"I suggest you take everything as a good sign. You'll fall asleep happy and wake up curious. If that's madness, let me be mad." - Martha Beck
I recently heard the serial entrepreneur, Bret Taylor, speak with Kara Swisher from Recode: Decode about the redesign they did of FriendFeed before selling it to Facebook. He called the redesign a “dead cat bounce,” implying that the product had already lost to a competitor and it was a last-ditch effort to bring it to life, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
It got me thinking. Does bouncing a dead cat back to life ever work? At what point did he know it was dead? What would have been saved (in money, time, or “life force”), if he hadn’t bounced the cat one last time?
I don’t know much about FriendFeed, and I am in no place to judge, as I know that I have bounced a dead cat in my own career. Vigorously. With passion and authority. And seen it skid out. To see the effort amount to nothing other than lost time, money, and credibility.
It requires a lot of self-reflection and brutal honesty to avoid the temptation of playing “Weekend at Bernie’s” with your business, ideas, products, or initiatives. May we all have the courage to face the truth and focus our attention on the things that matter most.
Everyone loves to talk about teamwork. Consults will consult. Writers will write. Leaders will lead. And all of them are obsessed with teamwork.
But recently, I was watching my daughter’s track meet and thought about all the different types of teams that exist. Each one requiring different types of teamwork. We often don’t think about that in a work environment, even though we see examples of all of these in our workplaces.
Basketball (or soccer or football): In this team sport, each player has a role, plays that they run, and they are constantly communicating to react successfully to new competitive conditions. They share a common time clock, a common score board, a common uniform, a common coach, and are all playing the same game. They are all striving to make or assist with the making of points. The work group is an example of this kind of team. Coming together, each representing a role or a strength, to collaborative work on a single deliverable, project, or document. The key to results of this kind of team is aptitude and attitude. If the individuals know their own strengths and weaknesses, and that of their teammates and can work selflessly towards the team goal, then greatness can be achieved.
Relay: In a relay team, each player has a role, but they don’t play them at the same time. They, too, are constantly communicating, but only to assure successful hand-offs. They share a common time clock, score board, and possibly a common uniform. Each person on the team is running, but they are placed in position because of their relative strengths and speed. They are dividing and conquering a larger task (in this case, a race) by breaking it into individual pieces. A service escalation is this kind of team. The first leg might be done by a customer service agent on the phone. Then the problem is escalated to a technician, to a service manager, and then to an engineer. Throughout, there is a common time clock and a common goal of customer issue resolution. Everyone is doing similar jobs, but are doing it in their own way. The key to achievement with this team is individual competence and the game is won or lost at the hand-offs.
Track and Field: The larger team, of which a relay is a part, is a loose affiliate of people who are all performing in tandem to rack up points for their overall team. They are all in the same location (the track meet) and subject to the same environmental conditions and priorities. Yet, they are all doing their own things. Often in tandem (with field events happening the same time as running events). Often together (as is the case with the relay team). But each person is an individual contributor doing their best, which results in team achievement. But you can’t ask a pole vaulter to anchor the 4 x 100 relay team and you can’t ask the person doing the 3,000 meters to throw the shot put. A product launch is an example of this. Web site content and brochures can’t be written until the messaging is complete, but that is often done by a different group. Messaging benefits from a thorough understanding of features and benefits. Features can’t be known until the engineering finalizes the design. And those features can’t be determined or prioritized without market requirements. Together these can show customers why the product is a winner, but each step of the process is quite unique and not interchangeable. The key to achievement with this team is getting individuals to perform their best.
There are many other types of teams that can follow these and other patterns. Debate teams work a bit like the relay and a track and field team. Choirs are like relays in many ways, as the blending and the music reading is like the hand-offs. Cleaning and painting crews can be more like a basketball team. Kitchen staff or wait staff in restaurants can mimic all of these at times. The key to any type of teamwork is for the group to first recognize what kind of teamwork is required.
Anyone who has lived knows that nothing good comes without some heartache, struggle, and failure along the wall. Any truthful trajectory showing a result doesn’t look like a rocket. It looks like a squiggly diagonal line to the right. Success is an upwards sloping line, but at any point of the line, the slope wasn’t upwards.
Call it an “artist’s temperament” or perhaps the high propensity of ADHD among artists, chaos often follows artistry. Whether you are talking about a visual artist, painter, musician, or even a creative software developer, things like time management, detail-orientation, and the need for clarity is often low. They are more comfortable with uncertainty, with ambiguity, and take a more flexible approach to things (often everything except their art).
Some of us straddle the worlds of art and science. We have responsibilities to design the systems and then keep the trains running on time. And when we feel like the chaos factor swings a little high, it might be time for us to channel our inner artist. And realize the only thing we control is our art.
On a Tuesday in 1954, H.W. Sweatt, the president of Minneapolis-Honeywell (a leading control systems company that would go on to be called Honeywell) had an important message to deliver. According to Jeffrey Rodengen, in his The Legend of Honeywell, H.W. assembled some division executives and sales people and shared some thoughts about innovation.
“To me,” he began, “one of our greatest weaknesses and one that I think is growing in this company is a failure to keep ‘a spirit of restlessness’ fully alive in our organization.” He went on to describe that he observed people in the sixty-nine year old company had gotten too comfortable with that status quo or how things exist today and lacked the time or the mental energy to do the “thinking, planning, and imaging that must be done to protect the future of the company – not next year, but in the decades that lie ahead.” In a successful business it is easy to overlook the constant change that is “inherent in every business picture,” and efficiency can not take precedence over changing and leading. To continuing to pioneer new frontiers with an entrepreneurial spirit.
“As for me, while I always want to strive for perfection and never want to be satisfied with less, if I had to choose, I would prefer to settle for a little less perfection today and a little more imagining for tomorrow.” He recognize that risk-taking would lead to mistakes, errors, and sacrifice immediate profits, but the threat of withering and dying was too real. Sweatt, who is now the namesake of Honeywell’s highest award for engineers/scientists considered this spirit of restlessness “One of our most priceless and fundamental possessions.”
In Creativity, Inc. Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation recounted a time when a proud tradition and commitment to excellence conflicted with a spirit of innovation. The team at Disney Animation was making the movie Bolt and ran into a technical challenge that was set to delay the film unacceptably by over 6 months. After a pep talk from leadership and some creative problem solving by a few team members, the problem was resolved in a few days. So, why did the larger team think it would take six months to do something that ended up taking only a few days? Why the conservatism? “The answer, I think,” Ed surmised, “lay in the fact that for too long, the leaders of Disney Animation placed a higher value on error prevention than anything else.”
No one had to remind them about the legacy of the studio, the innovations and advancements that had been made under Walt Disney’s leadership, and the pressure that they faced to get things right. “Their employees knew there would be repercussions if mistakes were made, so the primary goal was never to make any.” But estimating that a problem would be solved with no errors, was absolutely the wrong choice in this situation. “Seeking to eliminate failure was in this instance – and I would argue, most instances – precisely the wrong thing to do,” he continued. It was important in the end to turn the focus “away from the notion of the ‘right’ way to fix the problem to actually fixing the problem – a subtle, but important distinction.”
In the final tally, perfection and innovation have to be held in balance. If things are too perfect, efficiency might be high, but innovation suffers. If things are too innovative, there may be wasteful rework and abandoned short-term profits. The higher order problem to be solved might not be as obvious as the problems of yesterday that prompted the processes, procedures, and thinking prevelant today. There isn’t a warning label that exists in the world because someone wasn’t first harmed or injured. So, these “perfect” processes, documentation, and support rise up to solve yesterday’s problems. Maybe not the problems of the future.
The spirit of restlessness, that H.W. Sweatt encouraged and was demonstrated by the small team at Disney Animation, is the attitude that keeps clever people pushing forward, with dissatisfaction to today’s constraints, imagining the future, and possibly most importantly, trading in short-term perfection along the way for the discovery of solutions to larger, more impactful, problems. It’s restlessness, in fact, that uncomfortable feeling that we have outgrown the status quo or might be missing something bigger, that puts us on the path of innovation.
This article originally posted on LInkedIn Pulse.
"We are often told we need to know how to learn. But how do we learn to unlearn." - Chris Dede, Harvard
To build new habits. To change our approach, to find a new path.
A lot has been written about biomimicry and the inspiration that product designers get from studying nature — the skeletal structure of a flying squirrel informing the design of drones or the layered butterfly wing to help create optical coatings for displays. And I’ve been thinking about how interpersonal relationships also mimic the natural world. Some days, especially stressful ones, I am reminded that we are all animals and need to find ways to work with animals.
Below are five common animal defense systems that I’ve seen demonstrated in the workplace (and, certainly, in myself) that might help us tame our instincts (which have both benefits and cause problems) and our environments. By better understanding ourselves and each other, we can better react to perceived threats and leverage our natural abilities to overcome conflicts and work better as a team.
Cobra: When threatened, the snake rises up and make itself look bigger to scare away would-be predators. In our relationships, this shows up as verbal defensiveness. In a business setting, people who mimic cobras often change their posture stand and speak loudly to exude confidence, and often interrupt others. Their emphatic statements might be so persuasive they parade as facts. At their best, they provide passion, clarity and a sense of mission to their team. At their worst, they can be bullies or manipulators. They do all of this in order to put the idea forward more aggressively when others object, and can become dogmatic.
If you are a cobra: When you feel like you need to be bigger, louder, or more aggressive, consider instead the power of gentle persuasion and the need to listen completely to the other side before reacting out of impulse. I must admit that I have cobra tendencies and would be served by choosing not to react, but rather to respond thoughtfully when under pressure.
If you are working with a cobra: As a cobra, I respond well when teammates push back with new data points and different perspectives. I would encourage colleagues not to let the scary hood or confidence dissuade them from presenting an alternative views. Cobras can be poor (or incomplete) listeners and need people to tell them the truth and help them refine their gut feelings (which trigger the defense mechanism) to help others see their perspective without feeling threatened.
Turtle: The turtle has been immortalized in folk tales as a slow-moving, methodical animal. An animal who wears his defense mechanism on his sleeve, literally. When threatened, the plodding animal gives up any forward progress, to recess into his shell and hide until the threat has passed. I have seen this pattern many times in my colleagues or team mates, a slow-and-steady person, who only agreed to change on a step-by-step basis and will retreat into their shells until everyone can just agree and get along. As turtles don’t need facts to retreat into their shells, they might not even be able to articulate in words what threat is perceived and what might result from the threat. At their best, they provide a comprehensive, well thought out plan and long term direction. At their worst, turtles procrastinate deadlines and decisions, which stalls progress and can delay results.
If you are a turtle: When you feel the temptation to retreat, assess the real threat. Consider the consequences of the worst case scenario and the benefits and drawbacks of making a change. Consider talking to someone who has a bolder approach for their advice. The goal is to determine if there is a way to step out of your comfort zone and start the changing process, or if the threats must be resolved before you leave your shell.
If you are working with a turtle: I have found communication to be key to effectively team with a turtle. It is important to be proactive with the turtle before the defense mechanism is triggered by a complaint or concern. Break down the larger projects and priorities into their pieces, showing the step-by-step processes and how to mitigate risk along the way. Clearly outline roles, responsibilities and decision makers so the turtle knows who to connect with if questions and or suggestions arise.
Electric Eel: The electric eel is ready with 600 volts of electricity to dole out to any would-be predator. There is no negotiation or posturing. There is no hiding. There is only attack. I have certainly worked with many eels. Eels are sharp — armed with data, analysis, and opinion, the eel can unload on anyone who disagrees with them with a current of logical arguments and justifications. They can have a tendency to belittle others, leaving them writhing on the ground after an encounter. At their best, eels are knowledgeable and persuasive. At their worst, they use the threat of retaliation as a deterrent to keep people from disagreeing with them, often unwittingly. Gliding along in their own “everyone agrees with me world,” they may not know that people are not being honest with them or alerting them to potential issues.
If you are an eel: I would encourage you to balance your initial approach with a committed desire for long-term relationship. Think about the person, not just the power you have. You might win the argument with a co-worker and force others into submission, but that isn’t good teamwork. Remember that the focus of your energy should be positive encouragement, not disparaging comments. Make sure you wield data, not shame.
If you work with an eel: Make sure you do your homework. Know your stuff and be prepared for a sting. Dig into the data with them, which might help get the eel on the same side of the negotiating table with you, rather than see themselves in an adversarial role. And if you get stung, there are several approaches to take, but the one that will lead to the most respect is to stand up for yourself. It may be extremely hard, but the bravery it takes to say “that’s not okay” and “here is how you should have responded,” can take the amperage out and put you back at a power parity with your eel colleague.
Sea Cucumber: This very strange animal has an unusual defense mechanism: it surrenders. The highly pliable organism can break itself into pieces, sacrificing body parts (including organs) to a predator until the predator is preoccupied and the sea cucumber (or what is left of it) can get way. It wants to end the conflict as soon as possible and retreat to where it can heal. In the workplace, these are often the soft spoken colleagues who are less likely to take a contrary (and never a combative) view with the group. They are eager to please and just want everyone to get along and mind their own. The problem with this approach is that their valuable perspectives are never shared, which does harm the team and empowers more aggressive colleagues. At their best, their empathy and willingness to pitch in can help the team complete tasks. At their worst, they can be an easy target and take the brunt of bullying.
If you are a sea cucumber: Think about how you can best engage and give your ideas without having to sacrifice yourself. Have confidence that the team deserves your participation. Also, consider that the relative costs of speaking up in the moment is more effective and valuable than having to nurse wounds or regrow body parts later.
If you work with a sea cucumber: I find speaking with reclusive teammates is most beneficial in a 1:1 or smaller setting. If I see that a colleague has taken a brunt of tension-filled meeting and not spoken up, I try to draw them out of their tendency of self-sacrifice to encourage them communicate their ideas and perspectives.
Grizzly Bears: One of the few animals with no natural-born predators, I think we can all learn from the grizzly bears to be a more effective team. Unarmed, even a clever human can’t beat the bear. She doesn’t have to inflict, hide in the woods, or rise up to scare away people to stay alive, because she is capable of all of those things. She doesn’t have to be defensive, because she has power.
By recognizing our own characteristics, we can combine our natural strengths to harness the confidence of the cobra, the thoughtfulness of the turtle, the healing powers of the sea cucumber, and the knowledge of the eel. By leveraging our defensive tendencies into powerful tools, we can be a team of grizzly bears — working together to influence others, to excite change, to achieve greatness.
The work of taming your environment begins with taming yourself. Recognizing your own tendencies and looking for ways to soften your bite or stand your ground might make all the difference. It’s a lesson we are all learning and adaptations we are all making in our effort to team better.
This article was published on LinkedIn Pulse.
Some people speak of breaking through barriers and others talk about building something of themselves. Both are true, but the word choice is telling.
In an interview with artist and activist, Molly Crabapple in the Smithsonian magazine (April 2016), she talked about the “jaggedness goading you on.” The success that she found in her life and career wasn’t easy to come by. There was a lot of rejection and barrier busting. She talked about finding cracks in the wall and the power of persistence. “But I think that sort of pain,” she said, “are the parts of you that are most interesting in a lot of ways. They’re the parts of you that give you motivation to keep creating art and keep fighting.” An analogy of destruction is reflective of a world view that says it is “me versus the universe.”
In contrast, others talk about building something, brick on brick. Using construction terms, they think of creating an edifice. Something beautiful and interesting and lasting. It is a different kind of pain. A pain focused on legacy. Building something comes from a world view that says that anything is possible. And that the world is ready to accept what you have to build.
How do you describe your own accomplishments? What does that say about your world view?
Several years ago, I penned a song entitled “Content” [kuh n-tent] that was all about being satisfied. Everyone pronounced it “content” [kon-tent] and thought it was a placeholder for the actual title. It’s a little ironic actually. Is a musician every content with his or her pieces? Marketers, too, often find themselves asking this question often: am I content with my content?
Author and historian, A. Wyatt Tilby, first used the expression “content is king” in 1914. However, he wasn’t referring to copy, video or audio, but rather to being satisfied. We think of this as a positive thing today, but Tilby spoke of the British monarchy when content was a derivative of “constrained” or “contained.” So, for a royal, their content audience was captive. Literally.
So, how do you keep your audience’s captive attention? By taking innovative and fresh approaches that keep readers informed, entertained and empowered to do more in their daily lives. Here are five ways to know if you can be content with your content or if it is time to change:
1. You are excited for others to read it
This may seem obvious but if the content doesn’t excite you – as the subject matter expert – it isn’t the right approach or needs more work. No matter your profession, we are all called to write and persuade or inform others from time to time – be it a manager, coworker, customer, patient or client. For some, writing is all they do in their jobs, and it comes naturally. For others, it’s a dreaded task. The key is to find opportunities to write about subjects that excite you. When you do, it becomes easier to create content with which you can be content. You may need to stretch the boundaries of your writing comfort zone, and research for supporting sources. But in doing so, the content will be strengthened and ultimately, professional expertise will be heightened. Now, if that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.
The key is to find opportunities to write about subjects that excite you.
2. Ask a trusted, skeptical colleague to review
Before you hit “go live” on any piece of content, seek out your most trusted, skeptical colleague to give it a thorough review. He or she needn’t be an expert in the topic of the piece, but you do want their unbiased and honest opinion about the aesthetics, clarity, and audience-perceived value of your content. Does the headline grab the reader and pull them in? Is it true to the “meat” of the piece or is it simply click bait? The latter, while a heavily used tactic these days, can damage your credibility with your audience. Take in all feedback and make adjustments to your content to ensure your audience has the utmost opportunity to engage with, and derive meaningful takeaways.
3. The content has been active for more than three months
Now, let’s talk about the “lifespan” of an effective piece of content. Once you have your ad, whitepaper, blog or video “in the wild,” and your audiences are consuming it, you’ll want to consider how long to promote it. The duration may vary according to the traffic it gets and the resonance of its message with the intended audience. If the piece – whether being promoted via paid venues, or lives organically on your website – has been running for three months or more (or you can’t remember when it was changed), it is probably time for an update. The best way to remain content with your content is to ensure your audience doesn’t have a chance to get bored.
4. It has been seen by your core customers more than seven times
Closely tied to recommended lifespan of your content is the marketing “Rule of Seven,” which states that audiences need to see your content seven times to remember and/or take action on it. If the content is compelling, it can make an impact sooner than seven times. If the content is run-of-the-mill, it can be seen more before becoming redundant. If you’ve used the content in your rotation at least seven times, it’s a good practice to change the content before it becomes too familiar and easily tuned out.
5. The Call to Action is no longer effective
“Call to Action” (CTA) defines the desired behavior of the viewer: buy the product, watch this movie, or shop this store. Although it can be difficult, it is important to measure the results of your content based on your CTA. Pay attention to the messages your audiences are sending to you via the CTA: e.g., are they opening your emails; are they clicking the links; are they visiting your page to learn more; are they sharing or commenting on your content? These are all important indicators of message and content resonance. Monitoring the results of your CTA helps you understand if your CTA is compelling enough, or perhaps it is time to refresh the content.
This article was originally posted on Leaders In Heels.
LieFi: fake news online
It was a pleasure to talk with Angela Mezzetti from Women in Leadership about owning your career. Check out the recording of our fun conversation: Own Your Career and Find Balance.
"In a walking city, shouldn't the sidewalks be on the map, instead of the streets?" - Mike Rawlinson, CityID
Garr Reynolds, the presentation coach and author of PresentationZen wrote recently on Twitter:
“What I learned from watching US election coverage on cable news today: feelings beat evidence and fact, data are no match for narrative.”
I think this is truer than we’d all like to admit. Not only in the US election coverage, but in our lives and business. The story is what anchors and provides meaning to the facts, not the other way around.
Amazon must be a huge consumer of kraft cardboard. We have a model in which product is shipped in cardboard and then, in most communities, is picked up at the curb for recycling. Why don’t we turn this around?
Why aren’t the deliveries made in something akin to a mailbox, but for packages. With limited packaging (ie, soft packaging, reusable totes, etc) and then we have curbside or community drop off of goods?
Today the brick and mortar retail world relies on customers picking up goods from a store and trashing the packaging at home. What if it was the opposite? The goods were delivered to the home and we dropped off the packaging (on our own schedule). As tools like Amazon become more ubiquitous, the infrastructure for curbside reusable pick-up is a natural next step.
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." -African Proverb
Often passionate leaders and visionaries resist expressing their vision in quantitative benefits. Although the story narrative around customer benefits is very important and can lead to the kind of sticky, emotional connection that everyone strives for, if you can also quantify the benefit in terms of dollars saved or earned, time saved, injuries or deaths prevented, or other outcome improvements, the message is much stronger and more credible. I recently heard Norman Winarsky, author of If You Want to Change the World, express it well when he said “the more you can quantify the benefits, the more customers will understand.” Numbers don’t stand on their own, typically, but they are a strong pillar on which to build the story.
“The talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.” – Amy Poehler
If it is an epidemic to have people confuse activity with results, then it is even more tempting to confuse talking about work with actual work. Talking about what you are going to do is not doing it. Only doing it counts.
Talking about what you should have done is even worse. It’s not work and will never result in work, unless your work is time travel.
Don't have an occasion to celebrate? Invent one.