EMBA的小眼睛

The 2% who misunderstand you

Sometimes, it's essential that you be completely understood. That every passenger knows where the emergency exit is, or that every employee knows how it is we do things around here.

But most of the time, if 2% of your audience doesn't get the joke, doesn't learn what you seek to teach them, doesn't understand the essence of your argument, it's not the problem you think it is.

Sure, the 2% who are underinformed can write reviews, tweet indignantly and speak up. You know what? It doesn't matter that much.

If you insist on telling everyone on the airplane precisely how to buckle their seatbelt (!), then yes, of course you're going to not only waste the time of virtually everyone, but you're going to train them not to listen to the rest of what you have to say.

For less than it's worth

The only things we spend time and money on are things that we believe are worth more than they cost.

The key words of this obvious sentence are often miscalculated:

Believe, worth and cost.

Believe as in the story we tell ourselves. Believe as in the eye of the beholder. Believe as in emotion.

For less than it's worth

The only things we spend time and money on are things that we believe are worth more than they cost.

The key words of this obvious sentence are often miscalculated:

Believe, worth and cost.

Believe as in the story we tell ourselves. Believe as in the eye of the beholder. Believe as in emotion.

Another chance to start over

Every day that you begin with a colleague, a partner, a customer... it might was well be a fresh start.

There's little upside in two strikes, a grudge, probation. When we give people the benefit of the doubt, we have a chance to engage with their best selves.

If someone can't earn that fresh start, by all means, make the choice not to work with them again. Ask your customer to move on, recommend someone who might serve them better.

But for everyone else, today is another chance to be great.

Shouting into the wind

Anything worth shouting about is worth shouting into the wind.

Because if enough people care, often enough, the word spreads, the standards change, the wind dies down. If enough people care, the culture changes.

It's easy to persuade ourselves that the right time to make change happen is when it's time. But that's never true. The right time to make it happen is before it's time. Because this is what 'making' means.

The most devastating thing we can learn about our power is how much of it we have. How much change we could make if we would only speak up first, not last. How much influence we can have if we're willing to to look someone in the eye and say, "yes." Or, "this is our problem, too." Or, "this must stop."

The patina of books and the magic thrill of a new idea

Show me your bookcase, the ideas that you've collected one by one over the years, the changes you've made in the way you see the world. Not your browser history, but the books you were willing to buy and hold and read and store and share.

Every bookshelf tells a story. You can't build one in a day or even a week... it's a lifetime of collected changes. On the shelf over there I see an Isaac Asimov collection I bought when I was 12, right next to a yet-to-be-published galley by a friend of mine. Each of them changed my life.

It's thrilling to juxtapose this look backwards with the feeling I get when a great new book arrives. It hasn't been read yet (at least not by me) and it it offers unlimited promise, new possibilities and perhaps the chance to share it with someone else after I'm done.

This week, Portfolio is publishing four new editions of books I wrote or helped publish. These are books that your friends and colleagues and competitors may have seen already, and they each offer a chance to leap, an open door to change that matters:

Ad blocking

By most accounts, more and more people are automatically blocking the ads in their browser.

Of course, people have been blocking ads forever. By ignoring them.

Fifteen years ago, when I began writing about Permission Marketing, I pointed out that when ads are optional, it's only anticipated, personal and relevant ones that will pay off.

And advertisers have had fifteen years to show self restraint. They've had the chance to not secretly track people, set cookies for their own benefit, insert popunders and popovers and poparounds, and mostly, deliver us ads we actually want to see.

Special orders

You can look forward to them, the weirder the better.

Or you can push customers to make them as uncustom and unspecial as possible, because, of course, these are easier to handle.

If you embrace special orders, you're doing something difficult, scarce and worth seeking out.

If you handle them begrudgingly, you're likely to undo the very goodwill you sought to create.

On doing your best

It's a pretty easy way to let ourselves (or someone else) off the hook. "Hey, you did your best."

But it fails to explain the improvement in the 100-meter dash. Or the way we're able to somehow summon more energy and more insight when there's a lot on the line. Or the tremendous amount of care and love we can bring to a fellow human who needs it.

By defining "our best" as the thing we did when we merely put a lot of effort into a task, I fear we're letting ourselves off the hook.

In fact, it might not require a lot of effort, but a ridiculous amount of effort, an unreasonable amount of preparation, a silly amount of focus... and even then, there might be a little bit left to give.

Rearranging our prejudices

Change is the point. It's what we seek to do to the world around us.

Change, actual change, is hard work. And changing our own minds is the most difficult place to start.

It's also the only place to start.

It's hard to find the leverage to change the way you see the world, hard to pull on your thoughtstraps. But it's urgent.

"Don't touch it, you might break it."

This is, of course, the opposite of,

"Touch it, you can make it better."

What's the default where you work?

No one knows

No one knows the right answer, no one knows precisely what will happen, no one can produce the desired future, on demand.

Some people are better at guessing than others, but not by much.

The people who are supposed to know rejected Harry Potter, Tracy Chapman and the Beatles. The people who are supposed to know sell stocks just before they go up, and give us rules of thumb that don't pan out.

If you mistakenly believe that there's someone who knows, you're likely to decide that whoever that person it is, it's not you.

SUSDAT

Abbey Ryan has painted a new painting every day for 8 years.

Isaac Asimov published 400 books, by typing every day.

This is post #6000 on this blog.

Writer's block is a myth, a recent invention, a cultural malady.

On feeling like a failure

Feeling like a failure has little correlation with actually failing.

There are people who have failed more times than you and I can count, who are happily continuing in their work.

There are others who have achieved more than most of us can imagine, who go to work each day feeling inadequate, behind, and yes, like failures and frauds.

These are not cases of extraordinary outliers. In fact, external data is almost useless in figuring out whether or not someone is going to adopt the narrative of being a failure.

Going to the edges

The best restaurant in Omaha doesn't serve steak. And it's not a chain.

The Kitchen Table is run by two people who care. Colin and Jessica aren't trying to copy what's come before and they're not trying to please everyone.

When they first opened, people wanted to know why everything wasn't $5. (You can get a large dinner for two for $30 here). Instead of dumbing down the menu and averaging down on quality, they went the other way. There might be other restaurants in Nebraska that serve homemade dukkah on their salads and homemade sourdough bread with their sandwiches, but I don't know of any. And I think homemade watermelon rind pickles are scarce even in New York.

It helps that the rent is (really) cheap on the big city rent scale. It helps that the two people behind the restaurant live upstairs and are willing to put their hearts into it.

Parents, taxpayers, citizens, let's not waste another year. What happens if every teacher and school board member starts discussing what school is for? Please share with four people... that's all it would take to start the conversation.

One last thing to think about: What would happen to our society if we spent twice as much time and money on education as we do now? And not just on the wealthy, but on everyone, especially on everyone.

What if every six-year-old was reading, if math and science were treated as opportunities, not chores, if community service and leadership got as much space in the local paper and on TV as sports do?

The real win is creating a generation that actually delights in learning. Once people want to learn, there are more self-directed avenues open than ever before.

I wonder how many people will have to speak up before we end up redefining what 'good enough' looks like when it came to the single most important thing we do for our future and our kids.

Three changes in marketing

1. Advertising and marketing are no longer the same thing.

2. The most valuable forms of marketing are consumed voluntarily.

3. The network effect is the most powerful force in the world of ideas.

(The last assertion is based on the fact that culture changes everything about how we live our lives, and culture is driven by the network effect... society works because it's something we do together.)

Which part do you disagree with?

The steps in the proof?

Or the conclusion?

If you agree with every step of the argument, but the conclusion leaves you angry or uncomfortable, it might be time to reconsider your worldview, not reject the argument.

The squeaky wheel problem

It seems to make sense to prioritize in order of priority.

Do the urgent stuff first. Deal with the cranky customer who's about to walk out, the disenchanted and difficult employee who hasn't had the right sort of guidance (lately), the partner who is stomping his foot.

The problem with this rational priotization is that it means that the good customers, the valuable employees and the long-suffering but loyal partners are neglected. And they realize that they should either get squeaky or leave.

If the only way to get your attention is to represent a risk, people will figure that out.

Failing, again

Pema Chodron's new book is out this month. I was rendered speechless by her invitation to write the short foreword for the book, the first time I've ever agreed to do this. She's a caring, generous, magical person, a teacher with a special voice, one worth listening to.

Why buy a book about failing? Because success is easier to deal with and you're probably doing fine with that. Because your narrative about failing is keeping you from succeeding. And because you will have far more chances to fail than you know what to do with...

PS if you sign up this week, at this link, Sounds True will give you a seven-hour audio from Pema as well.

Also, Brene Brown's new book is out. Which is always a special occasion.