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20
31 6 58 Achieve Your Goals by Not Focusing on Them
6
Change Your Mentality Towards the ROI of Social Media
8
Stephen Shapiro
Kelly Robertson
Invest More in Design and Less in Strategy
12
The Last Competitive Advantage
14
Create Camaraderie
18
Making the Leap to Customer Intimacy
20
50 Powerful Rules To Amp Up Your Game
26
Rethink, Reimagine, Reset – the Steve Jobs Way
28
A Life Without Technology
31
Eric Ryan
Patrick Lencioni
Frances Cole Jones
Bryan Pearson
Robin Sharma
Idris Mootee Mitch Joel
2
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| SPRING 2012
28
62 54 52
18
35 40 44 46
6 Ways To Let Your Personality Shine In Social Media
Sally Hogshead
Ignoring Superficial Distractions, Canada’s Startup Space Continues to Boom
Robert Lewis
Q&A With Sarah Prevette
Ron Tite
The Ultimate Differentiator - How To Build A Strong Leadership Culture
Vince Molinaro
48
Actionable Summary
52
How Do We Identify Good Ideas?
54
Want to Sell Product? Sleep With Your Customers
56 58 62
Chris Taylor
Jonah Lehrer
Martin Lindstrom
Increase Your Company’s Productivity With Social Media
Jeanne Meister
The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish
Avinash Kaushik
The Practice of Courage
Susan Scott
12 SPRING 2012 |
|
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editor
Letter from the
EDITOR Scott Kavanagh CREATIVE DIRECTOR Art Silveira
2012 is upon us and with no tangible signs of the Mayan apocalypse the team at The Art of… is excited to unveil our plans for the upcoming year. We will continue offering you access to some of the sharpest, most highly regarded, business minds as well as further establish ourselves as a trusted resource in the world of business. 2011 was a tremendous success and our best year thus far. With five ambitious conferences showcasing the philosophies and works of dozens of acclaimed speakers, we were able to engage a wider audience than ever before. Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple, enthralled us at The Art of Marketing in Toronto with his expertise on innovation. We witnessed a captivating presentation regarding leadership in the face of extreme challenges from the former Chief of Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces, General Rick Hillier, at The Art of Leadership in Calgary. New York Times bestselling author Seth Godin gave us an innovative and unique approach to succeed in today’s crowded marketplace at The Art of Sales in Toronto. Despite the broad scope of speakers showcased in 2011, we never lost focus on ensuring the quality, relevance and practicality of their messages. We are proud that your feedback was consistently positive and that our conferences continually exceeded your expectations. With nine conferences on the horizon for 2012, including our inaugural program in the United States, The Art of Marketing in Chicago, we have been hard at work securing a roster of speakers that will continue to surprise and impress our delegates. In addition to our conferences, we will be exploring a variety of avenues to bring you pertinent business news, exclusives from our esteemed speakers and engage our community like never before. The publication you hold in your hands as well as our new website, set to launch later this year, will serve as resources that both echo the ideas presented at our conferences as well as feature unique content. Our hope is to develop an ongoing dialogue amongst our community. This will foster greater learning opportunities, facilitate networking and allow for feedback so that we can suit our offerings to fit your needs. We are excited to see how these mediums develop and grow over the upcoming year. Ultimately, the success of our company is entirely dependent on our community. Without your insatiable desire to educate yourselves and actively seek new ways to better succeed in business, we simply could not exist. For this reason, myself, and all of us at The Art of… would like to thank you for your on-going support. Helping you succeed,
Scott Kavanagh, Editor scott@theartof.com
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| SPRING 2012
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Allyson Shiffman, Avinash Kaushik, Bryan Pearson, Chris Taylor, Eric Ryan, Frances Cole Jones, Idris Mootee, Jeanne Meister, Jonah Lehrer, Kelly Robertson, Martin Lindstrom, Mitch Joel, Patrick Lencioni, Robert Lewis, Robin Sharma, Ron Tite, Sally Hogshead, Stephen Shapiro, Susan Scott, Vince Molinaro HOW TO REACH US The Art of Productions Inc. 46 Sherbourne Street , 3rd Floor Toronto, Ontario Canada M5A 2P7 ADVERTISING Ron Bester - Manager, Business Development 416-479-9701 ext. 322 ron@theartof.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Visit www.theartof.com/magazine Email magazine@theartof.com Call 866-992-7863 (In U.S.A and Canada) Write to The Art of…, Subscription Services 46 Sherbourne Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2P7 Our subscribers list is occasionally made available to carefully selected firms whose products or services may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive information from these firms, please let us know at privacy@theartof.com or send your request along with your mailing label to The Art of Productions Inc, 46 Sherbourne Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2P7 PRINT PARTNER Dollco Integrated Print Solutions Printed in Canada. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement Number 42343517 ©2012 The Art Magazine is published quarterly by The Art of Productions Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Subscription rate is $30.00 annually.
YOUR CUSTOMER WANTS TO READ SOMETHING HERE.
AND THAT SOMETHING ISN’T YOUR AD. Why add clutter when you can add value? Fill the white space across every platform with content that keeps them interested, keeps them engaged, keeps them connected, and keeps them coming back for more. Make content count. Invest in yours. www.thetitegroup.com
Achieve Your GOALS by NOT
FOCUSING on
BY
Stephen Shapiro
THEM
Several years ago, I worked with a Formula One racing team. Back then, the pit crews
consisted of 20 people who serviced these ultrafast race cars. Within a matter of seconds, these skilled technicians would refuel the car, change the tires, and perform required maintenance. During practice, a stopwatch measured their time to milliseconds. After dozens of test runs, they would reach their peak speed; the point where, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t go even a thousandth of a second faster. Then, as an experiment, the pit crew boss informed his team that they would now be evaluated on “style” rather than speed. While still advised to go fast, their movements were deemed more important in this round than the time on the stopwatch. Astonishingly, the pit crew shaved several tenths of a second off their seemingly best time, even though they “felt” as if they were operating at a slower pace. This experiment demonstrates an important point: the more you focus on your goals; paradoxically the less likely you are to achieve them. By worrying about the future, you take your eye off the present which negatively impacts performance.
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In higher intellectual activities, the results are even more pronounced. Take the true story of a high school student who became increasingly anxious over passing her upcoming math final, her weakest subject. She studied incredibly hard, all the while focusing on her specific goal of passing her exam. In spite of her efforts, she failed. She pleaded with her teachers to give her one more chance and luckily, they agreed. However, she realized that more of the same, cramming all night, would likely have little impact on the results. She knew she had to quell the anxiety in her head to make room for new learning. So, this time, instead of concentrating on the outcome, she used a simple technique to become more present moment, rather than goal focused: she pretended to be someone else. Her first conscious thought each day when she awoke was to visualize herself as Condoleezza Rice, the former U.S. Secretary of State, a very successful, highly educated woman. Dr. Rice wouldn’t worry about a high school math exam, right? By imagining she was someone else, she was able to eliminate the anxiety of the goal by focusing more on the process. This gave her more confidence and in doing so, she scored a 93%, her greatest performance to date with a lot less effort.
The concept of reducing goal-obsession to improve performance is not new. In the early 1900s, Robert Yerkes and J. D. Dodson developed the aptly named Yerkes-Dodson Law. The premise is that performance increases relative to motivation (they call it “arousal”) only to a point, after which performance drops. Typically, it is drawn as an inverted U-shaped curve.
Where else can this concept be applied? The answer is, almost everywhere. For example, sales reps can perform better when they shift their focus away from sales goals.
Within the business world, Yerkes and Dodson found that to improve concentration, intellectually challenging tasks required lower levels of arousal/motivation. The more creative the work, the less motivation required to hit peak levels of performance. Studies reveal that creativity diminishes when individuals are rewarded (externally motivated) for doing their work. Why? The desire to achieve the goal overtakes the personal interest in the endeavor. A myopic focus on the outcome overshadows the intellectual stimulation of the process. As a result, risk taking reduces, and creativity vanishes.
A woman’s clothing store held a competition to determine who among its employees could sell the most merchandise within two months. The winner would receive a bonus and other desirable perks. All had their eyes on the prize, except for one sales rep who decided to take a different approach. Instead of trying to make a sale, she zeroed in more specifically on identifying and serving the needs of the customers. If a customer required assistance for eight hours picking out a blouse, that’s what she would do. If she felt customers would find a better product at a competitor, she would send them there. Surprisingly, after two months, she, who was not trying to make sales, sold more than everyone else by a significant margin.
If you lack motivation, you have low performance. This is not surprising. As your motivation increases, your performance increases, but only to a point. This point is the sweet spot of optimal performance. However, it is about this point when you also become more goal obsessed. This is when performance begins to decrease. Goals increase stress and fixates you on the future rather than what you are doing in the present. Yerkes and Dodson suggest that different tasks require different levels of arousal (to use their word). For example, physically demanding tasks often require higher levels of motivation. This explains why professional athletes are inclined to be more goal-driven. Even so, as demonstrated by the pit crew example, too much goal orientation will hurt even athletic performance.
“Working hard” may not be the best way to improve productivity and creativity. Maybe it isn’t even “working smarter.” As we have seen, maybe the key to peak performance is to stop trying so hard and instead to focus on the present.
We have seen similar results in many sales and service organizations.
Stephen Shapiro is the author of “Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition” (selected as the best innovation and creativity book of 2011 by 800-CEO-READ) and “Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High Performance Teamwork and Innovation.” You can read over 500 articles on innovation at SteveShapiro.com
SPRING 2012 |
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7
Change YOUR
MENTALITY
ROI
towards THE
of
SOCIAL MEDIA BY Kelly
Robertson
The use of social media by marketers is put under the same scrutiny of any marketing vehicle: Your senior executives (the C-Suite) want to know what the return on investment (ROI) of each initiative will be. It’s true, in an economy still recovering from the most recent recession; Marketers have to be smart about where they invest their limited budgets and ensure they get the most “bang for their buck”. But the mentality of your company’s C-Suite towards social media needs to change. Using social isn’t just about generating an ROI (although it’s nice and IS possible), it should be about building brand equity, brand advocates and even positioning your company as a thought leader in your industry; it all depends on what your company hopes to achieve from using it.
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So what are your goals? All too often companies set out on the social media bandwagon without clear goals or direction. They do it simply because everyone else seems to be doing it too. If your executives are asking about the ROI from social, how can they expect to achieve one from a tactic with no strategy behind it? Ensure everyone in your organization is on the same page about your goals and what the right strategy is for your company. Some goals might be:
• • • • •
Position your company as a thought leader Provide a customer service portal Engage with brand advocates and build trust Get in front of the people asking questions about related products/services Build brand equity and loyalty
Once you’ve defined your goals, lay the groundwork to reach them by determining which social media platforms will help you reach your goals, what topics you will talk about on the platforms, who will manage your initiatives and who you will engage with. And yes, you will need to determine how you will measure the effectiveness of your campaigns; because even a goal of increasing brand loyalty will need to be measured in some way. But do not get trapped in promising your executives that you will generate x amount of new leads per month from social media; rather go back to your original goals (brand equity, thought leadership) and focus on the “soft sell” approach to achieve these goals.
How to do the Soft Sell There are people out there asking questions about the products and services you offer. Do not simply start recommending your product (the hard sell) right off the bat. If you do, your credibility will be tarnished and people will stop listening.
Build the relationship Instead, focus on building a relationship with the person. Ask about the features and benefits they are looking for and then really get to know the needs of your “potential” customer. Use a tool such as search.twitter.com or Hootsuite to determine who on which social networks is asking questions about products and services that your company provides and then start interacting with them.
Go in for the soft sell Once a solid relationship is built and trust is established go in for the sell! But do it softly by suggesting a product you know will help meet their particular needs. This can be a product you provide – or – a product offered by one of your competitors. Scary, yes, but you’ll build more trust and loyalty from your followers. In summary, social media can be a powerful selling tool that can help increase leads and sales but there is a correct way of doing this. Utilize social media for what it was created for – communicating – and nurture the social relationship with your followers and fans first; and then promote your products – softly.
Why not focus on ROI? Although we don’t recommend solely focusing on selling over your social media channels to our clients that’s not to say you can’t sell. Just do it softly. Social media is a communication tool that naturally developed on today’s Web 2.0 platforms and allows mass communication like never before between people all over the world. As we’ve seen recently, it’s how the masses organize and cause change in society. Old school corporations that are used to controlling the media and the masses no longer have the power they once had. Now, the people have the power and the people can see through any nonsense distributed online. The masses no longer have to listen to corporations pushing messaging because they can simply turn off or un-follow their notifications. This is the beauty of social media and every marketer should keep this in mind when interacting with followers and fans – push too much and you’ll drive your followers and fans away. Sincerely interact and provide meaningful content to your followers and they will thank you by being brand advocates and ultimately become loyal customers.
About 6S Marketing
For the last eleven years, 6S Marketing has fearlessly rode the wild ride known as the Internet, taking advantage of every thrilling twist and turn along the way. Our company was founded in 2000, during the infancy of the digital marketing industry and just after the shiny dot-com bubble burst. Since then, we’ve been among the strong who not only have survived – we’ve thrived – and have become the trusted provider of digital marketing strategies to some of Canada’s most recognized brands. Today, and with more than 500 digital marketing campaigns under our belt, 6S is one of the leading digital marketing agencies in North America, and one of the largest of its kind in Canada with offices in Vancouver and Toronto.
About Kelly Robertson Kelly is the Marketing Manager at 6S Marketing. She specializes in lead nurturing, email marketing, search engine optimization and social media. Over the course of her career she has worked with some of Canada’s top brands including a division of Johnson & Johnson, Fluevog, Groupon and Earls Restaurants. As a Vancouver Island native, when she’s not interacting on social media channels or “using the Google on the internets” she’s hiking in the Vancouver area or training for her next half marathon.
SPRING 2012 |
|
9
...
the
rtists
X
5 6
Avinash
Mitch
Steve
Sally
Frances Cole
3 people you would invite to dinner (dead or alive)…
3 people you would invite to dinner (dead or alive)…
3 people you would invite to dinner (dead or alive)…
3 people you would invite to dinner (dead or alive)…
Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi
I’ll go with alive
3 people you would invite to dinner (dead or alive)…
(there’s more hope!)…
Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, My Husband
Aaron Sorkin, Winston Churchill, Michael Jackson
Favourite Business Book of All Time…
(curator at TED, though I would be fine if the editor of Wired Magazine with the same name showed up).
Favourite Business Book of All Time…
Favourite Business Book of All Time…
Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Book or books you are currently reading…
Book or books you are currently reading…
Emotional Equations by Chip Conley
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
E-book, paperback or hardcover…
E-book, paperback or hardcover…
A real hardcover (Galley from agent)
Paperback
I wish I knew how to…
Play the piano.
JOEL
KAUSHIK
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton M. Christensen Book or books you are currently reading…
How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie & Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis E-book, paperback or hardcover…
E-book, if available. I wish I knew how to…
Add an hour to every day. BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone…
Android, all the way!
1. Charlie Rose. 2. Chris Anderson
3. Howard Stern. Favourite Business Book of All Time…
Re-Imagine! by Tom Peters Book or books you are currently reading…
Inside Apple by Adam Lashinsky Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus Grow by Jim Stengel Taking People With You by David Novak E-book, paperback or hardcover…
Richard Feynman, Michael Jackson, Chuck Barris (host of Favourite Business Book of All Time…
Yes! by Cialdini and others, Best Practices Are Stupid (I had to include that), Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman (not really a business book, but a great book about creative thinking)
Book or books you are currently reading…
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs; Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; The Compound Effect E-book, paperback or hardcover…
(all of the above were ebooks)
I wish I knew how to…
I wish I knew how to…
Play guitar better.
iPhone… and Android.
| SPRING 2012
HOGSHEAD
JONES
the Gong Show)
E-book – Amazon Kindle
BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone…
10 |
SHAPIRO
Speak every language in the world like a native BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone…
iPhone
Sleep without insomnia BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone…
iPhone, baby, all iPhone
I wish I knew how to…
BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone…
iPhone
invest
MORE in design
&
LESS
in
Strategy BY Eric
Ryan
In our MBA-saturated culture, strategy-based thinking tends to overshadow design- and idea-based thinking. Wary of the big idea, investors would rather bet on the big strategy, no matter how unoriginal it is. We’ve seen companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on strategic reports from big consultancies like Bain or McKinsey, only to balk when the same experts advise investing fifty grand on new product outside their comfort range. But a poor strategy well executed is always better than a great strategy poorly executed. After all, consumers don’t see the strategy; they see the execution.
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| SPRING 2012
What
and
Over the years, there has been some compelling
experience is what they remember. And this
consumers
see,
feel,
taste,
data that we may be guilty of overusing to
is the result of what we do, what we execute,
justify design expenditures. The London School
not the strategy behind it. For example,
of Economics found that on average, every $1
Virgin America’s strategy is probably no
spent on design yielded a $3 ROI, and packaging
different from that of Alaska Airlines; the
design guru Rob Wallace has preached that on
difference is the creative execution of the
average, every dollar invested in package design
brand and in flight experience—and what a
generates over $400 of incremental profit
huge difference. After all, consumers don’t
within CPG companies. Whichever number
buy PowerPoint documents. They buy the
you believe, our proof is empirical; Method
product, the result of all the design decisions
has vaulted to leadership status in one of the
that have gone into it. Imagine a wife yelling
biggest industries on the planet by investing in
to her husband during the commercials,
design—and we’ve done it profitably.
“Honey, quick get in here! There’s a great strategy on TV!” Don’t get us wrong, we’re
Understanding ROI from design is challenging
definitely guilty of occasionally dropping a
because great design has an emotional
simple thought into the middle of a triangle
impact on consumers that is inherently hard
on a PowerPoint slide and calling it “strategic
to measure. Great design is also about great
thinking,” but there’s a limit.
consumer experiences through every touch point, so pulling apart different aspects of a
The good news is that we live in the design age.
design for testing is inherently flawed. For years,
But we also live in the age of information and
we debated the role of design, and often some
accountability. Today, no business decision gets
among us would argue that design is not needed
made without in-depth analytical data and clear
everywhere. For example, team members
proof points about its impact on the bottom
understood the value of design on a hand wash
line. The new corporate mantra is “If you can’t
that assumes a decorative role on the sink, but
measure it, you can’t manage it.” It’s hard to
less so its value on a toilet bowl cleaner, which
assess the emotional impact of design on the
will probably get shoved in a cabinet no matter
success of a business, but we believe design
how beautiful the bottle. Our argument is that
drives return on investment, making it one of
if we are going to be design driven, we need to
the few tools that create a tangible statement
take every opportunity to elevate design for
for your brand or business with every dollar
a higher experience for the consumer. If you
you spend. A common thread in any company
break that promise in any one spot, the entire
that successfully uses design as a competitive
design experience of your brand falls apart.
advantage is the unwavering belief that design
Great design is in the details.
makes good business sense.
Eric Ryan, the architect of the
method brand, brings experience and enthusiasm for building consumer and retail concepts. Prior to founding Method, Eric spent over seven years in advertising, trend-spotting and brand positioning for high-end consumer brands including Gap, Old Navy and Saturn.
The Last Competitive
ADVANTAGE BY
Patrick Lencioni All the competitive advantages we’ve been pursuing during our careers are gone. That’s right. Strategy. Technology. Finance. Marketing. Gone. No, those disciplines have not disappeared. They are all alive and well in most organizations. And that’s good, because they’re important. But as meaningful competitive advantages, as real differentiators that can set one company apart from another, they are no longer anything close to what they once were. That’s because virtually every organization, of any size, has access to the best thinking and practices around strategy, technology and those other topics. In this age of the internet, as information has become ubiquitous, it’s almost impossible to sustain an advantage based on intellectual ideas. However, there is one remaining, untapped competitive advantage out there, and it’s more important than all the others ever were. It is simple, reliable and virtually free. What I’m talking about is organizational health.
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| SPRING 2012
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The Healthy Organization A healthy organization is one that has all but eliminated politics and confusion from its environment. As a result, productivity and morale soar, and good people almost never leave. For those leaders who are a bit skeptical, rest assured that none of this is touchy-feely or soft. It is as tangible and practical as anything else a business does, and even more important. Why? Because the smartest organization in the world, the one that has mastered strategy and finance and marketing and technology, will eventually fail if it is unhealthy. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen again and again. But a healthy organization will always find a way to succeed, because without politics and confusion, it will inevitably become smarter and tap into every bit of intelligence and talent that it has. So if all this is true – and I am absolutely convinced that it is – then why haven’t more companies embraced and reaped the benefits of organizational health? For one, it’s hard. It requires real work and discipline, over a period
The
4 Disciplines
of time, and it must be maintained. On top of that, it’s not sophisticated or sexy. That means it doesn’t excite a group of executives who are looking for a quick fix or a silver bullet, something that they will be reading about in the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg Businessweek. Moreover, in spite of it’s power, organizational health is hard to measure in a precise, accurate way. It impacts so many disparate areas of an enterprise that it is virtually impossible to isolate it as a single variable and quantify it’s singular impact on the bottom line. But the biggest reason that organizational health remains untapped is that it requires courage. Leaders must be willing to confront themselves, their peers, and the dysfunction within their organization with an uncommon level of honesty and persistence. They must be prepared to walk straight into uncomfortable situations and address issues that prevent them from realizing the potential that eludes them.
What exactly does an organization have to do to get healthy? There are four simple – but again, difficult – steps. They include:
1.
Build a Cohesive Leadership Team - The first is all about getting the leaders of the organization to behave in a functional, cohesive way. If the people responsible for running an organization, whether that organization is a corporation, a department within that corporation, a start-up company, a restaurant, a school or a church, are behaving in dysfunctional ways, then that dysfunction will cascade into the rest of the organization and prevent organizational health. And yes, there are concrete steps a leadership team can take to prevent this.
2.
Create Clarity - The second step for building a healthy organization is ensuring that the members of that leadership team are intellectually aligned around six simple but critical questions. On topics ranging from: why the organization exists to what its most important priority is for the next few months, leaders must eliminate any gaps that may exist between them, so that people one, two or three levels below have complete clarity about what they should do to make the organization successful.
3.
Over-Communicate Clarity - Only after these first two steps are in process (behavioral and intellectual alignment), can an organization undertake the third step: over-communicating the answers to the six questions. Leaders of a healthy organization constantly – and I mean constantly – repeat themselves and reinforce what is true and important. They always err on the side of saying too much, rather than too little. This quality alone sets leaders of healthy organizations apart from others.
4.
Reinforce Clarity - Finally, in addition to overcommunicating, leaders must ensure that the answers to the six critical questions are reinforced repeatedly using simple human systems. That means any process that involves people, from hiring and firing to performance management and decision-making, is designed in a custom way to intentionally support and emphasize the uniqueness of the organization.
In addition to these four steps, it is essential that a healthy organization get better at the one activity that underpins everything it does: meetings. Yes, meetings. Without making a few simple but fundamental changes to the way meetings happen, a healthy organization will struggle to maintain what it has worked hard to build. Can a healthy organization fail? Yes. But it almost never happens. Really. When politics, ambiguity, dysfunction and confusion are reduced to a minimum, people are empowered (oh, I hate to use that word!) to design products, serve customers, solve problems and help one another in ways that unhealthy organizations can only dream about. Healthy organizations recover from setbacks, attract the best people, repel the others, and create opportunities that they couldn’t have expected. At the end of the day, at the end of the quarter, employees are happier, the bottom line is stronger, and executives are at peace because they know they’ve fulfilled their most important responsibility of all: creating an environment of success.
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| SPRING 2012
About Patrick Lencioni Patrick Lencioni is the author of 10 business books including the new release, The Advantage, and the national best-seller, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He is the founder and president of The Table Group, a management consulting firm focused on organizational health.
imagine this ad if the play button worked
CREATE
Camaraderie We’ve all had the experience of sitting through an awkward
meeting, lunch or phone call—one that, no matter how hard we try, never seems to get off the ground. While there is no scientific formula to making these moments work, there are a number of tools you can use to prepare yourself for success, ensure your polished follow up, and keep your relationship flourishing once you have the job, client, or account in-hand:
BY Frances
Cole Jones
Pick three small-talk topics: While it may seem a bit pedantic, it’s often helpful to think through three potential topics for small talk prior to your arrival. In my experience it’s best to choose from a fairly broad range of possibilities: say, local sports, current movies, and—depending on the crowd—nearby restaurants or attractions that you have researched. What this does is smooth over transitional moments such as waiting for the last participant to arrive for the meeting, for the waiter to bring your menus, or for the elevator when you’re ready to leave—all of which can be awkward if silent, or potentially deal-breaking if the topic you choose at random lands badly with your listeners.
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| SPRING 2012
Eat and drink what you’re offered:
T h i s is something many people have asked me about—their concern being that if they accept the offer of water, coffee—drinks or food of any kind—they are being difficult or demanding. In fact, accepting their hospitality signals both your openness to them as a person, and your feelings regarding a potentially positive outcome to the meeting as a whole. This doesn’t mean that if you’re offered coffee you say, “May I have a double no-fun, no-foam mochachino with six splendas.” All that’s necessary is, “Yes, thank you so much.” If you’re worried about nerves, I recommend water over coffee as, caffeine intake issues aside, water’s likely to come in a tumbler which, depending on the design, is easier to manage than a coffee cup—I include this quite specifically as one of my clients confessed to having gotten the coffee and then found his hands were shaking too badly to pick it up. If you do somehow manage to spill your drink in every direction (as I have done) don’t panic. Ask where paper towels are, help with the clean up, apologize once, and move on.
Write down what people tell you: Because I have a freakish ability to retain what’s said to me without writing it down, I rarely, if ever, used to take notes in meetings. What I discovered from one of my clients is that this made him very, very nervous. If he didn’t see me writing it down, he didn’t believe I was going to remember it. Having consequently made a habit of doing this I’ve noticed that it both frees others’ up mentally—the same way it does when you see your waiter or waitress write down your order-- and gives them a sense they have actively contributed-- which improves morale all around. With this in mind, whether you use the notes or not, write down what others tell you.
Acknowledge anniversaries: In addition to remembering the personal details of individual meeting members, acknowledging important milestones in a company’s history is another way to actively demonstrate your commitment to, and involvement in, their success. For example, does the company have a “birthday” coming up-- is it their one or five or twenty-five or one-hundred year anniversary? Entering these types of dates into your meeting reminder calendar, and making the time to send a note—or a gift—of congratulation, is an easy way to help them feel you’re a member of their extended family.
Make notes immediately upon leaving: In addition to writing down what’s said in the meeting, one of my most successful financial clients makes a point of jotting down notes on any personal information mentioned immediately upon leaving a meeting or lunch. This allows him, in his thank you note, to be very specific with his follow up. For example, “It was so wonderful to hear Jane and Sally are doing so well in school.” Or, “I do hope Tom enjoys his time at camp this summer.” The P.R. executive with whom I most enjoy working likely does the same (and it’s one of the many reasons I so enjoy her): I’ve noted that she never fails to ask how my dog is, and it never ceases to make me smile. Once you’ve landed the account, entering these salient personal details-- spouse’s/children’s/ pets names, hobbies, restaurant likes and dislikes, etc—into your PDA will help ensure your comfort with small talk going forward.
Ensure communication flows:
In addition to making yourself available to those with whom you meet, you should ensure your staff is able to do the same. This means that any time you’re going to be out of the office for any length of time, they are aware of exactly how and where to reach you should a client with whom you’ve been meeting call in. They should also have the names of all current and potential clients in-hand, and a general idea of the status of every project, so they can say with authority, “Hello Mr. X, No, he’s not in the office at the moment, but I know he’s been wanting to speak with you. Here is how to reach him.” Or, “Hello Mr. X, No, he’s not in the office at the moment. I know you’re calling him about Y project. Is there something that I can help you with immediately?” Either of which responses is guaranteed to leave the listener feeling he or she is valuable to you and your organization.
As you can see, while none of the above is groundbreaking in itself, what each does do is to create a sense of camaraderie and community within a business environment— camaraderie and community that lay the foundation of trust necessary to seal the deal, and ensure the relationship continues to flourish over the years to come.
Frances Cole Jones is the author of How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Presenting Your (Brilliant) Self in any Situation. Time Magazine said, “Jones’ shrewd book will give the nervously employed that requisite competitive career edge.” Frances is also the creator of the “Interview Wow” app for the iPhone and iPad. Her blog www.francescolejones.com/blog was voted one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes.com SPRING 2012 |
| 19
Making the
LEAP
to
CUSTOMER INTIMACY us, customer intimacy continues to be an elusive goal. Part of the reason may simply be a matter of perception. Don’t confuse repeat business with customer intimacy. Repeat business may be the simple result of a variety of functions: location, price, service or product. But it also is likely being driven by routine, needs and availability.
BY Bryan
Pearson
Few events so clearly epitomize a nationwide conversion to brand intimacy as did the moment when seemingly every consumer in the country began referring to the Target store chain as Tar-Jay. In the late 1990s, Target Corp.’s U.S. national image was transformed from that of a lowpriced seller of detergent and T-shirts to a fashionable merchant that understood and delivered on the special demands of its shoppers—with flair, function and feasibility. In return, consumers elevated its brand equity with the chic moniker. Target, which will be expanding to Canada in 2013, succeeded with an ingenious and almost magical mix of merchandising, practicality and marketing. But how did it get the formula just right? We are fortunate enough to have access to the most advanced technological resources for identifying the purchasing patterns and lifestyles of our consumers. Yet for many of
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| SPRING 2012
Intimacy, however, is when a customer chooses to stay with your brand even when an equal or potentially better alternative is available. The solution lies in your management, strategies, employees and vision. But the tool that puts these elements to work is data. But the advanced data processes that provide such rich customer insights also contribute to privacy concerns, as well as competition from other companies that also are looking for new ways to use customer information to stand apart. No doubt, achieving customer intimacy is a big subject. But by highlighting some of the key principles, I believe I can provide a comprehensive overview. Build Emotional Loyalty If customer intimacy is proof of commitment even in the face of competition, then loyalty, particularly emotional loyalty, is the result of knowing what your best customers love about you and building on that. For example, a shopper may say she is loyal to one supermarket because she stops there
every week. But in reality, she may only shop there because it is on her way home from work. What if a new superstore, perhaps Target, opened nearby? Chances are she would try it, and if she preferred the prices, selection and services, she would switch brands. So long, loyalty. But let’s say that shopper has established a relationship with her supermarket’s pharmacist, who greets her by name. She also appreciates that its cashiers offer her coupons for the products she is purchasing. And she is impressed by the supermarket’s mailers, which recognize her shopping habits and create added value through relevant product offers and special offers. When the bigger store opens nearby, she chooses to stay with her market. This is emotional loyalty, and to retain customer intimacy, you need to nurture this elevated level of brand commitment.
that rise above the noise are those that offer solutions to specific customer needs. This takes knowing where the consumer is at a point in time, since location and immediate needs affect how marketing messages resonate. But it also means understanding life stages— did he just move into a new house? And it requires knowledge of the customer’s personal interests and culture. You wouldn’t send the same message to a vegetarian theater buff as you would to a retired executive who just booked an African safari. Use Data Responsibly Having such ground-level knowledge of your best customers requires advanced data processes, and great responsibility. When consumers share personal information with you, they are entering into a value exchange, and they rightly expect something of worth in return for the data they give you.
Assure You Are Relevant to Your Customers Relevance represents the most powerful opportunity for companies to build longterm, profitable relationships. It occurs when a company is able to understand its best customers’ core interests, assign value to them, and then connect with its customers in a way that says, “I know who you are, and I understand your needs.”
Also, be clear with your customers about what information you are collecting, why you are collecting it and how you plan to use it. It’s basic relationship building: For consumers to trust you, you need to be honest with them. Use the data you collect only as directed and as is permissible, retain it only as long as needed, and be clear about which other parties you might be sharing the information.
Unfortunately, achieving relevance is an increasingly daunting task. As channels of communication proliferate and compete, the process of reaching the consumer is like whispering in a windstorm. The only messages
Make the Loyalty Leap The Loyalty Leap occurs when a company redirects its focus from the product to the customer. It entails the release and sharing of customer data beyond the marketing department,
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| SPRING 2012
to help influence everything from product development to store locations—what we call Enterprise Loyalty. It takes the skillful collection, analysis and segmentation of customer data, always in the context of the consumers’ lifestyles, and then incorporating these insights throughout the organization. With such comprehensive understanding of the consumer, we can develop not only the best services or products, but also the most effective ways to communicate and present them. And we can do this not only through our direct communications, but also through our frontline workers who complete the experience. To simplify, achieving customer intimacy is really just a matter of shifting one’s perspective from building your business from the products out to building your business from the customer. After all, if you foster customer intimacy and emotional loyalty, your best customers will help to build your empires for you. Just ask anyone at Tar-Jay.
Bryan Pearson is President
and CEO of LoyaltyOne and author of The Loyalty Leap: Turning Customer Information Into Customer Intimacy, which can be pre-ordered at www.pearson4loyalty.com. Subscribe to Bryan’s blog at pearson4loyalty.com/blog/.
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50game POWERFUL rules to amp UP YOUR
The global economy is in a state of acute disruption. Competition has never been more fierce. Consumers have never been so well-informed and loudly demanding. And what worked yesterday just might be obsolete today. But this time is also a great time, for the astonishing few who are ready to show leadership. Leaders are at their absolute best during messy cycles versus during the easy ones. And messy cycles bring with them gorgeous opportunities. As I sit quietly on this airplane at 40,000 feet, away from the rallying cries of a wired world filled with endless interruptions, I’ve distilled what I’ve been sharing in my presentations to clients across the planet over the past months, from Kuwait and Dubai to Paris, London and Dusseldorf.
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| SPRING 2012
The
50 New Rules of Work
1. You are not just paid to work. You are
paid to be uncomfortable – and to pursue projects that scare you.
2. Take care of your relationships and the money will take care of itself.
3. Lead you first. You can’t help others reach for their highest potential until you’re in the process of reaching for yours.
4. To double your income, triple your rate of learning.
5. While victims condemn change, leaders grow inspired by change.
6. Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.
7. Surround yourself with people courageous enough to speak truthfully about what’s best for your organization and the customers you serve.
8. Don’t fall in love with your press releases. 9. Every moment in front of a customer is a
moment of truth (to either show you live by the values you profess – or you don’t).
10. Copying what your competition is doing just leads to being second best.
11. Become obsessed with the user experience
such that every touchpoint of doing business with you leaves people speechless. No, breathless.
12. If you’re in business, you’re in show
business. The moment you get to work, you’re on stage. Give us the performance of your life.
19. An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production. Enough said.
20. If you’re not failing regularly, you’re
definitely not making much progress.
21. Lift your teammates up versus tear your
teammates down. Anyone can be a critic. What takes guts is to see the best in people.
22. Remember that a critic is a dreamer gone scared.
23. Leadership’s no longer about position.
Now, it’s about passion. And having an impact through the genius-level work that you do.
24. The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
25. If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’re following – not leading.
26. Work hard. But build an exceptional
family life. What’s the point of reaching the mountaintop but getting there alone.
27. The job of the leader is to develop more leaders.
28. The antidote to deep change is daily
learning. Investing in your professional and personal development is the smartest investment you can make. Period.
29. Smile. It makes a difference. 30. Say “please” and “thank you”. It makes a difference.
14. Get fit like Madonna.
33. Don’t do your best work for the applause
Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so it stays fresh + hungry + brilliant.
16. Remember that what makes a great
business – in part – are the seemingly insignificant details. Obsess over them.
17. Good enough just isn’t good enough. 18. Brilliant things happen when you go the extra mile for every single customer.
40. The people who gossip about others when they are not around are the people who will gossip about you when you’re not around.
41. It could take you 30 years to build a great
reputation and 30 seconds of bad judgment to lose it.
42. The client is always watching. 43. The way you do one thing defines the way you’ll do everything. Every act matters.
44. To be radically optimistic isn’t soft. It’s hard. Crankiness is easy.
45. People want to be inspired to pursue a vision. It’s your job to give it to them.
46. Every visionary was initially called crazy. 47. The purpose of work is to help people. The
other rewards are inevitable by-products of this singular focus.
48. Remember that the things that get
scheduled are the things that get done.
49. Keep promises and be impeccable with
your word. People buy more than just your products and services. They invest in your credibility.
50. Lead Without a Title.
valuable work.
32. Remember that a job is only just a job if all
15. Read magazines you don’t usually read.
from the office versus in the middle of work. Make time for solitude. Creativity needs the space to present itself.
31. Shift from doing mindless toil to doing
13. Be a Master of Your Craft. And practice + practice + practice.
39. You’ll get your game-changing ideas away
you see it as is a job.
it generates but for the personal pride it delivers.
34. The only standard worth reaching for is BIW (Best in World).
35. In the new world of business, everyone works in Human Resources.
36. In the new world of business, everyone’s part of the leadership team.
37. Words can inspire. And words can destroy.
Robin Sharma is the author of the #1 international bestseller “The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable About Success in Business and in Life“, a book that is causing transformation in many of the best businesses in the world. Robin’s leadership blog is one of the most popular business blogs on The Internet: http://www.robinsharma.com/blog Follow Robin on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_robin_sharma Connect with Robin on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ theofficialrobinsharmapage
Choose yours well.
38. You become your excuses.
SPRING 2012 |
| 27
Rethink, Reimagine, Reset – the Steve Jobs Way BY Idris
Mootee
It’s hard to be in the innovation business and not worship Steve Jobs. Since his death on October 5, 2011, he has been universally eulogized with the kind of veneration normally reserved for saints. A Google search of his name yields 1.2 billion results. Jesus Christ only gets 183 million. That kind of comparison may be heretical or blasphemous to some. Unlike the putative Lamb of God, Steve Jobs was not one to turn the other cheek. This special Creativity Issue is dedicated to Steve Jobs in appreciation of a creative visionary who has accomplished more in one lifetime than most people would in ten. Jobs taught us many lessons. Here are ten to think about (reprinted from a special in our inaugural issue):
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| SPRING 2012
LESSON
1
When you don’t know what to do next, take it as a sign to rethink your future. Two decades after Jobs was shown the door in 1985, he admitted that this was actually a blessing in disguise. He could shed all the burdens of being so successful and start fresh again – a perfect time for a reset. Whether for a corporation or an individual, an opportunity to start fresh is not easy to come by – so make the best of it. Jobs knows this better than anyone.
LESSON
LESSON
People always talk about how big ideas happen – in a brainstorming session, in the shower or while daydreaming. For Jobs it took a spiritual expedition to India, after which he met Steve Wozniak, turned the family garage into a workshop and created Apple 1. The lesson? To see the world from a completely fresh perspective, you need to travel worlds away from the one you’re in.
3
Design, like strategy, is not a democratic process. When Steve returned to his own company after 12 years, he was a very different Jobs. His experience in life and business had taught him that design is not decided by a committee and strategy is not a democratic process. So he created an employment contract wherein the boss’s decision is final in any matter. Then he invited none other than Bill Gates to invest in Apple to reduce competitive pressure. It proved that Jobs was not only a design genius but also a master strategist
LESSON
LESSON
The biggest challenge for most organizations is the misalignment between the CEO’s beliefs and the company’s actions, and between what the company offers and what the world wants. Such misalignments can prevent efficient utilization of capital and drive the company into a death spiral. Jobs’ success was largely due to the near perfect alignment between his products, Apple’s culture of innovation and the world he envisioned. Few, if any companies are so strategically aligned.
4
Use counterculture as a strategic capability. Does every successful innovation require a counterculture attitude? The answer is yes. Innovators come from all walks of life. Some have PhDs, and some are dropouts. But they all want to break industry norms. They are all contrarians. Most company cultures are about how to fit in, but innovators want to stand out. Any company that can retain a group of smart people with a counter-culture attitude should leverage them as a strategic capability – not a liability.
5
Maintain a near perfect alignment between your company, your products and the world you envision.
2
Think big, travel far, go east.
LESSON
6
Protect company secrets as if you’re working for the KGB. When it comes to new products, Apple is a black box. Non-disclosure is codified and ruthlessly enforced in an ‘Omerta’ employment contract. The company can engineer mis- information and track any leak to its source. Security cameras heavily monitor everything. The all glass, all white conference room in the middle of the Infinite Loop can be shielded by a screen with the flick of a switch. The KGB could learn a few lessons from Steve Jobs.
SPRING 2012 |
| 29
LESSON
7
Don’t let your near experiences go to waste.
death
Both Jobs and his company faced death more than once. But they learnt from it. Addressing a graduating class at Stanford university, Jobs reflected that, “Death is very likely the singlebest invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
LESSON
9
LESSON
8
Power and style make a killer combination. Style is not considered a core competency unless you’re in fashion and luxury goods. But Steve Jobs’ genius was to make it a core competency in the world of technology. Upon resuming the helm at Apple in 1997, he famously derided his team with the words: “Our products suck because they’re not sexy.” The response to this upbraid was the wildly successful iMac series of desktops. Every product since then was not only an elegantly simple user experience but also an iconically beautiful object.
Tomorrow’s great business exists at the intersection of art and technology. Steve Jobs says that Apple stands at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. It has become increasingly difficult for companies to find tangible competitive advantages over other companies, but by marrying art and technology, companies can create a new space for products that are truly unique – products that are not anchored on functionality and performance alone. It’s about the meeting of MBA, MSc and MFA.
Idris Mootee is the publisher and editor-in- chief of M/I/S/C/, a published author, speaker and CEO of Idea Couture, a global strategic innovation and experience design firm. He spends his time between, London, New York, Toronto, San Francisco and Shanghai.
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| SPRING 2012
LESSON Stay Hungry.
10
Had he not returned to the business he founded in 1997, Jobs still would have been regarded as a giant of technology. But just imagine how different the worlds of computing, telecommunications, retail and entertainment would be had he not returned when he did. Because his hunger was never satiated, our experience of these worlds is much more elegant, much simpler and way more fun.
BY Mitch
Joel
a life
withOUT
Technology T
here’s no doubt that technology brings with it some scary things. The scariest of them all is the uncertainty. Human beings are creatures of habit and any introduction of anything new typically raises an eyebrow (at least) or pitchforks (more often). It’s a somewhat common theme that is tiresome to me, but one that rages with debate throughout the times. If you study history, many of the same arguments that are made as to why the Internet is ruining our society and culture can be found when we first saw the introduction of public speaking, the printed word, telecommunications and on and on.
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| SPRING 2012
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The common plight of smartphones and mobile devices is that they are shackles that handcuff an employee to their work – twenty-fours hours a day and seven days a week. While your boss may have an expectation that because you have a BlackBerry you should be responding to their emails at 6 am on a Saturday (emergency or not), this is less about your boss’ disposition and more about a common lack of education as to how to use technology to get the best results. Many people are often shocked to hear that my iPhone never makes a peep. I get one silent vibrate for text messages (and I’m quick to block those that I do not know) and two vibrations for a phone call. My iPhone will not beep, vibrate or blink when emails, tweets, or Facebook updates arrive. Why? It’s my job to best manage my technology (and not the other way around). The people I work with know that email is the best form of communication with me and that if it’s an emergency, to please call. On the other side of this communication, I check my emails (and other digital notifications) when I want (not in the moment that they happen). The phone does ring, but it’s only on a rare occasion (for those emergencies). There’s a macro lesson here: if you think your kid is spending too much time on their iPad and not enough time outside getting some exercise, don’t blame the iPad. Before the iPad, they were playing video games, and before video games they were watching TV, and before TV they were reading comic books. Throughout history, you will uncover generations of youth who would rather sit around and play than go outside and play. It’s not technologies’ fault that a kid is lazy… it comes down to parenting, values and the child’s disposition. The Waldorf School of the Peninsula is one of over 150 Waldorf schools in the United States that doesn’t allow technology or gadgets for students up until the eighth grade. These are not the wired classrooms we keep hearing about. In fact, they’re traditional classrooms – the ones you might see in a Norman Rockwell painting (yellow pencils, wood desks and all). The reason why this particular school is getting so much attention is because it is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and hosts children whose parents work at companies like Google, Yahoo! and Apple. It seems so counterintuitive that the story (which I originally saw in The New York Times in late October 2011 titled, A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute), has become a hotly discussed topic… Where else, but online.
Do kids need Google? Can kids learn math better from a teacher than an iPad? What good is an education if a child can’t learn how to use a physical dictionary? You can see how the discourse evolves. The answer to the question is (obviously) no. Kids do not need Google, a great math teacher is much better than an iPad app, and it’s important that kids know what a book is. But, there’s something else we need to remember: our values were created in a different time and in a different place. Let’s rephrase the question: am I doing my child a service or disservice by not allowing a component of their education to include computers, technology and connectivity? This is not a zero sum game. Think about it this way: the current jobs that the majority of my friends are working at didn’t even exist as occupations when I was in High School. Should a child be lugging around five textbooks in a backpack that’s causing them spinal disc herniation or does an iPad not only enable them to have a lighter load, but the ability to also create, collaborate and engage more with their peers (when used correctly). Look into the future. What do you see? Do you see a world of cubicles, desks and paperclips, or do you see a very different world? So, while some may think it’s important to keep technology away from our kids for as long as possible, I’m open to argue that it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. I can’t imagine my kids ever using a HB pencil when they finally enter the workforce… In fact, I’m willing to bet that they probably won’t even be using a keyboard and a mouse on a computer like we do today. So yes, history is important, but not more important than preparing them for the future.
Mitch Joel is President of Twist Image and the author of the best-selling business book, Six Pixels of Separation. His latest book, CTRL ALT DEL, will be published in Spring 2013.
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6
ways to let
your
personality
SH I N E s o c i a l in
media You are already fascinating. BY Sally
Hogshead
That’s a fact.
But, are you allowing your natural, authentic personality to shine through in social media? Hmm. Maybe not.
Here’s the bad news: A lot of fascinating people have really, really, really boring blogs, tweets, and Facebook status updates. Really boring. Instant narcolepsy.
Here’s the good news: You don’t LEARN how to be fascinating. You UNLEARN how to be boring. The heart and soul of social media lives in creating fascinating messages that your network values. Once you start to develop more charismatic and persuasive content, you develop a more intensely dedicated network, and earn a far higher chance of inspiring actions such as connecting, commenting, or buying. You can express your personality more persuasively. In fact you must, if you want to succeed in social media. How, exactly? How to apply your personality to your social media messages? Start by taking the Fascination Advantage personality test, to find out how your own personality fascinates: HowToFascinate.com Next, apply these tips to share your natural fascination advantages in social media.
SPRING 2012 |
| 35
New Resources from Books and Training Programs Patrick Lencioni The Advantage
Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business The single greatest source of competitive advantage is organizational health.
Available March 2012
New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and more to do with how healthy they are. Simply put, healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion, and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave. In his first non-fiction book, Lencioni combines his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-sellers to provide leaders with a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way—one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.
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1
. Evoke a response.
Find the areas of your personal brand that are most likely to evoke a response (your product, your methods, your beliefs, your promise), and then build messages around that. Try this: Have opinions. Go on a rant. Praise your competitors, or praise your employees. Say how your industry could improve. Reveal part of your history or family culture, and how that applies to your customers. Ask questions. Ask advice. Then, respond to comments to keep the conversation going. Now, of course, the goal here isn’t to pick a fight (unless controversy is consistent with your core message). It’s okay to be provocative, and even contrarian, but remember that social media is a public forum. Consistently lame social media messages can actually damage your brand, because people stop valuing your participation. If you’re unwilling to have a strong point of view, stick to more conventional forms of marketing.
The lesson: If you’re too cautious to spark discussion, stick to buying traditional advertising.
2
When someone reads your messages, they should “hear” your voice
Think of your own communication style: Are you a natural storyteller, sharing your experiences? Or a dignified thought leader? Or a sharp-tongued satirist? Are you erudite and restrained, or streetwise and animated? Does pop culture play a role in your discussion? Do you focus on the big picture, or the details? Highlight those strengths in your messages. Your social media messages should encapsulate the best of how you communicate: in a high-energy phone call, or in a meeting when you’re making an excellent point, or even over lunch with a friend. In other words, write like you talk.
The lesson: Social media isn’t part of your personal brand. It IS your personal brand. ArtOfdotdotdot_Simplicate.pdf
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actual number of moving parts may be significantly fewer than millions, but you get the idea ... it's hard and detail oriented, just like the projects you work on every day.
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3
Serious is okay Boring is not.
If you have an understated, s e r i o u s s t y l e o f communicating, can you still be fascinating? Yes, absolutely. You can be just as intensely fascinating as the irreverent commentator. Gravitas lends a very compelling tone, especially when combined with important points. However, don’t take yourself so-o-o seriously that you turn into a soulless typist. You must bring something fresh to the discussion— an opinion based on personal experience, or an insightful twist, or a delicious witticism, or a well-considered recommendation.
The lesson: Stand out, or don’t bother.
4
Bring something new to the discussion. Being fascinating isn’t about being flashy or fabulous— it’s about providing new thinking that adds something useful. Develop original thoughts and observations. Draw upon your unique experiences and history, then share it with others. Retweeting is a nice compliment, and reposting shares big ideas, but balance that with your own perspective. What does your audience value? It could be anything from insider scoop to sales tips to gossip. Figure out what type of new thinking that you can deliver better than anyone.
The lesson: Earn your audience’s attention, and
you’ll earn their respect (and likely, the sale).
5
Know when to talk, and when to listen.
Know when to talk, and when to listen. Listen first. Listen especially to those you’d like to woo into conversation with you (such as a potential client or employer). Before you jump into a direct conversation with a prime prospect, get to know their online interaction style. Then, once you have enough information to communicate in sync with their tone and manner, craft your first message, and go from there.
6
Start great discussion by asking great questions. Here’s a secret: You don’t have to actually be provocative in order to provoke discussion. These conversations can be intently serious, bringing a debate to life on Twitter or Facebook. Or, they can be rousing explorations of an uncommon topic. My questions range from the topics I touch upon in my keynote speeches: “Who do you find more fascinating: Celebrities, or your own family members?” Or another example, “What brands inspire an instant love-it-or-hate-it response for you?” Questions offer others the opportunity to participate in, and contribute to, a fascinating conversation.
The Lesson:
Social media isn’t just the wisdom of crowds— it’s the wisdom of your crowd.
Unlike a job interview, in which you have no idea how someone might speak or behave, in social media you can observe precisely how they speak and behave. Be smart and use this insight to instantly create common ground and relationships.
The Lesson: The more intelligently you observe people’s online style, the more quickly you can fascinate them with your own.
The best social media is a perfect match of what your audience seeks, and how your natural personality advantage provides that.
Sally Hogshead is the Chief Fascination Officer of Fascinate, Inc. She is an international keynote speaker, with proprietary research published by both Harper Collins and Penguin. Using her science-based Fascinate system, she teaches how to instantly persuade and captivate in a world with a 9-second attention span. Discover and apply your natural fascination strengths, right now. Get your personality assessment at HowToFascinate.com.
SPRING 2012 |
| 39
Ignoring Superficial Distractions,
CANADA’S StartUP
Boom
Space continues to
BY
Robert Lewis
W i t h c r o s s - c o u n t r y transportation limited at the turn of the twentieth century,
Vancouver was isolated from Toronto and Montreal’s domestic film production communities. That should have broken Vancouver’s back. But in 1910, America’s Edison Manufacturing Company shot two films, The Cowpuncher’s Glove and The Ship’s Husband, there. Soon after, the burgeoning west coast city was dubbed “Hollywood North” to honour its role as a production centre for American feature films shot in beautiful B.C. Decades later, Toronto would also vie for this title, and eventually, the title would change its meaning significantly. Hollywood North gradually came to label Canada’s own film industry—the Canadian version of Hollywood, not a cog in the machine of America’s. It proved that titles mean little, and that it was more about action and accomplishments than nametags and crowns. Unfortunately, this lesson would not carry over years later. In the south area of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, there is a place that most people these days refer to as “Silicon Valley.” Coined by entrepreneur Ralph Vaerst, the name Silicon Valley first appeared in weekly trade newspaper Electronic News in 1971 when Don Hoefler used the phrase in a series titled “Silicon Valley in the USA.” The name was nothing clever, referring to the high concentration of companies using silicon-based semiconductors, but it stuck like glue and came to define the region as a hotbed for technology startups. Its old nickname, the Valley of Heart’s Delight, faded into history—again proving how fickle cognomens could be. Silicon Valley became as firmly ingrained a sobriquet in San Francisco as Hollywood was in Los Angeles (besides the fact it wasn’t a legal name). And, just as Canadian cities had attempted to do with Hollywood North, Canada’s innovation hubs hungrily vied for the idea of being crowned “Silicon Valley North.” A war, of sorts, raged between cities: Vancouver’s large pool of gaming talent and close proximity to the real Valley made it a contender, but so did Toronto’s
40 |
| SPRING 2012
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larger population and connection to the country’s financial epicentre. On top of that, Montreal, Ottawa, and Waterloo all boasted their own valid points of contention, among other up-and-coming areas. So which city could the title possibly go to? The answer was, and remains, none. Canada has nothing comparable to Silicon Valley and may never. Does that sound depressing to you? It isn’t. It simply means that our talent—and boy, do we have plenty of it—is spread across our magnificent country. It means we have a whole bunch of mini Valleys, each one with their own startup ecosystems, each with brilliant entrepreneurs creating amazing things. The wise now ignore the superficial world of trying to have a Canadian version of whatever is hot in America. Instead, they focus on the fantastic startups our country is churning out in each and every region. Why shine the shoes of American entrepreneurs and idolize their startups when we could instead compete with them on the world stage? Late last year, Techvibes announced the first annual Canadian Startup Awards. After seeing the likes of U.S. technology blogs Mashable and TechCrunch largely ignore Northern talent in their annual awards, we decided to take it upon ourselves to recognize and celebrate Canada’s best. It was a smash hit, and it highlighted just how established our startup scene is. For example, there is Wattpad, a unique platform for creating, sharing, and reading stories. This Toronto-born startup won Best Overall Canadian Startup of 2011. Its toughest competition? HootSuite, a social media dashboard from Vancouver, and Beyond The Rack, a private online shopping club based in Montreal. How can there be a Silicon Valley North when outstanding startups are being founded in every corner of the country? New Brunswick, for one, has never been in the running to be Silicon Valley North. Yet Radian6, founded in 2006, was acquired by Salesforce last year for a whopping $326 million—which earned the startup the accolade of Most Significant Acquisition of 2011. And its three cofounders, Marcel Lebrun, Chris Newton, and Chris Ramsey, jointly won Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year.
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| SPRING 2012
And yet this still only scratches the surface. Other winners and finalists included Vidyard from Waterloo, Payfirma from Vancouver, and GoInstant from Halifax—all first-rate Canadian startups, all across the country. In any city, you can find dozens of bright entrepreneurs launching promising companies. In Calgary, there’s Kudos, Mobovivo, MiniGroup, and Userful, just to name a few. In Edmonton, there’s Empire Avenue, GreyBox, Jobber, and Yardstick. In Vancouver, there’s… well, you get the idea. And while the U.S. may often fail to acknowledge our booming startup space, they certainly know we exist. After all, its American giants that are constantly scooping out our startups. Just last year, Google, Zynga, and Salesforce—all based in Silicon Valley—each acquired multiple Canadian tech companies, including Waterloo’s PostRank and Torontoborn Rypple. And they’re not alone, either: Twitter, also from the Valley, acquired Toronto’s BackType in July last year, and this year it picked up Vancouver’s Summify. In this sense, Canada is already an integral component of Silicon Valley. The nickname “Silicon Valley North” is hollow and meaningless. A city with that title will not draw better entrepreneurs, lure more investment money, or build better startups. Silicon Valley isn’t about the superficial prestige of a name; it’s about spirited entrepreneurs propelling our world forward. I say, so what if Canada isn’t doing this in a single region? We’re still doing it. And we’re doing it well.
Robert Lewis is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editorin-Chief of Techvibes.com. His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
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Q &
Ron TITE
Ron Tite’s Q &
I had an opportunity to sit down with Sarah Prevette, the Founder of Sprouter.com. As always, I had 10 (and only 10) questions for her.
1. Who’s the most influential speaker you have seen? I was really struck by the humbleness of Lane Becker, the founder of Get Satisfaction. He has been behind many successful ventures but hearing him talk about his failures was inspiring.
2. What business book that hasn’t been written should be? A book on failures and overcoming failures is long overdue.
3. People look to Sprouter for inspiration and guidance.
Where do you look? I’m in a unique position that I can quickly go to Sprouter and access those types of ideas and connect with those types of people. Even in our own Toronto backyard, we have some incredible entrepreneurs. Mike McGarrity is certainly an experienced entrepreneur who provides a lot of advice. Then, some of the investors in the space like John Ruffolo of OMERS.
7. Are there trends when it comes to the types of
startups being launched? Ya, there are trends and bubbles. Right now, everyone is doing subscription services. Last year, it was location based... anything. Still, I think there is actually a wide and varied landscape for startups in Canada right now and I’m pretty excited about the talent that’s coming forward. My one concern is that start-ups don’t think big enough. They don’t go after huge markets, they go after small markets. We have to think beyond our city and country.
9. If there was an “Art of...” event to describe your career, what would it be? The Art of Hustle.
10. What’s your focus for 2012? Growing the Sprouter brand beyond the technology niche.
4. What’s one challenge or concern with being a part of
the Post Media family. I’m excited about the opportunity to continue with Sprouter and see out the rest of our vision. The challenge is really just being a small company within a big company. We’re still learning who does what within the big machine but so far it’s been really positive. It’s a transformative time for a lot of industries but media in particular.
5. What’s the most popular question posted to the Sprouter community? How do I get money?
6. Can you teach entrepreneurialism? This whole nature vs nurture debate continues in. You need to be born with some of it. You need to have the gumption, the resourcefulness or that innate desire to hustle. I don’t think you can teach motivation but at the same time, you can teach and give people the tools to have a greater chance for success.
8. What one thing (other than cash) can successful
members of the digital community do to help out those starting out? The greatest thing anybody can do is celebrate the success stories that we do have and to help give visibility to rising startups. Help them by giving them early feedback but also help them by recommending them to others.
Ron Tite - Trained at the legendary Second City, Ron Tite has been an
actor, comedian, speaker, host, and award-winning advertising writer and Executive Creative Director. Currently, he is President of The Tite Group, a content marketing agency based in Toronto.
Sarah Prevette -
Named by Inc Magazine as one of the top entrepreneurs in North America, Sarah Prevette has captured attention as a passionate and pioneering web entrepreneur. Sarah is the founder of Sprouter.com, an online platform facilitating knowledge exchange between startups and business leaders that was acquired by Postmedia in 2011. Sarah is frequently in the media and has been profiled by numerous prestigious publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Wired Magazine. An advisor to several startups, her advice can be found regularly in the Financial Post and live on BNN’s hot, new show “The Pitch.”
Sarah PREVETTE 44 |
| SPRING 2012
WE WERE HERE FIRST SO NATURALLY, WE PICKED THE BEST LOCATION.
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The Ultimate
DIFFERENTiATOR HOW TO BUILD A STRONG LEADERSHIP CULTURE
One idea that is starting to become very clear in the
BY Vince
Molinaro
Leadership Solutions Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions
minds of many of the senior business leaders with whom I work is simply this – the most sustainable source of differentiation comes from building a strong leadership culture. As one CEO put it, “if I can get all my leaders truly aligned as a team, it will clearly set us apart from our competitors – to me, our leadership culture can be our secret sauce.” Why is leadership culture the ultimate differentiator? First, leaders today feel the relentless pressure to continually drive value for their customers. They know that the traditional sources of differentiation such as price, quality, operational excellence, technology and innovation are becoming harder to sustain. It is easier for competitors to catch up and advance in these areas. Second, business leaders see leadership culture closely tied to strategy execution. One senior leader I spoke with put it best when she said, “execution lies at the intersection of strategy and leadership. Our ability to align our leaders and ensure we can execute our strategy in a seamless way is what will set us apart in our industry.” So what is leadership culture and how do you build it?
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| SPRING 2012
What Is Leadership Culture? Leadership culture represents a company’s set of values, expectations and behaviours about leadership. It is intangible, but when you have a strong leadership culture, everyone (your customers, employees and competitors) can feel it. The challenge is that building a strong leadership culture takes work. Many leaders may not know how to create one. The risk is that if you are not building a strong leadership culture, then you will get a weak one by default. What does a weak leadership culture look like? The “feel” of the company is dull, mundane and lacking any vitality. The leaders of these companies do not have a unifying force that aligns them. Employee engagement tends to be low because there is nothing that motivates employees day to day. You can imagine how successful a company with this kind of weak leadership culture will be in executing its strategy or differentiating itself in the market. Other companies may have the glimmer of a leadership culture, but it tends to be functionally based. In others words, the functions of the organization such as sales, finance, marketing or manufacturing dominate the culture. In many cases, the leaders within the functions compete with one another for resources or for status. Typically, this makes the company more internally focused. Leaders are not paying attention to the competition outside the company because they are absorbed by fighting battles within their own company.
A strong leadership culture is more holistic. You know you have one when your leaders are: • Relentlessly focused on driving value for customers • Aligned and engaged around the company’s strategy and working effectively and collaboratively to execute it • Working as one team rather than competing internally • Acting as a community of leaders with genuine care and support for each other’s success • Aware that high standards and expectations have been set for leaders by the company • Expected to lead in the best interest of the whole organization.
How Do You Build a Strong Leadership Culture? So how do you go about building a strong leadership culture? Here are five key steps:
1|
Define the leadership culture you will need. Begin with your business strategy and ask yourself: if we are going to be successful in executing this strategy, what will we need all of our leaders to do exceptionally well?
2|
Set high expectations for strong leadership. Once you are clear on the leadership culture you will need, set very high expectations of your leaders. Leaders need to know what standards of behaviour are expected of them and the consequences for not delivering on these expectations.
3|
Support your leaders to grow. Companies with strong leadership cultures continually support leaders to grow and develop through coaching, feedback and ongoing development opportunities.
4|
Bring leaders together. One company I worked with brought together the top three layers of managers on a quarterly basis to review the strategy, business performance and assess the leadership culture. Leaders need to come together to network and build relationships – this is a key to culture.
5|
Sustain momentum over the long term. Building a strong leadership culture is hard work. It requires constant attention and work to make sure your leadership culture remains strong and vibrant.
SPRING 2012 |
| 47
...
ctionable
Chris TAYLOR
S U M M A R Y
Stranger than ƒiction
“
any organization that really wants to maximize its success must come to embody two basic qualities: it must be smart, and it must be healthy.” The Advantage, page 16
In his brilliantly structured guidebook, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, bestselling author and leadership giant Patrick Lencioni categorizes Organizational “Smarts” and “Health” as follows:
Smart:
• Strategy • Marketing • Finance • Technology
Healthy:
• Minimal Politics • Minimal Confusion • High Morale • High Productivity • Low Turnover
So here’s my question to you - where are you (and your leadership peers) spending most of your time and energy? In possibly his most content-rich and action focused book to date, Lencioni (author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Death by Meeting) draws on his 20+ years of leadership consulting experience to make a compelling and (for many) counter intuitive point: companies that thrive in the 21st century do so by focusing their efforts on Organizational Health over Organizational Smarts.
Golden Egg:
“
a good way to look at organizational health - and one that executives seem to respond to most readily - is to see it as the multiplier of intelligence. The healthier an organization is, the more of its intelligence it is able to tap into and utilize” The Advantage, page 22
The Business IQ Multiplier As Lencioni says, most business leaders will look at the list of factors for healthy companies (above) and agree that they are important and that having them in place in their organization would positively impact bottom line. And yet, shockingly few companies actually work to improve these areas, instead choosing to spend their time focused on the less-messy and, frankly, safer areas of Strategy, Marketing, Finance and Technology. In most cases, this is due mainly to the fact that the “softer” health related factors (minimizing politics, improving morale, etc) are more ambiguous and messy; they require more thought, reflection and effort - three things that most busy executives are short on. So, understanding the importance of Organizational Health, but knowing how busy we are as leaders, where do we start? In addition to being an enjoyable read, full of anecdotes and real world examples, The Advantage provides leaders with a road map to Organizational Health; four disciplines that management teams can focus on to improve the health of their own companies.
The Four Disciplines
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| SPRING 2012
Discipline 1: Discipline 2: Discipline 3: Discipline 4:
Build a Cohesive Leadership Team Create Clarity Over-communicate Clarity Reinforce Clarity
...
ctionable
S U M M A R Y
Though the list looks deceptively simple, the creation and reinforcement of each discipline is as complex as the humans involved. Because, after all, what we’re talking about here is the people side of the business. Each discipline is explored in great detail in The Advantage, complete with specific exercises that you can use to strengthen the discipline with your own team. While each discipline builds upon the last (meaning that you can’t effectively Over-communicate Clarity without first Building a Cohesive Leadership Team), in this article we’re going to explore Discipline 2: Creating Clarity, so you can get a sense of the type of content offered in the book. And, ideally, you can start putting something into practice immediately.
GEM #1:
“
Getting caught up in wordsmithing is often a sign that a team is missing the boat.” The Advantage, page 97
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Lencioni’s books is their simplicity.
The Six Questions
Having worked as a consultant to Southwest Airlines, Nestle, Cisco and other corporate giants, Lencioni has had direct insight into some of the world’s greatest leadership teams. It’s refreshing to realize that the top performing leadership teams in the world operate their businesses with a common sense approach. This is not to say that what they do is easy or typical (quite the opposite, actually), but rather that their practices are ones we can all understand. When it comes to Creating Clarity in our businesses, Lencioni suggests that we, as leaders, need to answer six simple yet profound questions:
1.Why do we exist? 2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do? 4. How will we succeed?
5. What is most important - right now? 6. Who must do what?
Simple questions, but decidedly difficult to answer. As the quote at the beginning of this GEM suggests, the importance here is on answering the questions in plain English; in words that everyone in the company can clearly understand. Far too often we get tripped up by our own intelligence; we dilute and bog down the answers to these crucial questions with jargon and slick marketing copy. If the goal here is to “Create Clarity” - both for ourselves and our teams, we need to resist the urge to make the answers more complex than they need to be. The language isn’t important. The answers are. Lencioni suggests that answering these six questions should be a collaborative activity with the entire leadership team, and will often take a two-day offsite (or longer) to solidify. But where do we start?
“
So how does an organization go about figuring out why it exists? It starts by asking the question, ‘How do we contribute to a better world?” The Advantage, page 107
Start there. Discuss, as a leadership team, the impact that you’re making on the world, and why that gets you out of bed in the morning. If you give everyone a chance to answer this question on their own before discussing, you may be surprised by the variety of answers.
SPRING 2012 |
| 49
“
if we accomplish only one thing during the next x months, what would it be?” The Advantage, page 143
Another important aspect of Creating Clarity is clarity around The Rallying Cry the top priority, right now. Notice I say “top priority”, not “top priorities”. Obviously, different departments have different goals and benchmarks to achieve. We’re not talking about day to day operations here. Instead, we’re talking about growth; progress and accomplishment.
GEM #2:
A fantastic unifying experience (that will also positively impact Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team) is the collective definition of a “Rallying Cry”, or what Lencioni defines as a Thematic Goal. What is that one thing that, as a company, we absolutely must accomplish within the next 6 months? Setting a thematic goal for the company is incredibly powerful on three fronts: (a) it provides a crystal clear objective for everyone on the team (b) it gives people a sense of purpose in their work, driving productivity and workplace enjoyment, and (c) it naturally requires prioritization and focus, avoiding unnecessary busy work.
As Lencioni explains, a thematic goal must be “qualitative, temporary and shared by the leadership team”. I encourage you to think through your own thematic goal. What’s your top priority, as a company? Get together with your leadership team. Discuss. Plan and execute. The Advantage is a brilliantly written book. Full of enough stories and examples to keep it engaging, loaded with enough guides and exercises to make it actionable, and littered with Lencioni’s trademark humor, it’s as enjoyable a read as it is impactful. It’s also Lencioni’s first departure from business fables, which made me a little nervous. After all, Lencioni’s fables are some of the best out there. I shouldn’t have worried. The examples and stories - which crop up every ten pages or so - provide insightful and often hilarious examples to the points he makes. In fact, I think I enjoyed the stories in this book more than the fables, knowing them to have actually happened... proving that the old adage may very well be true, and that truth really is stranger than fiction.
Chris Taylor is the President of Actionable Books, a Canadian company dedicated to providing business leaders with the tools to improve their own organizational health through conversation and action. Learn more at ActionableBooks.com.
50 |
| SPRING 2012
How DoWe
identify Good Ideas
? By
Jonah Lehrer
52 |
| SPRING 2012
I’ve always been fascinated by the failures of genius. Consider Bob Dylan. How did the same songwriter who produced Blood on the Tracks and Blonde on Blonde also conclude that Down in the Groove was worthy of release? Or what about Steve Jobs: What did he possibly see in the hockey puck mouse? How could Bono not realize that Spiderman was a disaster? And why have so many of my favorite novelists produced so many middling works? The inconsistency of genius is a consistent theme of creativity: Even those blessed with ridiculous talent still produce works of startling mediocrity. (The Beatles are the exception that proves the rule, although their subsequent solo careers prove that even Lennon and McCartney were fallible artists.) The larger point is that mere imagination is not enough, for even those with prodigious gifts must still be able to sort their best from their worst, sifting through the clutter to find what’s actually worthwhile. Nietzsche stressed this point. As he observed in his 1878 book Human, All Too Human: Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration … shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects…. All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering. Notice the emphasis on rejection. Nietzsche eloquently describes the importance of not just creating but recognizing the value of what has been created. But this raises the obvious question: How can we sort our genius from our rubbish? The bookshelves groan with how-to guides for bolstering the powers of the imagination. But how can we become better at selfcriticism? How can we get excel at the rejection process? Because nobody wants to release Self-Portrait. A new study led by Simone Ritter of the Radboud University in the Netherlands sheds some light on this mystery. In the first experiment, 112 university students were given two minutes to come up with creative ideas that might alleviate a mundane problem: improving the experience of waiting in line at a cash register. The subjects were then divided into two groups: Half of them went straight to work, while the others were first instructed to perform an unrelated task for two minutes. (They played a silly little videogame.) The purpose of this delay was to give the unconscious a chance to percolate, to let that subterranean supercomputer invent new concepts for the supermarket queue. There was no difference between the groups in terms of creative output — both the conscious and unconscious/distracted subjects came up with the same number of new ideas. Although previous studies have found an impressive link between unconscious incubation and the imagination — it really is better to sleep on it — that result was not replicated here, perhaps because two minutes of distraction wasn’t long enough. (True creativity takes time.) Here’s where things get interesting. After writing down as many ideas as they could think of, both groups were asked to choose which of their ideas were the most creative. Although there was no difference in idea
generation, giving the unconscious a few minutes now proved to be a big advantage, as those who had been distracted were much better at identifying their best ideas. (An independent panel of experts scored all of the ideas.) While those in the conscious condition only picked their most innovative concepts about 20 percent of the time — they confused their genius with their mediocrity — those who had been distracted located their best ideas about 55 percent of the time. In other words, they were twice as good at figuring out which concepts deserved more attention. How can the rest of us get better at identifiying our best ideas? One key lesson from this research is that distraction and dilettantism come with real benefits, as they give the unconscious a chance to assess its new ideas. This reminds me of a wise piece of advice from Zadie Smith, which she dished out to aspiring novelists: When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second — put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year or more is ideal — but even three months will do…. You need a certain head on your shoulders to edit a novel, and it’s not the head of a writer in the thick of it, nor the head of a professional editor who’s read it in twelve different versions. Smith, in other words, is telling writers to forget about their work, to give the mind some time to weigh the worth of all those words. And that’s because we have no idea which ideas are worthwhile, at least at first. So the next time you invent something new, don’t immediately file a patent, or hit the “publish” button, or race to share the draft with your editor. Instead, take a few days off: Play a stupid videogame, or go for a long walk, or sleep on it. Unless you take a brief break, you won’t be able to accurately assess what you’ve done. But waiting isn’t the only approach. A few years ago, a team of German researchers gave several dozen subjects a variety of word puzzles known as remote associate problems. The puzzles feature three words (such as “pine,” “crab” and “sauce”) that share a common compound word. (In this case, the answer is “apple.”) Here’s the clever part: Only some of these remote associate problems had an actual answer. The rest were impossible. Interestingly, the scientists found that subjects in a positive mood were far better at figuring out which remote associate problems could be solved and which were a waste of effort. In fact, even when they didn’t end up finding the solution, those who were happy were much better at figuring out which problems had solutions. As a result, they wasted much less time searching for epiphanies that didn’t exist, or chasing down possibilities that didn’t pan out. So yes: Taking a break is important. But make sure you do something that makes you happy, as positive moods make us even better at diagnosing the value of our creative work. After a few relaxing days of vacation, you’ll suddenly know which new ideas deserve more time and which need to be abandoned. Because even Bob Dylan wrote a few songs he probably shouldn’t have sung.
Jonah Lehrer is the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, published by Allen Lane Canada.
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| 53
Want
to
SELL
?
Product
SLEEP With Your
CUSTOMERS By
Martin Lindstrom
Knowing the bathroom, eating, and cleanliness habits of consumers can make or break a campaign. Question is: How far are you willing to go? How well would you say you know your consumer--not just the broad-stroke stuff, either, like their income or marital status. How many of them brush their teeth in the shower? (Answer 4% of the general consumer populace.) How many of the teenagers routinely grab a box of cereal on their first day at college, empty it into a bowl and then begin munching away? (Answer: 37% of first-year students, and it makes them feel closer to home.) Why do so many women bypass the first toilet in the bathroom mall and urgently head directly into the second stall? (Answer: It seems the majority of women believe that the second seat is the cleaner one. Ironically, this leaves the first toilet relatively untouched, and many a toilet in the first cubicle still bears the “sanitized for your protection” notice.) Stupid questions, silly insights, right? But they’re relevant questions and interesting answers if you’re
54 |
| SPRING 2012
in the business of selling toothpaste, dental floss, breakfast foods, or sanitizing liquids--all items which are part of the $100 billion personal care business. It’s a hugely competitive market sector, and products jostle to find the smallest feature that will give them a marginal edge over their competitors and ideally create a platform for another $1 billion product launch. Here’s the truth: I have come to spend a large part of my time living in consumers’ homes. It began a few years ago when I was asked to the Philippines to help an ailing coffee brand. For years the major coffee manufacturer in the region had attempted to run an advertising campaign during the rainy season. It’s traditionally a time of celebration, and if a coffee brand could “own” this, it would be a license to print money. The coffee company had run an expensive television campaign featuring smiling people drinking the brew in the shelter of their homes while rain pitter-pattered down on the roof. To everyone’s surprise, it seemed the association with the rainy season was a major turn-off. Sales decreased, and in turn left everyone baffled. Just before the annual rains were due, I headed off to Manila to work out why. To everyone’s surprise, the first thing I requested was to move in with a local family. Over the next 10 days I spent time in five different family homes, singing, talking, eating and, of course, drinking a lot of coffee. My agenda was to understand the psychology of the rainy season. One night, as the rain hammered against the tin roof, it occurred to me that the sound of the rain in the commercials had been misrepresented. In the ads that went to air, the rain was created from stock sounds, great in Hollywood movie, but far removed from the realities of the average Filipino family. The sound wasn’t right, and so the emotional stirrings the brand had hoped to evoke, simply did not occur. I immediately set out to record the very sound I was hearing beating against the tin roof. I emailed it to the production company and played the revised commercial for the next family. It brought them to tears. Sound was the missing piece in the emotional puzzle, and the following rainy season, coffee sales increased by 19%. I regularly ask CEOs when they’ve last spent a day in the homes of their core consumers. The best I can usually hope for is that they’ve intended to but have never found the time. In reality, most executives operate from large offices where they function with all the information that technology can provide. This was the experience of a CEO running one of the largest hi-fi manufacturers in the world. He was having doubts about a new product that had been in development for years. He showed me a prototype of this product--a
stealth remote control he planned to unleash on the Chinese market. I was curious about the reasons for targeting China. He had done his research, and it showed that Chinese families embrace new technology, have the resources to purchase it, and generally like to impress friends and family. I inquired if he or any member of his team had spent any time in a Chinese home. As I predicted, not a single member of the development and marketing teams had even spent 10 minutes in the field. If they had, they would have learned that Chinese families tend to wrap their remote controls in transparent plastic to keep out dust. So, under layers of protective plastic, one remote looks just like another. The planned release of the product in China was cancelled. The money was moved to Northern Europe, where the new remote proved to be hugely successful. But success aside, the organization now demands that everyone involved in the development and marketing of a product must spend at least two days in a consumer’s home.
be noticed by the world at large. This became the foundation for Procter & Gamble’s next big stain-removal innovation: “Tide to Go” Instant Stain Remover. But hey, let’s stop here for a minute. What about you? When did you last spend a day with your consumers? At worst, you’d find out why those 4% brush their teeth in the shower. At best you might stumble across that tiny nugget of insight that could transform your product.
Martin Lindstrom
Recipient of TIME Magazine’s “World’s 100 Most Influential People” in 2009. Author, Speaker, Advisor, and master Brand Builder, Martin Lindstrom has carved out an entirely unique niche as a global expert in the related fields of consumerism, marketing, brands, and of late, neuroscientific research.
This is a lesson that Procter & Gamble learned quite some time ago. Before they came up with one of the world’s most popular stain removers they spent months observing women tackling their laundry. They discovered that it wasn’t the big stains that disturbed, because they could be tackled head on. It was the tiny small obsequious stains that were most feared, the insignificant ones that can fly under the radar and then
SPRING 2012 |
| 55
IN
CRE A
SE
Y O U R C O M PA N Y ’ S P R O D U C T I V I T Y W I T H
Social Media By
Jeanne Meister
A growing number of companies talk about the benefits of adopting web 2.0 tools inside the organization, but the list is short for companies that are using them for increased business results. Unisys, the 138-year old tech firm, has quickly made “going social” part of its culture. Here’s how they did it, and how they’re using social media tools to become more agile, to share knowledge, and to increase the speed of innovation. One of the biggest barriers to social collaboration is a disconnect between aspirations to become collaborative and the reality of being a closed organization. Unisys CEO Ed Coleman addressed this through leading by example. He became an early adopter of social computing tools to communicate with employees, and in the process became a role model for adoption among his senior executive team, as well as the employee population. Gloria Burke, Director of Knowledge Strategy & Governance, along with co-directors John Knab and Rajiv Prasad, launched Inside Unisys, a social network internal to the firm. Coleman began blogging and soon his senior executives encouraged their teams to do so as well. Employees are automatically alerted to blog postings and microblog postings on the newsfeeds on Inside Unisys. Over time, Unisys sales people began using Inside Unisys to share information about recent wins as well as share lessons in losses. Creating a social knowledge-sharing environment is not the responsibility of one department. “People support what they help to build,” says Burke. “And, once it is built, they have a stake in its success.” She set up an advisory council with senior leaders from across the company — business units, HR, IT, legal, finance, marketing, and more — to create a shared vision on how “going social” would improve employee and organizational productivity.
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| SPRING 2012
To be really useful, social media has to improve the daily work of employees. Knowledge workers spend anywhere from 15%-35% of each day just searching for the right information, according to an IDC report. So when Unisys launched “My Site” to allow employees to build their personal credentials and network of colleagues, they built a feature called “Ask Me About” that allows Unisys employees to locate experts across the organization by creating hashtags for their skills and key topics they want to collaborate on with other employees. So far, in the first 18 months, 15,000 Unisys employees world-wide (out of 23,000) have built profiles and created hashtags describing their expertise. Senior executives studied the early adopters and tracked adoption rates in monthly meetings. These rates were then compared against the well-known Rogers Adoption Curve of Innovation classifying adopters of innovations into five categories based upon their willingness to try new ideas. The key: start with innovators and early adopters and others will follow as they see experience the benefits of using social media in their work.
Social media literacy is fast becoming a necessary skill. Knowing what to share and how to share will be a critical skill for the 2020 workplace. Many companies have now developed policies or guidelines on social media use, but Unisys went further, integrating social media literacy training into all employee training, starting with their new hire orientation program. The goal: mandatory social media training along with annual re-fresher courses so employees know what and how to share on Inside Unisys as well as on external social networking sites such as Linkedin and Facebook. Done right, social tools can resolve longstanding issues of knowledge loss and inefficiency. To harness the productive power of social tools in your company, make sure you have the following eight elements in place as you roll out social network for your company
{ 1.
Strategy: Be sure there is buy-in and engagement from senior executives who are willing to lead by example.
2.
Alignment: Get involvement from stakeholder groups across the company.
3.
Technology: Determine the right mix of tools and technologies.
4.
Pilot: Identify pilot groups like Unisys did with the sales team.
5.
Governance: Establish guidelines for governance.
6.
Communications: Develop a communications plan.
7.
Metrics: Identify hard business metrics like increasing speed to innovation or speed for winning new business.
8.
Implementation: Create process for enterprise wide implementation new skills needed for success like social media literacy.
Once your program is up and running, be sure to profile early successes in using social media to increase productivity. Employees need to be able to answer the “so what” of social media.
Jeanne Meister, cofounder of Future Workplace is co-author of The 2020 Workplace. An internationally recognized thought leader, speaker, and author in enterprise learning, she focuses on the intersection of technology new demographics and human resource development.
SPRING 2012 |
| 57
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Yet I believe 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101that 0100 010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 the greatest transformation in our ability to find 0000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010 0111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000 audiences, influence them about our proposition 010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 10010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010 to them is still ahead of us. Marketing is going to undergo a massive transformation and unless 10010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010010 00010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101 you prepare your company for it today, your 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100 01000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001 future as a profitable entity will be in jeopardy. 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010 110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010 I’ve had the privilege of working with some 1 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000 of the largest companies around the planet. 001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111 With that experience in mind, and as an active 101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100 010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000 digital citizen, I’ve developed 5 rules for digital 00101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101 0111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001 revolutionaries that if followed will future 0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011 0000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001 proof your business. I hope they’ll motivate you to create a veritable primordial ooze from 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01 010010010000111010001110101000010010 which new ideas (or indeed life) will spark for an 10000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100 imaginative digital existence. 010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100001001 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010 111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000 01 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100001 10111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100 00101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 0010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101 010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110 00010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011 1000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000 101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010 0101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101 1110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011 001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000 10001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100 010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010 111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100 0000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010 010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 10010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010010 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010 58 | | SPRING 2012
the 2015
DIGITAL
MARKETING RULE BOOK
change
Pei RS OR
0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001 0111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100 0010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010 0010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111 1000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100 10101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110 001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000 010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010 0111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010 0000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01 001 0000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 01 0000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000 Multiplicity: Competencies, Campaigns, Systems, Everything. 1 0001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110 For far too long we’ve been able to be successful by relying on our sheer strength on one thing. Catalog. Paid search. 0 0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 YouTube. Billboards. TV. You can no longer be good at just one thing, or two. It is a 10-thing world 01001001000011 now (and maybe a001110101000010010111010000100101 20-thing world soon). 0 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110 If you are a catalog company you have to be good at catalog marketing (as long as it continues to provide incremental revenue ), 00100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000 and you have to be good at NASCAR (as long as it provides incremental revenue), and you have to be good at Facebook, and you 010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101 have to be good at email, and search, and YouTube and… a hundred other things. All while constantly optimizing your portfolio 1 0000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100 via controlled experiments . You have to be good at sourcing your products and you have to be good at delivering them. 1 1010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011 You have to be good on every device of every screen size in every country with a monetizable audience. 1 0000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001 It is hard to rewire the company’s DNA to truly execute a multiplicity strategy. That’s why you allocate 15% of your Marketing budget 1 0001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000 to getting good at multiplicity. All the time. 0101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010 0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001 10101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 One-trick ponies are going to be a liability. 0101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011 Increasingly, your people can’t be one-trick ponies. Especially not people you consider stars. 10101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010 The web demands immense agility and flexibility from every company. Having one-trick ponies can limit your capacity to 00100101 think 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111 smart and move fast. 010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110 If your Marketer is not savvy in basic finance and analytics and writing some html and creating mobile campaigns and tag clouds 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 then you have a long term liability on your hands, and not an asset who is really, really, really,01001001000 really good at writing 10000100101 copy for display campaigns. 10000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001 If you have a Finance person for your web business who has never run campaigns on Facebook, and who doesn’t 010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 understand the uniqueness of mobile applications, and a little bit about the insanity of ad exchanges then over0100 time try to hire someone who does. 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101 At one time, it was okay to be 100% good at one thing, and only one thing. But today companies with people who are 70% magnificent 0 0101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 at one thing and have filled the remaining 30% with being good at everything in the periphery of their jobs will rule this world. 01 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001 Change HR hiring practices now to nurture such 70/30 people inside your company, and to make that a mandatory condition for all new hires. Then you’ll 0010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111 rule this world. 1000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100 10101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110 001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 0111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010 0 We live in a hyper fragmented world 000011101000111010100001001011101000010010110010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 01 with, quite literally, hundreds of 0010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 TV channels, thousands of social 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 connections and millions of websites. 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 The single biggest gift any brand can 0101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111 get is attention.” 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 0111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0 0010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 SPRING 2012 | | 59 0
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111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100 010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100 01110 101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010 0 001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100001 0 10010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000 Attention is the most precious commodity. 010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 We live in a hyper fragmented world with, quite literally, hundreds of TV channels, thousands of social connections and01001001000 millions of websites. The single biggest gift any brand can get is attention. 01110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100 Attention results from understanding the true strength of each channel and then engaging uniquely with your audience. 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110 Here’s a good example. I bike ride a lot. I walk a lot. In general, I’m a big fan of exercise. I would follow Gatorade on Twitter with 10010111010000100101 01 the exercise connection of that brand. 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 But you know what they do on Twitter? They retweet other people’s tweets about them. 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100 The lamest thing you can imagine using Twitter for. How could Gatorade have my attention? With a Twitter stream about hydration. If their tweets supported their bio on Twitter: 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001 “Helping athletes get the most out of their bodies before, during and after activity.” I could not find a single tweet of the 400 I 10101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010 reviewed that fell in that category. Why not try that? Why not go for grabbing my attention and then keeping it? Why not go from 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100 trying to have a Gatorade ad on every TV sports event in the hopes that I’m watching to doing that plus doing social media right and have a direct relationship with me? 1010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110 Not one or the other. Both done exceptionally well. That’s how you earn attention. 01000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100 What is your business shooting for online when it comes to digital marketing? What are you doing to earn, and keep, attention? 00010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011 010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001 00001 0101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010010 1 0 Brand destruction is insanely efficient now. Beware! 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101 11 United breaks guitars. Kenneth Cole goes too far with Egyptian protests. Gap logo. Bank of America everything. You can add 100 more examples in 100 seconds. 101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001 1 Those are big ones. But there are small ones too. I told 20 people that Nikon’s site is slow and profoundly sub-optimal 010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010 on mobile. (Guess what I had on hand when I saw their sexy ad on TV? A mobile device!) Now these 20 people will tell 0111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010 others. Small, silent brand destruction. Yet so few companies have built organizational capabilities with this efficiency in mind.0100100100001110 The distance between a story 0100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 and an audience is six pixels (as my friend Mitch Joel might say). It is ever more important to live your values, walk the 0101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100 talk, deliver what you promise, not say stupid stuff, be real and accessible, and all those delightful things. 0010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100 You see, the power that can so efficiently destroy your business, is also the power that can boost you to untold heights. And 0111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100 that’s marketing money can’t buy. Imagine a better future for your company. 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000010 0001110101000010010111010000100101 PS: It is no longer optional for you to just create TV ads and not have the most brilliant, engaging and helpful mobile websites. In case you were 10010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100 wondering, the year of the mobile was two years go. 10010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 100 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001011101000 0101 010010010000111010001110 Glory010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 will come to the precious few who are willing to embarrass themselves. 000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01 We don’t take risk and try things, imaginative (possibly glorious) things, because we believe the price of failure is so high. And it is in the real world. Consider creating a TV commercial or re-packaging a product or trying a new offer. First, it takes a very 10010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000 long time to actually try something (add longer plus infinity for risky things). Second, when you fail, you fail spectacularly. 0010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001 Heads roll. Companies get entrenched in what they know and end up constantly optimizing for what’s always worked, 10000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001 meanwhile the world changes and these companies die, albeit slowly. 0111010000100101 01001001 Now consider the web. You can010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 have your most embarrassing idea for a redesign/new offer/product launch/whatever out there in one day. AND you can control for risk! You can only show the redesign to 1% of the site traffic. You can try the 00111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000111010100001001 offer with just one affiliate or some Bing ads. You can launch the product to a selected group of opted-in customers (or only 1010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000 to people in New York). You can literally control for risk should everything blow up in your face. AND you can have analysis 1010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010 of your risk in almost real time to get an early read and in a few days with statistical significance! 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000 If0100101 you are an executive, encourage your company to check its old world thinking at the door. Consider rewarding people with new ideas. Allocate some of your aforementioned 15% budget to experimentation and testing. If you are a large company don’t live without 0101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100 someone with strong Design of Experiments skills. 111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100 If you can’t embarrass yourself, in controlled quantities, you can’t become magnificent. And you can’t future-proof your company. 010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100 01110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001 0101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101 Five simple rules for digital revolutionaries to follow in order to unlock the imagination of their 1000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 01001001000011101000 companies and be massively successful in the future. Absorb them. Undertake the very hard task of 0010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110 slowly evolving your company to adapt to them. Monetize the opportunity presented, future-proof your company. 0010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101 0111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 I wish you all the very best. Author, Web Analytics 2.0 &010010010000111010001110101000 Web Analytics: An Hour A Day 010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010 Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google Avinash Kaushik Blog: Occam’s Razor: www.kaushik.net 000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010 100101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110 101 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100 60 | | SPRING 2012 010010010000111010001110101000010010111010000100101 0100100100001110100011101010000100101110100001
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l ist... Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
Create Far From Home, Win Ever ywhere
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
The Advantage:
Why Organizational Health Trumps Ever ything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni
Poke the Box by Seth Godin
by Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble & Indra K. Nooyi
The Lean Startup:
RAdAR
Business Books We Thought You Should Know About
by Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen
Reverse Innovation:
On Our
Brandwashed:
Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom
Imagine:
How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
Best Practices Are Stupid:
40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition by Stephen M. Shapiro
by Eric Ries
Onward:
How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz & Joanne Gordon
Inside Apple:
How America’s Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky
The Loyalty Leap:
Turning Customer Information into Customer Intimacy by Bryan Pearson
SPRING 2012 |
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The
Practice
COURAGE of
Susan Scott A martial arts sensei said, “You are always practicing something. The question is – What are you practicing?” Darn good question. Whether we are practicing oneupmanship or cooperation, truth telling or lying, mentoring or self-promotion, fluency in threeletter acronyms or plain speaking, anonymous feedback or face-toface feedback, our practices have an impact on our careers, our companies, our relationships. In Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, written during his year in a oneroom cabin with few possessions, is this quote. “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life that is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” He was talking about the bigger house, and all the stuff we buy that ends up owning us, keeping us awake at night. Amen to that! Let’s substitute the “practice” for “thing.”
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word
The cost of a practice is the amount of life and, ultimately, dollars that must be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. There is a direct link between our practices and our results and in my work with leaders and their teams, the practice that, when it is missing costs us the most, and when it is present makes the greatest difference, is courage. Backed up with skill. Courage is a noun that shows up as a verb. It comes from old French corage, from Latin cor, “heart. We recognize it by what people do. We do what frightens us, even in the face of perceived or real personal risk. The man who ran into a house that was fully engulfed in flames, to save a neighbor whom he barely knew. We demonstrate strength in the face of pain or grief. The hiker trapped beneath a boulder, who escaped by cutting off his own arm with a Swiss Army knife. No anesthetic. While we recognize courage in once-in-a-lifetime, go-down-in-history heroic deeds, it is far more powerful as a daily practice. Though you might have run into that burning house, your courage may be failing you where it counts most – in your day-to-day interactions with the people who are central to your success and happiness. Let’s look at why courage sometimes fails us, the worst “best” practice that gets squarely in its way, and what to do instead.
WHY COURAGE FAILS US Courageous acts, whether played out in the global media or in a meeting room, are fueled by strong emotion. In 2002 Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist, won the Nobel prize for economics for his discovery that people act first for emotional reasons, second for logic. How many times have you told someone what you thought he or she wanted to hear, rather than what you were really thinking? Painted a false, rosy version of reality, glossing over problems or pretending they simply didn’t exist? Tossed out the ceremonial first lie? Telling it like it is, speaking the ground truth as opposed to the official party line (which we know to be bogus) is no one’s notion of exalting. It’s so upsetting, alarming, and risky that we’re willing to place a for sale sign on our integrity to avoid it. After all, we’ve all witnessed a kind of violence—a lost promotion, raise, or place at the table—visited on those who’ve spoken their hearts and minds, and it is raw. Why saw off a metaphorical limb if there is a less risky, less painful way to get through a challenging situation?
A WORST “BEST” PRACTICE At this very moment, tens of thousands of people on this planet are withholding what they really think and feel from someone at work or at home. They suffer from alethophobia—an intense, abnormal or illogical fear of the truth. And the approved cure – legislated optimism - administered by companies all over the world, is far worse than the disease. Legislated optimism is the purview of the one- way leader. When optimism is legislated, meetings produce more nothing than something. Ideas die without a funeral or proper burial. Communication is primarily from the leader to everyone else. The reverse is not valued, not welcomed, because the leader and his or her inner circle of advisers know best. In this environment, conclusions are reached at the point when everyone stops thinking, which is often short of brilliant. The leaders have already done the thinking for us and have called it good. No point in telling them what we’re actually dealing with every day, since to do so would not be a career- enhancing move.
THE FIERCE ALTERNATIVE Emile Chartier wrote, “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.” We need input from others. Human beings are hardwired to solve problems and are usually successful when they address the real problems, the root causes of whatever challenges they’re encountering. The practice that must take center stage today is radical transparency. Weak leaders want agreement. Strong leaders want to know the truth. They encourage those they lead to tell them the whole truth, paint the whole picture, even if it’s ugly, unpleasant, not what we wish it to be. Because only then can we put our best efforts forward to fix what needs fixing. The first frontier is finding our own courage. If you would like to see more courage in your organization, start by having a fierce conversation with yourself. Where am I going? Why am I going there? How am I going to get there? Who is going with me? Change “I” to “we” and you have questions for your team. Let them know that you genuinely hope to be influenced by them, that you invite them to push back on your views. And mean it. The practices of fierce leadership are for those who are not interested in living a guarded, careful life and are quickly bored in the company of those who are. They are for people who would choose a fierce conversation, a fierce relationship, a fierce life over the alternative, any day.
Susan Scott Known for her bold yet practical approach to executive coaching and leadership development, Susan Scott has been challenging people to say the things that can’t be said for over two decades. Susan founded Fierce in 2001 after 13 years leading CEO think tanks, more than 10,000 hours of conversations with senior executives, and one epiphany: While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a business, a marriage, or a life—any single conversation can. Susan continues to share her expertise with clients through her thought leadership, keynote presentations, and award-winning books.
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