Why?

Because I touched on a sacred aspect of business: brainstorming.  Plus I used the phrase “social loafing.”

It turns out that we work much better doing individual brainstorming work because as soon as we get into a group, we have the opportunity to hide.  If you think about your own experiences this is likely true.  The more people involved in a meeting the easier it is to sit back and make a grocery list.

So how do you fix brainstorming?  Well for that answer you’re going to have to read the column!

Working on an assembly line you don’t need to worry about when the next widget will arrive.  It shows up at exactly the same time every day.

That’s the beauty of the assembly line.  It’s steady.  It’s predictable.  But what happens as we continue to change from industrial to creative economics?  (Not the kind of “creative economics” favored by politicians, but the kind driven by the creation of new ideas.)

Whether it’s a new marketing campaign, a new pharmaceutical drug, or even a new blog post – ideas drive the world.  Of course, coming up with a new idea is hard work…

image provided by flickr user reinis

My guess is that while we like to complain about businesses, it’s probably been a while since you last ran into someone truly incompetent.  Why?  Because it’s actually rare to find someone who can’t do their job at all.  Thanks to technology, standardization, and basic management, we’ve started to eliminate the truly bad companies.  (Plus, if you’re truly terrible it’s hard to stay in business for long!)  Yet just eliminating incompetence doesn’t lead to greatness.  Instead you have a large group of companies and employees who do exactly what’s expected.  No more.  And no less.

We’re overwhelmed by the mediocre.

To me this seems self-evident.  Yet, this isn’t how people always see the world.  I was thinking about this as I was responding to some comments left on an Upmarket article I wrote.  What I thought was pretty straightforward (the post office is poorly run) caught a fair amount of flack.  I was accused of being “lazy” and “whiney” because I (apparently) expected a good customer experience at the post office.

The general consensus seemed to be that the Post Office was “good enough” and I should get over it.  But what kind of philosophy for life is that?

It’s not that the Post Office is completely unreliable.  They deliver mail.  It usually gets there on time.  That, in and of itself is an amazing feat.

But the Post Office has one major problem that so many companies suffer:  it’s the lack of attention the Post Office pays to details that seems to be the problem.

This is really the difference between a 5 star hotel and a Holiday Inn Express.  It’s not really the quality of the sheets or rooms.  The sheets and beds aren’t that much better.  It’s certainly not the size of the rooms.  It’s probably not even the location.  The difference is the 5 star hotel has ironed out all the details.  They’ve worked exhaustingly to make sure guests don’t notice problems, and if there is a problem, they make sure to quickly and politely fix it.

That’s what great employees and companies do.  They notice the little things so you don’t have to.

I believe it’s the little things that matter.  It’s attention to detail.  It’s making sure you’ve dotted all the ‘i’s’ and crossed all the ‘t’s’.  It’s working to take care of stuff so your customers don’t have to think about it.

Going back to my Upmarket Article on the Post Office, if you look through the list of 6 ways not to run a business you’ll notice that most of them have to do with not paying attention to details.  After all, how can you run a business if you aren’t taking care of the little things?

You can’t.  Unless of course you don’t want to stay in business for very long.

This holds true whether you’re a multi-billion dollar industry run by the government (like the Post Office) or you’re a small store selling local goods.  Or if you’re a cubicle dweller working through another year.  If you want to excel at anything you need to pay attention to the details.  Because that’s where things break down – or shine.

image provided by flickr user cogdog

Out of this we decided to ditch cable and go with Netflix.  At the time it was great.  You could get a DVD and stream the movies.  It was a fantastic deal with a fantastic product.  But slowly Hollywood and the Networks began to get jealous of Netflix’s success.  They saw that people didn’t want to pay $100+ / month for cable just to watch one or 2 shows.  They saw that people would rather watch a movie at home then spend $50+ to take their family to a theater.  And instead of offering a better product, they tried to kill Netflix by restricting what movies they would license.

At first Netflix survived the onslaught.  Even if they botched their product / branding messages a few times.

Now, though, I have to wonder if Netflix is done.

There is very little interesting content on Netflix these days.  And what stuff I was interested in, I’ve watched.  I’m not sure what my incentive to stay is.

This, of course, is exactly what Hollywood wants.

Looking at what’s happening to Netflix, we can clearly see this is a classic example of a legacy gatekeeper using their position to block a new business model from entering the market.  It happens all the time.  And will happen well into the future.  The problem for the gatekeeper is that the market has fundamentally changed.  I have no plans on going back to cable.  I’d rather play video games.  Read a book.  Play cards with my wife.  Or throw the football with my daughter.  Or, if my 6-month-old son is cooperative, I’d like to sleep!

You see, the choice has changed.  As a consumer I’m not choosing between Netflix and Cable.  I’m choosing between cheap entertainment or “other” entertainment.  As a consumer I realize there is technology that allows me to watch what I want, without paying for stuff I don’t want.  I don’t need to be force fed content that doesn’t benefit me, just because it benefits a gatekeeper (i.e., Hollywood or Time Warner Cable.)

This is what Hollywood either doesn’t get or doesn’t want to get.  (I suspect they get it, they just don’t want to change.  And why should they change when they can make a gazillion dollars with things the way they are?)

I don’t think any of this is new or particularly insightful.  But all too often we don’t ask ourselves if we’re fighting the right battle.  So if you’re running a business, or even a team, ask yourself if you’re doing things simply because it benefits you?  Or are your choices benefiting your customers / teams/ partners?

If it’s just for you, eventually you’ll be replaced.  Netflix might not survive.  But someone will.  Gatekeeper’s who don’t change don’t survive.  It’s that simple.  If you become a gatekeeper instead of a defender of your customers interests, you won’t survive either.

I only have so much time in my life.  And cable TV no longer fits into that.  I have other, more interesting things to do.  And I bet you do too.  And so does your team.

image provided by flickr user angelrravelor

And that’s what I explore in my latest Upmarket column.

The Library of Alexandria might be the best known library in history.  It was famous for hundreds of years, and considered the place to study.  It also housed around 700,000 scrolls.  Eventually, though, it was destroyed in a series of wars and fires.  Other libraries have replaced it, and other cities have become focal points of knowledge.

Of course today we’re surrounded by information.  Every single one of us has access to more information than anyone using the great libraries from the past.  Yet, most of us do very little with that knowledge.  Sure we collect it.  We read blogs.  Pay attention to the news.  Download podcasts and watch videos.  But do we do anything with that knowledge?

This seems to be the new meme for the internet.  The more I look around, the more I see authors complaining that they don’t want to post content on Facebook, websites, or elsewhere unless they are paid a “fair” wage.  Of course what “fair” means is different for each of us.  These creators feel that their work is being taken without compensation.

Psychologists call this the fundamental social dilemma.  It describes a situation that we all face: do we trust the person we’re doing business with?  Or are they exploiting us?

This dilemma holds true for people posting on Squidoo or Facebook or the Huffington Post.  It also holds true for your relationship with your boss, your company, and even your kids.

You see, at the end of the day we all have to make a decision: do we trust someone.  Your answer determines your behavior.

Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., Piccolo, R. F., Zapata, C. P., ,  &  Rich, B. L. (2011). Explaining the Justice–Performance Relationship.  Journal of Applied Psychology,  97(1), 1-15. doi:10.1037/a0025208 

image provided by flickr user madaise

I think about that a lot when I think about businesses.  If you’re paying attention it’s pretty shocking how often businesses shoot themselves in their own proverbial foot.  For instance, some have started to speculate that the decline of book publishing was hurried by the Publisher’s insistence that Amazon include DRM.  Instead of preventing privacy (the intended consequence) it locked people into the Amazon platform and therefore not the Publisher’s platform.  Oops.

How often do you make decisions that turn out to harm your business?

Are you so focused on cutting costs that you’re actually driving your customers away?

Are you so afraid of copyright abuse, you treat your customers like criminals?

Do you spend so much time worrying about your competitors, that you forget the only thing you can control is your effort?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these examples.  And perhaps the best (or is it worst?) example of all is the Post Office which shows us 6 ways not to run a business.  Read on at Upmarket for more!

There are few words scarier than in the English language than “It’s tax time.”  With the exception of “I have to stop at the post office.”

Of course this week I’m not alone.  On Tax Day millions of people rush to one location to buy huge quantities of stamps.  This is something I have come to dread.  It wasn’t always this way.  When I was a kid, going to the Post Office was almost magical.  OK, maybe I lived a sheltered life.  But I couldn’t wait to see the hundreds of stamps they had displayed.  And I could peek through a tiny window to see how the Post Office processed all that mail.  As a child, it seemed almost surreal.

But those days are long gone…

image provided by flickr user scfiasco

I think of this all the time.  I wonder if, as I raise my daughter (and now my son) if I’m teaching them to wait for permission or if I’m teaching them to be bold.  I’m not sure I know that answer yet.  I fear that I am too hard – demanding compliance to my will, and not focused enough on letting them embrace their own way of doing things.

But I suppose that’s the irony of parenting.

It’s also the irony of leading.

Finding that balance between compliance and encouraging someone to chase their dreams and passion is a major challenge of leadership.  The single greatest motivator (in my opinion) is when someone is internally driven to succeed.  It’s when we work the hardest, sacrifice the most, and apply our best.  Sure we can yell, but that gets compliance, not creativity.  Sure we can be authoritarian, but that doesn’t encourage communication.

Yet without structure, no one can succeed at anything.  Structure is what holds us up.  It’s what defines our limits and let’s us know where to knock those limits down and where to say, “enough.”  Without structure we’re left with chaos.

How about you?  Are you encouraging boldness or forcing people to ask permission?  Where do you draw that line?

image provided by flickr user dano

That’s John Romero talking about breaking into the video games.  It seems that so many of us are held up by wanting to get permission to doing something instead of just doing it.  And of course, not only do we want permission, but we want to have our way paved for us.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  Frankly I’d like to get permission to be rich and famous, and then have someone lay out a foolproof plan.

Of course that’s not going to happen.

Instead, I need to work without waiting for permission.

Dreams are a funny thing.  They give us something to hope for.  Something to long for.  But at the same time, most of our dreams are out of reach.  I wanted to be an astronaut.  I dreamed of walking on another planet, of exploring the universe, of boldly going where no one had gone before.

But that never happened.  Why?  Because my dream gave me a place to hide.  It was so big, so overwhelming, that I had no way to get from Point A to Point B.  My dreams aren’t about success, they are about avoiding risk.  And I bet your dreams are too.

image from NASA

Because of this I started the “Twitter Experiment” 3 months ago.

One of my SMART goals for 2012 was to grow my twitter following by 300%.  But I don’t just want to have more Twitter followers, I want to have people engaged in a conversation and connected to the ideals of Meaning to Work.  If I really just wanted more followers I’d find a 1000 people and follow them, and some percentage would follow me back.  (This is the “only the numbers matter” strategy.)

But that just isn’t how I roll.  Or tweet.

So starting in December I decided to try one experiment: can I grow my Twitter following by doing nothing other than Tweeting content, re-tweeting interesting tweets, and following a select few people who I personally find interesting.

In that 3 month span I’ve added 38 followers, lost about 20 Spam-Bots, and increased my followers by 211%.

Is that a success?  Well on the one hand absolutely.  A 200% increase on anything is pretty impressive.  However, in the world of social media, 56 followers is still pretty tiny.

Is my audience engaged?  Yes and no.  Many are engaged in reading Meaning to Work, less are engaged in promoting Meaning to Work.  (And that’s okay, the content I generate isn’t geared to simply making me famous, it’s geared toward fulfilling the mission of Meaning to Work: helping people live up to their full potential by bringing their meaning into their work.)

At this stage, I’d say my results are mixed.  But with 1/3 of the year finished, I think I’m in pretty good shape to him my goal of increasing my twitter following by 300%.

Going forward I plan on making one change to my strategy – I’m going to work more actively on promoting my own Twitter follower’s content and engaging more directly with people on Twitter.  This is a challenge for me because I work all day and have a busy life at home.  Which means I’ll have to use some lunch / night time for that engagement.

By doing this I’m expecting two benefits:

1.  It’s great to simply promote other great content – good content deserves to be promoted.

2.  In return, I think it will build a stronger following for Meaning to Work as well.

In 3 months, I’ll report back on the progress of the Twitter Experiment.  In the meantime have you started following Meaning to Work yet?

“What do Tim Tebow and a collapsed stock market have in common?

They both show us that we can’t control the future.  Tim Tebow may or may not have the worst throwing motion in the history of the universe.  He may or may not be a good NFL quarterback.  (He did, however, beat my beloved Steelers in the playoffs.)  But what he couldn’t control was people’s impressions of him.  He couldn’t stop John Elway from bringing in Peyton Manning.  And he likely can’t stop himself from being traded / released.

Millions of people spent their entire lives saving money, climbing the corporate ladder, investing in stocks and 401(k)’s only to have their entire future wiped away by greed, bad luck, and politics.”

But there’s another lesson in those examples.  Yes.  The only thing we can really control is our effort.  But more than that, so many of us live so focused on reaching some milestone in the future that we forget to live in the present.

And no, this isn’t about how you should go base jumping to “experience” life.  Instead, it’s about knowing why you’re alive.  It’s about knowing the meaning of your life.

My wife and I have tried to break away from this.  We’ve been personally generous with our church and with other charities.  This has come at tremendous financial hardship.  Especially as we went through a serious medical crisis (as opposed to a humorous medical crisis I guess.)  Being a planner (and someone who believes I can only control my effort) this has been a challenge.  I worry that we’re not doing enough to “provide for the future” and “protect our lifestyle” and “save for a rainy day.”

But what guarantee do I have that I’ll even be alive to see that rainy day?  What guarantee do I have that even if I check off all the right boxes I will have a job, a retirement, or a savings account to use in the twilight years of my life?

None.

Millions of people learned this lesson the hard way and will be working well into their “retirement years.”  So here’s the question: do I live in fear of what “might” happen in the future?  Or do I live for making sure I do the most good today?

This is a personal question of course, and I can’t answer it for everyone.  But for my wife and I, we know where our meaning is.  We know what counts in our lives.  We know where our priorities are – and they are being generous financially to help build hospitals in Africa, to fight sex slavery in India, and to take bold steps to combat poverty in Cincinnati.  Will we have to work until we’re 75 instead of 65?  Maybe.  But what guarantee do I have that I wouldn’t otherwise?

image provided by flickr user wwworks