Rocks Are Hard

Do or Do Not. There is No Try.*

Whenever I hear "I tried" I know there's a "but" coming.   It's become the preface to excuses and lame efforts with less than desirable results.  In effect "try" has come to mean so much less than its definition.

"I'm trying, but..." "I tried that but...."

Merriam-Webster defines the transitive verb "Try" as "to put to test or trial" and "to subject to something that tests the powers of endurance" or the intransitie verb "to make an attempt."  It's actually powerful stuff -- it's how we've come to use it that has weakened the impact of the action.

Because if you're really trying you are doing and you will get a result.  It may not be the result you want, but if you've put the effort into the action, the result is meaningful -- it tells you something. It informs what you should DO next to reach the desired result.

So STOP putting "but" right after "I tried."  Instead use "AND"

"I tried AND I got this result which indicates we should....."

"I tried AND I learned XYZ so now we can..."

"I tried AND it worked so I'm refining and repeating."

It's a small change in language that reflects a HUGE change in attitude, and, in my thinking, success.

* Yoda

 

Tell Me What You Think

When you're the boss, it's easy to get in the habit of making decisions for  or giving direction to people all day long. This is the worst thing you can do for your people.  How will they advance and grow without taking a stand or making a decision? If you just tell eveyone around you what to do then how will you get out of being in the middle of every little thing in the project or business?   

One person in a group can't know everything or be right all the time.

On the flip side, I see people all throughout my life who refuse to make a decision or articulate a point of view.  They end every meeting or conversation waiting for direction or asking "what should we do?" As if they're scared to make the wrong recommendation.  Or they don't want to be held accountable for the results of a decision. And suddenly 96 emails later you're in a vortex of hell full of passing the ball, asking for opinion, and posturing.

The day is filled with subjective questions, where there is no clear answer -- here is where YOU can  become invaluable in your environment.  When you can not just analyze or assess a situation but move forward from it!

TAKE A STAND! Tell us what you think we should do. Weigh options and give me (or whoever) your opinion about a way forward. You may not have all the information. Based on the information I have, I may not agree with you. But if you come to me (or your colleague or your client or your partner or your friend or your....) with an informed point of view  (e.g. "Here's what's going on, here are the options I see and their consequences, based on what I know I think we should do XYZ), then you've advanced the discussion and caught me up to your knowledge and analysis, and I (or anyone) can add context and decide together.

Without your informed point of view, all you're doing is (as my friend Paul's father says) "is coming and $%(ing on my lap."

And that's just a mess.

PS. Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal on the science of  Why So Many People Can't Make Decisions.

Take All Those Good Ideas OFF the Whiteboard

Too often with bright, interested, curious people brainstorms result in too many good ideas (I know, what a problem to have!).   And they're good ideas so everyone wants to do them all.

STOP THE MADNESS!

Doing one thing great is much better (effective, efficient, manageable -- I could go on) than "trying" to do all of the good ideas sort of well.  Or as I like to say "Less of good is better than more of crappy."

The key to great campaign/project/idea management is taking the Good ideas that could work OFF the board and LEAVE only the great ideas that you can get done that will achieve the business goal ON. 

So have the brainstorm. Generate tons of ideas. And then really look at what you have.  Sift through them all.  Are they good ideas or great ideas? Can they stand alone or as parts of others? Can you get them done or are you too dependent on other factors?  And then take the good ones OFF and leave no more than 2 GREAT ideas on the board.

In the end, the most effective whiteboard is the one with one or two ideas on it that can be mapped, planned for and executed against. Everyone can see it, no one gets confused, and you don't run into each other in execution.

 My friend Nilofer Merchant calls this "murderboarding"  and you can read all about her process and ideas about it in her book The New How. 

 Next time walk in into the brainstorm with a big eraser you're ready to use, and you'll be WAY ahead of the game you're about to start.

Deadlines: A Primer

Deadlines aren't for you, they're for someone else. Because someone else needs what you're working on to get what they're working on done. So with that in mind, let's review:

1.Never EVER set Friday 5pm as the deadline. All that means is that the person you're sending something to is going to have to stay late or work on the weekend to act on it. And you're on the hook until your work is cleared...so you're working late or over the weekend too.  If someone gives you that deadline, RESET it to Friday at noon.

2. Same thing with Monday morning. All this means is you're working over the weekend.

3. Any day at EOD as the deadline guarantees a crappy day and working into the night. Move it back so you have time to answer any questions the person you're delivering something to might have.

4. If you're not going to make a deadline, tell the person ASAP and renegotiate   to   figure out how to get it done. RUN, don't walk on this one.   Your work not getting there on time can set off a whole domino effect you can't see and the fact that you missed it will feel MUCH larger than you can predict.  Really, if you have a 3pm deadline, you are sure to know before 2:59 that you're not going to make it.  Renegotiate a deadline as soon as you know you're in trouble so everyone around you can plan too.  No excuse.

5. No matter how great your work is, if it's late  it doesn't count.  No, don't argue with me.

The End.

The Real World Out There Beyond the 415, 650, 408 and 510

Well E3, Board Work and then 2 weeks in the land of lakes and cheese with an almost obsessive desire to "unplug" will do it to ya'. Get you (ok, me) some perspective I mean.

For there outside the 415, 650, 408 and 510 (oh heck let's throw the 707 and the 831 in there too)  where "real people" live, the world operates a bit differently. A bit differently than the hype-aware, hyper-connected, hyper-what's-new land of the SF Bay Area and its extensions.

And while it's true that so many markets are made on the edges, there's a reason CPG companies do their best testing in places like Eau Claire Wisconsin. Because it's there that money is not so plentiful, where consumables are not as attainable, where people have to make what seems like harder choices on how to spend their hard-earned money.

So get out there into the great expanse between 415 and 212 and spend some time observing how those outside our bubble live.  You'll learn something about how to move some markets and be better for it.

Check Off These Three Boxes To Get Hired

The fur is flying in recruiting land....lots of people looking for work. Lots of work looking for people (many in the wrong places with the wrong criteria but that's a different post). 

When we started Double Forte, the criteria were a bit different than today:

- 10 years of experience or more?

- Significant in-house position?

- Like -- if not love -- to do the work, not only delegate the work?

Of course, that was 2002 -- we were 2 years into no one new getting hired, tens of thousands of professionals leaving the Bay Area for jobs elsewhere, and a whole slew of other conditions . Now 8 years later, with a revised model, a different economy(where would people go to to find work) - there are no people (yes I generalize) with 10 years of experience -- and there won't be for several more years -- so we hire against a different backdrop.

1. Are you interested in the world around you? Are you consuming news? opinion? questionable culture? yes? move on the next step. Can't tell us 5 or 6 things about what's going on -- thanks for playing.

2. Can you write a sentence. No, really. Can you write a sentence?  How about a paragraph that conveys a strong thought? This shouldn't be tough -- these people have degrees in something where they at one time had to write something down right? But no. This is not a given and must be tested. For even more on this topic read David Brooks' thoughts on humanities majors -- can I hear an Amen!?!

3. Are you a complainer? Whiner? Is everything everybody else's fault? Need to find perfect before you step into the world? Willing to sponge off people around you instead of seeking or taking positions that give you credentials? Think everyone around you is responsible for your success? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

This weeds out 50 percent without breaking a sweat. Now you have a pool to pull from based on "real" criteria -- skill sets, experience, culture fit and performance.

For a while I thought it was just us. But, in talking with colleagues and competitors it turns out that it's not just us.  So job seekers if you make it past 1, 2, and 3 there is a ton of opportunity out there for you.

Say It Out Loud

Too often I watch people rush into projects and their work without taking the 30 seconds to say "what do I want to achieve with this _thing_?"

Off they go, working away diligently on their to-do lists.  They eventually cross everything off and sit back to survey their accomplishments and are disappointed.  "All that work for nothing?"  Like ducks paddling wildly against the current, they're tired, have done things, but gotten nowhere.

Stop! Wait! Before you start say what you want to achieve OUT LOUD (this is not a time when your inside voice need stay contained!).

"To land the NYTimes Magazine and California Report and ______"

"To get 100 new people signed up for the community from Stanford Hospital."

"To recruit 4 kindegartner parents to _____"

"Introduce myself to X Y and Z and get a presentation opportunity out of 1 of them."

Say it out loud. Write that down and put it next to your computer. Leave the piece of paper alone.

Go about your project (which one assumes you have altered a bit to accommodate what you said out loud).

Measure yourself against that and I bet you will cross everything off your list with satisfaction for a job well done with travel upstream.  You may even turn the current.

Sometimes Business IS Personal

"It's not personal, it's business." Can't help seeing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in my head when I say, think or hear this.

So often we take things personally when it's not about us -- and when you're in a service firm, it's ALWAYS not about us.  When people react to an email or request without context it can feel personal, and I do spend time reminding my very conscientious, very hard working staff that "it's not about you -- it's about what they have to deal with" or "they don't know what they're asking."

(Frankly as a side note, "they don't know what they're asking" is probably more prevalent, because everyone thinks they know what we do all day, but most have no frickin' clue what it takes to make our work happen....but that's another blog post.)

HOWEVER -- sometimes business is personal....let me refrain, sometimes the service firm business is personal.When personality and fit and ability to serve define how well you can get your job done - business becomes personal.

And the first rule of personal business needs to be courtesy, or it will collapse regardless of results.  If you find yourself in a situation when you are not being extended the basic courtesies of business (they are: returning phone calls or emails in a timely manner, providing direction when giving feedback, being direct without being rude, being HONEST) that's when it crosses the line and it's time to GET OUT.

When business becomes personal it's time to change or get out of the game. 

Don't Let Mistakes Define You

We all make mistakes -- every single one of us.  From the big to the small. Of course, sometimes what we think is small is actually big, and what could be grounds for termination is actually not -- it all depends on perspective and situation.

For people with integrity - professionals who work hard every day to do their best and make it happen -mistakes are crushing. They can be earth-shattering.  As a manager, this is what you want -- to have the people who work for you feel and react to their mistakes with horror - knowing there is no excuse.   There is nothing you can do to make them feel worse. Nothing you can say to make it OK for these people. If you fired them, they'd think it was justified.

BUT -- mistakes very infrequently made by good people who work hard -- are not the problem. It's the repeated mistake made by people who don't care - who continuously cut corners, or leave their teammates hanging, or don't actually bother to try -- that you need to worry about.  Those mistakes aren't excusable either -- but they are more predictable.  Any predicted mistakes are YOURS, not theirs.

In the end, you don't want mistakes to define your staff -- I think you want how YOU react to them to define you and your business.

Keep It Simple

".....and then on page 42 section 5 paragraph 2 point C you will see how our 14th priority comes to life and really makes the program sing...."

As the creator and consumer of strategic plans, I'm here to tell you that complicated sucks....and seldom works, and NEVER gets remembered.  Boil it down to 1 idea that you can retell over and over again. Take things OFF THE DAMN whiteboard. (My friend Nilofer Merchant calls it "Murder Boarding").    

When you have 1 thing to accomplish, everything is easier -- choosing people, choosing programs, focusing work, getting through the day, putting all oars in the water at the same time....

I must say "Keep it Simple" at least once every day...and ever time I do I hear the song Simple Gifts in my head (it's a Shaker song, but we sang it all the time at my Quaker middle and HS).

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

'nuff said.