs, increased student loans for growth sectors, increased investment in growth sectors, to name a few solutions.
The “Occupiers” passion is inspiring and it underscores the important problems and real pain our nation is facing. They have a good message and I’m glad their voices are being heard. But as the conversation evolves into solutions, I hope it moves away from theoretical discussions on the merits of capitalism and the principles of taxation. And towards more practical, easy to implement, solutions that get people back to work in sustainable jobs that keep America competitive now and into the next revolution.