Professional farmers dont begrudge the backyard gardener his tomato harvest. Thats silly. And talented mechanics certainly dont mind the antics of the Car Talk guys (or their listeners). Sooner or later, if you need a real mechanic, youll find one, and if you dont, well, thats fine too. A few years ago, typesetting, wedding photography, […]
People dont change
(Unless they want to) Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset. But only when we want to. The hard part, then, isnt the changing it. Its the wanting it.
The solo marathon…
The usual marathons, the popular ones, are done in a group. They have a start time. A finish line. A way to qualify. A route. A crowd. And a date announced a year in advance. Mostly, they have excitement, energy and peer pressure. The other kind of marathon is one that anyone can run, any […]
Trapped by the incoming
The incoming is coming to you because a while ago, you did something brave and generous and risky. Incoming is great. Its a reward for your impact. Its a chance to serve and to make a difference. And it enables you to go to work every day. If you spend all your time dealing with […]
Think Consumption Is The ‘Engine’ Of Our
There is a fundamental illogic to the notion that an economy can be grown by encouraging consumption. When a person consumes, by definition, they use things up. The very process leaves us with less than before. Growing the availability of valuable goods and services for society by using them up is not just an […]
Caring is free…
In the short run, of course, not caring can save you some money. Don’t bother making the facilities quite so clean. Save time and hassle and let the display get a little messy. Don’t worry so much about one particular customer, because you’re busy and hiring more people takes time and money. But in the […]
You cant outtrain a bad diet
Its way easier to eat lousy food than it is to exercise it off. Your effort is undermined by your inputs. And the same thing is true for corporate culture. You can work as hard as you like to create expectations and policies. But the people you begin with their dreams, their narratives and their […]
Getting the word out…
For some, this is the holy grail of marketing. If only more people knew what you know. If only they were aware of what you have to offer, of the work you can share. Perhaps you can get more people to click on your video, read your tweet or see your Instagram. Alas, awareness is […]
How to Improve Your PowerPoint Slides wi...
You can design attractive visuals by following simple guidelines. One of these simple guidelines is the Rule of Thirds a composition technique borrowed from photography and other visual arts that works wonderfully in PowerPoint.In this article, you will learn: What is the Rule of Thirds? How do photographers use the Rule of Thirds? How can […]
We are not the enemy (if we try)…..
Fewer than 1% of our population works hard to divide us. To pit people against one another for their selfish aims. These are the pundits, divisive politicians, media companies and short-term trolls who have decided that schisms and fights are a good way to achieve their aims. But if everyone is demonizing the other, then […]
Why even bother to think about strategy?
Theres confusion between tactics and strategy. Its easy to get tied up in semantic knots as you work to figure out the distinction. Its worth it, though, because strategy can save you when tactics fail. If a tactic fails, you should consider abandoning it. But that doesnt mean that theres something wrong with your strategy. […]
The moment of maximum leverage…
It’s the moment before it tips, that split second where a little effort can make a big difference. We wait for this. For the day when participating will truly pay off, for the mechanical advantage that gives us the most impact for our effort. It’s a myth. Maximum leverage is the result of commitment, of […]
Marketing Defined…
I think that any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved. Perhaps it was advertising, or perhaps deliberate story telling by an industry. Or perhaps it was just the stories we tell one another in our daily lives. It’s sort of amazing, even to me, how much marketing colors the […]
Bigger may feel safer but is it ?
Creative institutions get bigger so that they can avoid doing things that feel risky. They may rationalize this as leverage, as creating more impact. But it’s a coin with two sides, and the other side is that they do proportionally more things that are reliable and fewer things that feel like they might fail. In […]
Maybe this year…
Your knowledge will reach critical mass.. Your boss will give you the go ahead.. Your family situation will be stable.. The competition will stop innovating.. The traffic jam will cease.. There won’t be any computer viruses to deal with, and Then… You can act, you can launch your project, you can make the […]
But are you doing your work?
Here is a hint: your work might not be what you think it is. A doctor might think her job is to cure diseases. But in fact, thats not what gets and keeps patients. The cure is a goal, and its important, but its not sufficient. The technical tasks are important, but the work involves […]
The great untold story of our time…
The decline of our personal momentum. The motor, Heres a simple hierarchy: The self-driving car, Cruise control, Manual driving, Hitchhiking, Bicycling, Walking The arc? As you move down the list, it gets harder and harder to coast. It moves from set it once and forget it to one step at at time. The growth of […]
Price and satisfaction
You dont need to read many reviews to realize that the correlation between price and satisfaction isnt what you might have guessed. Its super rare for someone to write, 5 stars. The product wasnt perfect, it wasnt exactly what I needed, but it was really cheap, so, good job! In fact, things that are free […]
How do you do it ?? Bad sorts (and the ...
Bad sorts (and the useful ones) We sort people all the time. Society prefers easy, useless ones. Sorts like: Skin color. Gender. Disability status. Nationality. Religious background. Height. While these are easy to do and the result of long, long traditions, they’re useless. The alternatives? Kindness. Expertise. Attitude. Skill. Emotional intelligence. Honesty. Generous persistence. […]
Don’t go to the supermarket when you’re
Looking for seekers (who are looking for you) “Don’t go to the supermarket when you’re hungry.” The reason is obvious–when you’re hungry, you’re likely to buy things. The risk is that you’ll buy something you don’t need, because, of course, all that buying isn’t actually making you less hungry. The same thing is true […]
Do not take industry conditions as given...
As Steve Jobs put it, You tend to get told that the world is the way it is.. But thats a very limited {View}. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that we call life was made up by people that were no smarter than […]
Two kinds of practice
The first is quite common. Learn to play the notes as written. Move asymptotically toward perfection. Practice your technique and your process to get yourself ever more skilled at doing it (whatever ‘it’ is) to spec. This is the practice of grand slalom, of arithmetic, of learning your lines or c++. The other kind of […]
Your soft skills inventory
The annual review is a waste. It’s not particularly useful for employee or boss, it’s stressful and it doesn’t happen often enough to make much of an impact. If you choose to, though, you can do your own review. Weekly or monthly, you can sit down with yourself (or, more powerfully, with a small circle […]
Are you hiding from the mission ?
We do this in two ways: The first is refusing to be clear and precise about what the mission is. Avoiding specifics about what we hope to accomplish and for whom. Being vague about success and (thus about failure). After all, if no one knows exactly what the mission is, it’s hard feel like a […]
Start small, start now…..
This is much better than, “start big, start later.” One advantage is that you don’t have to start perfect. You can merely start.
How to have your Better instincts….
“Go with your gut,” is occasionally good advice. More often, though, it’s an invitation to indulge in your fear or to avoid the hard work of understanding the nuance around us. Better advice is, “invest in making your gut smarter.” The world is a lot more complex than our gut is likely to comprehend, at […]
What will you do with your surplus?
If you have a safe place to sleep, reasonable health and food in the fridge, you’re probably living with surplus. You have enough breathing room to devote an hour to watching TV, or having an argument you don’t need to have, or simply messing around online. You have time and leverage and technology and trust. […]
All deals are handshake deals…
The only variable is how specific you’re willing to be about who is promising what. Specific contracts don’t completely protect you from dishonorable people. What they do is make it really clear about what it takes to do what you said you were going to do. Start with a good agreement. But your future depends […]
The taxi or the cruise ship..?
The successful cab owner knows this: Every ride is custom People choose a cab precisely because they can ride alone, on their own terms Empty trips are part of the job, and it’s okay, because the next ride will pay for it. On the other hand, the person who chooses to run a cruise line […]
The two fears of voluntary education…
Voluntary education is different from compulsory, the kind we grew up with. When you’re the victim/beneficiary of compulsory education, it happens to you. You have little choice. Perhaps you choose to open your mind and do the work, but either way, here it is. Now that we’re adults, though, we have choice. Endless choice. Most […]
Four ways to improve customer service…
Delegate it to your customers. Let them give feedback, good and bad, early and often. Delegate it to your managers. Build in close monitoring, training and feedback. Have them walk the floor, co-creating with their teams. Use technology. Monitor digital footprints, sales per square foot, visible customer actions. Create a culture where peers inspire peers, […]
Is this your missing Skill….?
It’s difficult to find the leverage to make a difference. At your job, there are probably people with more experience than you, more domain knowledge than you, even more skills than you. The same is true about your competition. But there’s one place where you can make your mark: Your attitude. You can bring more […]
A professional stumbler….
Leo’s working hard to do something he’s never done before. He’s just turned one, and he doesn’t know how to walk (yet). There are no really useful books or videos on how to walk. It’s something he has to figure out on his own. But instead of waiting on the couch until the day he’s […]
The right effort of generosity….
Don’t expect much from a drowning man. He’s not going to offer you a candy bar or ask how your day was. He’s too busy not drowning. Generosity takes effort. It requires the space to take your mind off your own problems long enough to see someone else’s. It requires the confidence to share when […]
Defending myself (vs. offending my self)
The reason it’s difficult to learn something new is that it will change you into someone who disagrees with the person you used to be. And we’re not organized for that. The filter bubble and our lack of curiosity about the unknown are forms of self defense. We’re defending the self, keeping everything “ok” because […]
Top 30 Open-ended Questions for Business...
Open-ended questions are incredibly valuable to the sales process (as long as you listen). They help you gather information, qualify sales opportunities, and establish rapport, trust, and credibility. As a sales professional, its very important to have a repertoire of powerful open-ended questions questions that are answered by more than a simple yes or […]