Archive of posts from May 2018

You may have heard the quote, “Those who can’t do, teach.”

This is only half a quote.

• Those who teach, learn more. If you’re learning while knowing you must teach it to others tomorrow, you’ll be sure to learn deeply and thoroughly.
• Those who teach, learn faster. Students ask questions and teachers answer them. More perspectives means more ground covered.
• Those who teach, learn twice. Once when you learn it and once when you deliver it.

The quote...

Does your team have advisors?

While every great team should strongly consider an advisory board, there are some people you won’t be able to recruit.

Inaccessible-or perhaps passed-greats need not be inaccessible:

• Read their best works: Lots of them. Learn their journey, expertise, and bodies of work (what can they teach you?)
• Get some time, if possible: Use live events, interviews, or one-on-one calls to learn their quirks and their personality how do they talk?)
• Ask them questions: In...

How we do anything is how we do everything.

Being habitual creatures, the beliefs we have are largely universal:

• Panic and worry: Opportunities are scary. Emails are bad news until you can confirm otherwise. You can do it if you sweat all the details.
• Energy and confidence: Opportunities are worth considering. Emails are worth reading at the the appointed time. You can do anything.
• Reckless and bravado: Opportunities mustn’t be missed. Emails must be responded to at once. You...

We’ve all heard of “working well under pressure”. We may think we’re good at this.

But what about “learning well under pressure”?

• Working under pressure: “I think I know how to do this, and the stakes are high. So I will take action.”
• Learning under pressure: “I don’t think I know how to do this, and the stakes are high. So I will pause, learn what I need to learn, then take action.”

When are you “working well...

What does your team focus on when going into sales calls?

Making a ‘sale’, or making a ‘give’?

• Making a sale. Measured in dollars up-front; they happen or they don’t. Convincing someone to buy right away, regardless of whether it’s a good fit or the right time.
• *Making a give.** Measured in value given up-front; it’s either given or it’s not. Offering to solve real problems right away, regardless of whether or not they’ll buy something.

Ironically, the...

Numbers can be both impressive and deceptive.

For instance:

• Ten thousand followers: But are they engaged? A hundred loyal advocates beat droves of lukewarm followers.
• Ten million in revenue: But is it profitable? Twitter was $167 million in the red last year. One million and profitable beats ten million and sinking.
• Ten new leads: But have they the intent to buy? Many lead generation firms bring empty numbers: ten with intent beats 100 cold leads.
• Ten new reviews: But...

How do you decide if something’s worth your time?

Great teams ask themselves this question before embarking on a project or task or risk losing time to distractions.

Consider these four parts:

• What difference will this make? This question lets us sell (or unsell) ourselves on ideas based on how much of an impact it’ll have on the team’s mission.
• What’s the worst that could happen? This question gives us a motivating dose of fear around the stakes involved...

Are you proud of your customers?

Who we serve becomes a part of who we are:

• They’re your portfolio: Those you serve in are wearing, consuming, sharing and reviewing your work. They’re your spokespeople.
• You get more of what you have: Those spokespeople will hopefully–if your work is great–bring along those they know. You’ll get more of what you have, for better or worse.
• They guide your growth: Product development should better serve your audience. Your solution is molded...

We don’t hear much about ‘Patience’ and ‘Focus’ in business magazines these days.

Ironic, since missing either is catastrophic:

• Patience without focus = waste. The long road to knowing everything and doing nothing.
• Focus without patience = churn. The short road to pushing everybody trying to help you away.
• Patience plus focus = momentum. The long road to making a difference.

‘Hustle’ and ‘Hacks’ sell more magazine subscriptions than ‘Patience’ and ‘Focus’ do.

Subscribe to your cause.

Which is more likely to get your energy & enrollment:

Something quick, easy and likely, or something slow, hard and unlikely?

• Quick, easy, likely: These projects are easy to imagine and achieve, yet they often lack significance. “Did we make something that matters?”
• Slow, hard, unlikely: These projects are much harder to imagine or achieve, yet–with good leadership–they radiate significance: “We’ll make a difference or go down trying!”

Great teams get that way when they realize the latter...

Do you follow ‘best practices’ in your work?

That may be unwise:

• Best practices enforce the map. The more people who follow it, the less valuable it becomes. We don’t have to follow.
• Best practices are often false-positives. A successful project may not be successful for the reasons the mapmaker thought.
• Best practices become fables. The mapmaker’s fame and fortune depends on people wrongly believing the map’s destination is typical.

There are times to follow the map and...

Unhappy customer.

What’s your first reaction?

• “Did we screw up?” If you know you have loose-ends and weak links in your team workflow, this is how you’ll feel.
• “Well screw them” If you’re insecure about your workflow and don’t want to admit it, this is how you’ll feel.
• “That’s impossible.” If you know with certainty that your team provided unchallengeable value, this is how you’ll feel.

Each of these first-reactions speaks volumes about whether or not you believe...

Most of your work likely doesn’t come with a checklist.

But what if it did?

• What would be on it? Each item would be there for a reason. Pondering these items enables us to cover all the bases when we may otherwise forget.
• What would your GPA be? How often would you miss items? What categories would they be in? Pondering this shows us where we need to grow.
• What would you do about it? If we wanted top-marks,...

Is your team’s offer the best on offer?

Or can your audience go another route without losing out?

The answer often comes from starting in the wrong place:

• Starting with what you know: This feels comfortable. Here we must ask, “Who needs this?” A solution in search of a problem.
• Starting with what you have: This feels sensible. Here we must ask, “How can we package this?” A solution in search of a problem.
• Starting with what they need:...

Ever read Haiku before?

They’re short, 17 syllable poems that inspire creativity from constraint.

I wonder, why stop at poetry?

• We fill the space we have: If a project has two weeks available, it’ll take two weeks. What if we made it one?
• Too much choice makes us soft: If your toolbox has everything in it, we risk over-complicating things. What if only a few tools were available?
• Too many ideas: New technology, new ‘hacks’, new strategies, there’s always...

The house at the end of our street was removed. And it changes the way we see things.

• When things don’t change, we find it more difficult to see beyond “the way things are”.
• When things do change, our perception of “the way things are” changes forever. Then it’s hard to remember “the way things were”!

Great teams should take comfort from this. It’s hard to see where you’re going when you’re doing important work. People don’t often see...

Doing great work once is nice.

But getting ‘another go’ means you’re in business.

You can get ‘another go’ in one of two ways:

• Trust earns you ‘another go’ in proportion to your level of care.
• Deceit earns you ‘another go’ in proportion to your level of slyness.

One attracts a team that thrives, where everyone’s a winner. The other attracts “crabs in a bucket”, where nobody wins.

Both ‘work’. Which would you rather belong to?

We all know what MPH is.

But what’s MPD? Milage per decision:

• Task-switching: By preventing focused, deep thought, we make fewer decisions that push our work forward.
• Fire-fighting: By rushing from problem to problem, our decisions become short-sighted instead of strategic.
• Stress-outs: By not allowing ourselves to think clearly and calmly, our decision-making ability becomes weaker.

All of these result in decisions that require new, better decisions to happen in future to fix today’s key issues. By enabling...

What do road trips and team strategies have in common?

They each follow the same three steps required for success:

1. Deciding where you’ll go. This is “knowing your numbers” so that you know if it’s somewhere you’d like to end up.
2. Deciding on your transport. This is when you “choose your strategy” so that you’ll get there reliably.
3. Ensuring you can afford the gas. This is “counting your cost” so that you know if you can afford to get...