Burn Your Boats

I was inspired last week by my colleague Joe. He’s in the middle of a pretty fast-paced project that involves juggling lots of design, lots of research, lots of business modeling, and just the general overhead that comes with any effort.

One of the things Joe wanted most out of this project was to experiment with a lot of extreme digital prototyping; he knew the space well and realized this project would be a great place to try a few new things. He also knew that this prototyping was above and beyond what the team had to accomplish; this would be a stretch.

Knowing himself, Joe knew that if verbally committed and told everyone (including the client) about the prototypes the team intended to build; it would be harder to go back on their word. He knew his team was capable; he was just worried they wouldn’t get around to it. If he ran his mouth, he knew they would have to deliver. And with that, what once was a stretch goal became part of the project, and the team is in the middle of organizing and prioritizing to make it happen. It’s a very cool thing to see.

By making a verbal commitment, Joe had burned his boats. If he were on an expedition that had just found new land, he would have eliminated the possibility of ever going back home. After all, the best was to ensure progress forward is to eliminate the option of going backwards.

I think about many of the great people I’ve had the chance to work with over the years, and on most efforts the very best of them make a point of very publically burning their boats. They commit to designing and building what’s in front of them. The also create a common goal that can engage and solidify a team. The effort may fail, but these people never fail the effort.

These people aren’t looking over their shoulder for the next best opportunity. They aren’t constantly running their mouths about a “pivot”. They’re digging in, and they’re going to figure it out. There are always times when a team will need to reconsider things and alter course, but there’s value in committing and working towards the goal.

So, the next time you’re up against a big scary challenge, do yourself a favor, don’t start looking for the exit. Commit to what’s in front of you; take whatever measure you need to take advantage of your opportunity. Burn your boats, it may be just the motivation you need.

Curiosity, Confidence, and Inspiration

I was catching up with one of my colleagues the other day and the topic of leadership came up. She had been doing a lot of deep thinking in the area, and she was wondering how leadership might differ from generation to generation. She wasn’t being academic, she was trying to figure out what it means to attract, retain, and foster leaders given the rapid rate of change in world. She’s not alone, lots of people seem to be asking that same question.

At first, I was glazing over a little bit. The idea of ‘leaders of tomorrow’ is one of those phrases that’s been so co-opted by the business schools and business press of the world, it almost doesn’t mean anything anymore. But as the conversation continued, I started to realize just how massive of a challenge she was talking about.

The idea of leadership is a weird animal. It’s mostly internal personality characteristics that manifest themselves in significant ways. Good leaders see the world from a unique perspective, they get things done, they make people feel valuable. It’s easier to reflect that someone is a good leader, rather than project that they will be a good leader.

After a lot of thinking and conversations, I believe that what makes a ‘leader’ has to do with their levels of curiosity, confidence and inspiration. Of course there are lots of other characteristics at play, but those elements seem to be the three traits I see over and over that define people and how they become these strong leaders. There are many talents good leaders learn over time, these three feel a little more innate.

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It’s the Law!

I’m fascinated by metrics and measurement. Ironically, I don’t care about the numbers, I’m riveted by how the act of measuring something causes people to act differently. You can see it all sorts of activities. Dieters obsess over calorie intake, businesses track growth measures, we’ve been watching how unemployment rates are tracking. In the past, Ryan’s written about Time To Last Contact, and I’ve mentioned measuring for experimentation – you get the idea. My colleague David Webster puts it well, he says ‘you get more of what you measure for’. By measuring something, you’re telegraphing to the organization it’s important and you’re inviting our competitive attitudes to optimize around whatever we’re following.

(People especially seem to love numbers that go up; The Dow, Twitter Followers, Facebook friends, salaries, and so on.)

None of this is really much of a revelation, but the idea is still significant. Measurement is the bridge that links innovation to execution. It’s how you understand if your good idea is actually good, and it’s how you’ll move from concept to constant.

Given all this, I was really interesting to learn about Goodharts Law (via Boing Boing.) It’s a little wordy, but it basically states that people pay attention to the things that are measured, and because of this extra attention things that are measured change. (That’s is basically more or less what I wrote earlier.) I have to admit, I’m sort of surprised that this maxim hasn’t surfaced sooner, since 60% of the business articles in the past five years seemed to have been about innovation and/or metrics.

So where do we go from here? Well for me, this all makes a pretty good case for being very careful how you design your measures – what you monitor, how you think about it, and how you share this with a larger audience. The small but important point is that no one really said measuring things makes them any better, it just gives them more attention. Where it goes from there is all a matter of design.

Measure the change you want to see – it’s the law.

Third Moment of Truth?

I was in a client meeting today thinking about P&G’s fabled Moments of Truth. The ‘truths’ are marketing lingo for a few moments in the consumer experience where the consumer discovers a product and decided that product may be what they need, (first moment). Then, later, as the consumer uses the product they determine if the product actually delivers on the promises it has made to the consumer (second moment).

I’ve always liked the idea of these two moments working together, it’s kind of a nice reminder to not over-promise what you can offer. It’s also reinforces the importance of having continuity between your identity/packaging and your product. At one time or another, we’ve all been really excited to buy something only to be disappointed later with the results of what we’ve bought. In that case, the first moment was won, but the second was lost…you have to nail them both, I like this act of bringing things into harmony.

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The Large Market Fallacy

Last week, during a new product presentation, I had an all too familiar moment. We had reached the point in the meeting where it was appropriate to review the business logic behind the concept at hand. At this point the presenter threw up a massive sheet of numbers and calmly commented to the audience, “well, overall this is a $4 trillion dollar market, so we think if we only capture 5% of the market, we’ll earn around $200M in the first year.” She didn’t even blink. (I changed the numbers to protect the innocent…the sad part is they’re lower than the actuals.)

I sort of live for these moments in presentations. It’s probably the same attraction that keeps baseball fanatics glued to their television for hours of what appears to be a pretty boring game. After waiting patiently, and watching things slowly play out, something goes very wrong, At that point, all hell breaks loose. At that point, you see who’s the power player in the room, who’s done their homework, and who’s completely out to lunch. This part of the meeting was pretty mush a wash, that argument basically threw itself out the window. This presenter had just committed a pretty common error, one I now refer to as a Large Market Fallacy.

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Business Models Happen

So I’ve been following Umair Haque for a while. A few months ago he made a comment that stuck with me, but didn’t sink in until just recently. He was discussing edge economies, so not traditional established businesses, rather new organizations creating value in a new ways. When discussing these bold new businesses he sort of made an offhanded comment that “business models just happen“. Wait, what?

That statement sort of offended my sensibilities at first. How can business models just happen? They take time, they’re complicated, and most of the time they fail. Also, edge economies are less proven. Wouldn’t that require more big brains and lots of ‘innovation’? It felt odd to say those models just happen.

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Mingus was a Manager

In this great era of “leaders” and “innovators”, the word “manager” seems to get a bad rap. Lately, the idea of a manager is positioned in opposition to the idea of a leader – Managers follow rules, leaders break rules, etc. It’s often painted as a simple cog or a facilitator, which is so sad. Good managers are orchestrators. They know how to bring out the best in people and help guide them through rough situations, comparing the two is sort of a silly. I’ve always been inspired by thinking of managers as designers. (A post on Ryan’s blog this week reminded me of one of my favorite articles.)

I like that concept because it reminds me how managers use the constraints they have to effect change. They look for underlying meaning and momentum in the work and then expose it to make things happen. The best manager, just like the best designer, becomes invisible as the work gets better. In my view, they both should be very ego-less jobs. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Oddly, When I think about great managers, I usually think about Charles Mingus.

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