Archive for the ‘Level 5 Courage’ Category

Stop reusing old ideas and start solving new problems.

Creating new ideas is easy.  Sit down, quiet your mind, and create a list of five new ideas.  There.  You’ve done it.  Five new ideas.  It didn’t take you a long time to create them.  But ideas are cheap.

Converting ideas into sellable products and selling them is difficult and expensive. A customer wants to buy the new product when the underlying idea that powers the new product solves an important problem for them.  In that way, ideas whose solutions don’t solve important problems aren’t good ideas.  And in order to convert a good idea into a winning product, dirt, rocks, and sticks (natural resources) must be converted into parts and those parts must be assembled into products.  That is expensive and time-consuming and requires a factory, tools, and people that know how to make things. And then the people that know how to sell things must apply their trade.  This, too, adds to the difficulty and expense of converting ideas into winning products.

The only thing more expensive than converting new ideas into winning products is reusing your tired, old ideas until your offerings run out of sizzle. While you extend and defend, your competitors convert new ideas into new value propositions that bring shame to your offering and your brand.  (To be clear, most extend-and-defend programs are actually defend-and-defend programs.)  And while you reuse/leverage your long-in-the-tooth ideas, start-ups create whole new technologies from scratch (new ideas on a grand scale) and pull the rug out from under you.  The trouble is that the ultra-high cost of extend-and-defend is invisible in the short term. In fact, when coupled with reuse, it’s highly profitable in the moment.  It takes years for the wheels to fall off the extend-and-defend bus, but make no mistake, the wheels fall off.

When you find the urge to create a laundry list of new ideas, don’t.  Instead, solve new problems for your customers.  And when you feel the immense pressure to extend and defend, don’t.  Instead, solve new problems for your customers.

And when all that gets old, repeat as needed.

“Cave paintings” by allspice1 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

The Two Sides of the Story

When you tell the truth and someone reacts negatively, their negativity is a surrogate for significance.

When you withhold the truth because someone will react negatively, you do everyone a disservice.

When you know what to do, let someone else do it.

When you’re absolutely sure what to do, maybe you’ve been doing it too long.

When you’re in a situation of complete uncertainty, try something. There’s no other way.

When you’re told it’s a bad idea, it’s probably a good one, but for a whole different reason.

When you’re told it’s a good idea, it’s time to come up with a less conventional idea.

When you’re afraid to speak up, your fear is a surrogate for importance.

When you’re afraid to speak up and you don’t, you do your company a disservice.

When you speak up and are met with laughter, congratulations, your idea is novel.

When you get angry, that says nothing about the thing you’re angry about and everything about you.

When someone makes you angry, that someone is always you.

When you’re afraid, be afraid and do it anyway.

When you’re not afraid, try harder.

When you’re understood the first time you bring up a new idea, it’s not new enough.

When you’re misunderstood, you could be onto something.  Double down.

When you’re comfortable, stop what you’re doing and do something that makes you uncomfortable.

It’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

“mirror-image pickup” by jasoneppink is licensed under CC BY 2.0

How To Be Novel

By definition, the approach that made you successful will become less successful over time and, eventually, will run out of gas.  This fundamental is not about you or your approach, rather it’s about the nature of competition and evolution.  There’s an energy that causes everything to change, grow and improve and your success attracts that energy.  The environment changes, the people change, the law changes and companies come into existence that solve problems in better and more efficient ways.  Left unchanged, every successful business endeavor (even yours) has a half-life.

If you want to extend the life of your business endeavor, you’ve got to be novel.

By definition, if you want to grow, you’ve got to raise your game. You’ve got to do something different.  You can’t change everything, because that’s inefficient and takes too long.  So, you’ve got to figure out what you can reuse and what you’ve got to reinvent.

If you want to grow, you’ve got to be novel.

Being novel is necessary, but expensive.  And risky. And scary.  And that’s why you want to add just a pinch of novelty and reuse the rest.  And that’s why you want to try new things in the smallest way possible.  And that’s why you want to try things in a time-limited way. And that’s why you want to define what success looks like before you test your novelty.

Some questions and answers about being novel:

Is it easy to be novel? No.  It’s scary as hell and takes great emotional strength.

Can anyone be novel? Yes. But you need a good reason or you’ll do what you did last time.

How can I tell if I’m being novel? If you’re not scared, you’re not being novel.  If you know how it will turn out, you’re not being novel.  If everyone agrees with you, you’re not being novel.

How do I know if I’m being novel in the right way? You cannot. Because it’s novel, it hasn’t been done before, and because it hasn’t been done before there’s no way to predict how it will go.

So, you’re saying I can’t predict the outcome of being novel?  Yes.

If I can’t predict the outcome of being novel, why should I even try it? Because if you don’t, your business will go away.

Okay.  That last one got my attention.  So, how do I go about being novel? It depends.

That’s not a satisfying answer. Can you do better than that? Well, we could meet and talk for an hour.  We’d start with understanding your situation as it is, how this current situation came to be, and talk through the constraints you see.  Then, we’d talk about why you think things must change.  I’d then go away for a couple of days and think about things.  We’d then get back together and I’d share my perspective on how I see your situation.  Because I’m not a subject matter expert in your field, I would not give you answers, but, rather, I’d share my perspective that you could use to inform your choice on how to be novel.

“Giraffe trying to catch a twig with her tongue” by Tambako the Jaguar is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

When you decide you have enough, the right work WILL happen.

If you are happy with what you have, others have no power over you.

If you don’t want more, you call the shots.

If you have nothing to prove, no one can manipulate you.

If you have enough, the lure of more cannot pull you off the path of what you think is right.

If you don’t need approval from others, you can do what you think is right.

If you know what’s important to you, you can choose the path forward.

If you know who you are, so does everyone else.

If you know who you are, you don’t care what others think of you.

When you don’t care about what others think about you, you can do the right work.

When you can do the right work in the right way, you are impervious to influence.

When you are impervious to influence, the right work happens, despite the displeasure of the Status Quo.

 Anne Ruthmann is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What’s in the way of taking care of yourself?

When there’s nothing left in your tank, what do you do?  When it’s difficult for you to keep your head above water, what do you do? When you see people who need help, do you spend your energy to help them or do you preserve your energy for yourself?

If no one at your company has the energy to spare, what are the consequences? If a small problem isn’t solved quickly, might it snowball into something unmanageable? If a series of unsolved problems develop into a series of avalanches, couldn’t that change the character of your company? If everyone at your company is out of gas, what does that say?

If your calendar is full of standing meetings, you have no time for deep work.  But, if your calendar has free space, that gives others the opportunity to fill your calendar with their priorities.  Is it okay to say no to a meeting? Is it okay to preserve time for deep thought? Is it okay to cancel the whole meeting series for a standing meeting? What would it mean to your mental health if you deleted standing meetings and freed up six hours per week? What would it mean to the quality of your work?  Might you even get to do the foundational work that is vital to next year’s success?

What would it mean if you could create a four-hour block of uninterrupted time that recurred wice per week? What could you accomplish in those two luscious time blocks? How many problems could you avoid? How many cross-team relationships could build? How much could you learn from researching the state-of-the-art? How much could you accelerate your projects? How many young people could you help?

What’s in the way of canceling some meetings? Is your mental health worth it? What’s in the way of scheduling a four-hour meeting with yourself twice a week? Is your work important enough? What’s in the way of stopping work at a reasonable time so you can get your personal things done, get some exercise, and spend time with your family? What would your company think if you took care of yourself and had some energy to spare for others?

What’s in the way of taking care of yourself?

“Toe Art…Concern & Care” by VinothChandar is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Good Questions

This seems like a repeat of the last time we set a project launch date without regard for the work content.  Do you see it that way?

This person certainly looks the part and went to the right school, but they have not done this work before.  Why do you think we should hire them even though they don’t have the experience?

The last time we ran a project like this it took two years to complete.  Why do you think this one will take six months?

If it didn’t work last time, why do you think it will work this time?

Why do you think we can do twice the work we did last year while reducing our headcount?

The work content, timeline, and budget are intimately linked. Why do you think it’s possible to increase the work content, pull in the timeline, and reduce the budget?

Seven out of thirteen people have left the team. How many people have to leave before you think we have a problem?

Yes, we’ve had great success with that approach over the last decade, but our most recent effort demonstrated that our returns are diminishing.  Why do you want to do that again?

If you think it’s such a good idea, why don’t you do it?

Why do you think it’s okay to add another project when we’re behind on all our existing projects?

Customers are buying the competitive technology.  Why don’t you believe that they’re now better than we are?

This work is critical to our success, yet we don’t have the skills sets, capacity, or budget to hire it out.  Why are you telling us you will get it done?

This problem seems to fit squarely within your span of responsibility. Why do you expect other teams to fix it for you?

I know a resource gap of this magnitude seems unbelievable but is what the capacity model shows.  Why don’t you believe the capacity model?

We have no one to do that work. Why do you think it’s okay to ask the team to sign up for something they can’t pull off?

Based on the survey results, the culture is declining.  Why don’t you want to acknowledge that?

“I have a question” by The U.S. Army is licensed under CC BY 2.0

How to Decide if Your Problem is Worth Solving

How to decide if a problem is worth solving?

If it’s a new problem, try to solve it.

If it’s a problem that’s already been solved, it can’t be a new problem.  Let someone else re-solve it.

If a new problem is big, solve it in a small way.  If that doesn’t work, try to solve it in a smaller way.

If there’s a consensus that the problem is worth solving, don’t bother. Nothing great comes from consensus.

If the Status Quo tells you not to solve it, you’ve hit paydirt!

If when you tell people about solving the problem they laugh, you’re onto something.

If solving the problem threatens the experts, double down.

If solving the problem obsoletes your most valuable product, solve it before your competition does.

If solving the problem blows up your value proposition, light the match.

If solving the problem replaces your product with a service, that’s a recipe for recurring revenue.

If solving the problem frees up a factory, well, now you have a free factory to make other things.

If solving the problem makes others look bad, that’s why they’re trying to block you from solving it.

If you want to know if you’re doing it right, make a list of the new problems you’ve tried to solve.

If your list is short, make it longer.

“CERDEC Math and Science Summer Camp, 2013” by CCDC_C5ISR is licensed under CC BY 2.0

When you don’t know the answer, what do you say?

When you are asked a question and you don’t know the answer, what do you say?  What does that say about you?

What happens to people in your organization who say “I don’t know.”? Are they lauded or laughed at? Are they promoted, overlooked, or demoted? How many people do you know that have said: “I don’t know.”?  And what does that say about your company?

When you know someone doesn’t know, what do you do? Do you ask them a pointed question in public to make everyone aware that the person doesn’t know? Do you ask oblique questions to raise doubt about the person’s knowing? Do you ask them a question in private to help them know they don’t know? Do you engage in an informal discussion where you plant the seeds of knowing? And how do you feel about your actions?

When you say “I don’t know.” you make it safe for others to say it. So, do you say it? And how do you feel about that?

When you don’t know and you say otherwise, decision quality suffers and so does the company. Yet, some companies make it difficult for people to say “I don’t know.” Why is that? Do you know?

I think it’s unreasonable to expect people to know the answer to know the answers to all questions at all times. And when you say “I don’t know.” it doesn’t mean you’ll never know; it means you don’t know at this moment. And, yet, it’s difficult to say it.  Why is that? Do you know?

Just because someone asks a question doesn’t mean the answer must be known right now. It’s often premature to know the answer, and progress is not hindered by the not knowing. Why not make progress and figure out the answer when it’s time for the answer to be known?  And sometimes the answer is unknowable at the moment.  And that says nothing about the person that doesn’t know the answer and everything about the moment.

It’s okay if you don’t know the answer.  What’s not okay is saying you know when you don’t.  And it’s not okay if your company makes it difficult for you to say you don’t know. Not only does that create a demoralized workforce, but it’s also bad for business.

Why do companies make it so difficult to say “I don’t know.”?  You guessed it – I don’t know.

“Question Mark Cookies 1” by Scott McLeod is licensed under CC BY 2.0

What Good Coaches Do

Good coaches listen to you.  They don’t judge, they just listen.

Good coaches continually study the game.  They do it in private, but they study.

Good coaches tell you that you can do better, and that, too, they do in private.

Good coaches pick you up off the floor. They know that getting knocked over is part of the game.

Good coaches never scream at you, but they will cry with you.

Good coaches never stop being your coach. Never.

Good coaches learn from you, and the best ones tell you when that happens.

Good coaches don’t compromise. Ever.

Good coaches have played the game and have made mistakes. That’s why they’re good coaches.

Good coaches do what’s in your best interest, not theirs.

Good coaches are sometimes wrong, and the best ones tell you when that happens.

Good coaches don’t care what other people think of them, but they care deeply about you.

Good coaches are prepared to be misunderstood, though it’s not their preference.

Good coaches let you bump your head or smash your knee, but, otherwise, they keep you safe.

Good coaches earn your trust.

Good coaches always believe you and perfectly comfortable disagreeing with you at the same time.

Good coaches know it’s always your choice, and they know that’s how deep learning happens.

Good coaches stick with you, unless you don’t do your part.

Good coaches don’t want credit. They want you to grow.

Good coaches don’t have a script. They create a custom training plan based on your needs.

Good coaches simplify things when it’s time, unless it’s time to make things complicated.

Good coaches aren’t always positive, but they are always truthful.

Good coaches are generous with their time.

Good coaches make a difference.

Certainty or novelty – it’s your choice.

When you follow the best practice, by definition your work is not new. New work is never done the same way twice.  That’s why it’s called new.

Best practices are for old work. Usually, it’s work that was successful last time.  But just as you can never step into the same stream twice, when you repeat a successful recipe it’s not the same recipe. Almost everything is different from last time.  The economy is different, the competitors are different, the customers are in a different phase of their lives, the political climate is different, interest rates are different, laws are different, tariffs are different, the technology is different, and the people doing the work are different. Just because work was successful last time doesn’t mean that the old work done in a new context will be successful next time.  The most important property of old work is the certainty that it will run out of gas.

When someone asks you to follow the best practice, they prioritize certainty over novelty.  And because the context is different, that certainty is misplaced.

We have a funny relationship with certainty.  At every turn, we try to increase certainty by doing what we did last time.  But the only thing certain with that strategy is that it will run out of gas.  Yet, frantically waving the flag of certainty, we continue to double down on what we did last time.  When we demand certainty, we demand old work.  As a company, you can have too much “certainty.”

When you flog the teams because they have too much uncertainty, you flog out all the novelty.

What if you start the design review with the question “What’s novel about this project?” And when the team says there’s nothing novel, what if you say “Well, go back to the drawing board and come back with some novelty.”?  If you seek out novelty instead of squelching it, you’ll get more novelty.  That’s a rule, though not limited to novelty.

A bias toward best practices is a bias toward old work.  And the belief underpinning those biases is the belief that the Universe is static.  And the one thing the Universe doesn’t like to be called is static.  The Universe prides itself on its dynamic character and unpredictable nature.  And the Universe isn’t above using karma to punish those who call it names.

“Stonecold certainty” by philwirks is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

The Discomfort Around Diversity of Perspective

When your organization doesn’t want to hear your truth because it contradicts a decision they’ve already made, that’s a sign of trouble.  It’s a sign they’re going to do what they’re going to and they don’t care all that much about you. But, what if they’re wrong?  And what if your perspective could snatch victory from the flames of an impending train wreck?  As someone who cares about the company and thinks it would benefit from hearing what you have to say, what do you do?

When you have a culture that makes it clear it’s not okay to share divergent perspectives, you have a big problem.

In domains of high uncertainty, increasing the diversity of perspective is the single most important thing we can do to see things more clearly.  In these situations, what matters is the diversity of culture, of heritage, of education, of upbringing, and of experiences. What matters is the diversity of perspective; what matters is the level of divergence among the collective opinions, and what matters most is listening and validating all that diversity.

If you have the diversity of culture, heritage, education, and experience, congratulations. But, if you’re not willing to listen to what that diversity has to say, you’re better off not having it.  It’s far less expensive if you don’t have it and far fewer people will be angry when you don’t listen to them. But, there’s a downside – you’ll go out of business sooner.

When you have a perspective that’s different than the Collective’s, share it. And when there are negative consequences for sharing it, accept them.  And, rinse and repeat until you get promoted or fired.

“A Sense of Perspective” by dolbinator1000 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Mike Shipulski Mike Shipulski
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